It was with great pride that I joined Sandra Henke and Will Tasho of Hays plc at St James's Palace on 23 November, where they received the Princess Royal Training Award, for the Hays International Leadership and Management Programme (ILMP). Sincere congratulations to Will and Sandra, and also to everyone supporting them on the delivery of this flagship programme - including Mission Performance , Inspirational Development Group and Mind Gym. This 8-day long blended component of the programme, led throughout by Will Tasho and our own Justin Featherstone, relies on the contribution of many to deliver the outstanding results worthy of this royal standard in training.

The Assessors of the PRTA were looking for very clear quantitative evidence that the programme has made a significant contribution to the success of the business. They found what they were looking for in the Hays submission. As a contributor, what is much more precious to me than the data and the numbers is what we witness as we work with the ILMP groups during the emotional journey that this programme offers them. Safety is created from Day 1, as well as a spacious yet rigorous reflective practise, so that when the groups arrive with Equest for Day 4 and Day 5, they are ready to embrace the vulnerability which working mindfully with horses invites. In this most subtle, profound and non-judgemental of learning environments, where we listen to and are guided by the interactions with the herd, minds and hearts can open to a new way of leading, a new way of being.

Permission is given throughout the programme to delegates to simply 'BE', to tend to themselves, to look inward as well as reach outward. The Hays International Leadership and Management Programme has at its foundation an invitation to its leaders to balance the commercial drive for results with leading their people with compassion and kindness. It is an honour to work on the ILMP and reassuring that a programme with such values can both evidence real transformation within the business and be recognised for it at such a high level.

Photos left to right:
Kaiway is 91 and the last man in Masekenari to undergo the traditional rituals from boy to manhood
Giant river otters
Three toed sloth
Top of page: Shushu, Kwang and Stephen sharing a peacock bass on the banks of the Essequibo.

Eighteen months ago, amid the self-isolation and brutal unreality of lockdown, I lost my younger brother to suicide. I was not the only one of course to be thus affected. The shock is subsiding for me but can easily be triggered, and the pain and anguish of my loss is still raw. And yet in spite of it my life goes on and often even happily: I work, I play and I do what I can to be joyful and to honour the legacy of my brother. In some ways the pandemic seems such a long time ago now, but to lots of us it is like only yesterday. The societal impact rumbles on in ways that we could not have envisaged.

I am blessed that the nature of my work is healing in itself, it gives me permission to not pretend, to be peaceful and to simply be with what is. I don’t need to fix me or indeed others. My work surrounds me with love and holds me firmly, just as I hold the space for others while on their own learning path.

If you are not familiar with my work with Equest, we specialise in Embodied Horse-Led Leadership Development, an experiential learning process in the company of a herd of horses. Put the words ‘leadership’ and ‘horses’ in the same sentence and this might conjure images of exciting feats where participants learn to control the horses, to be confident amongst them and establish a dominant leadership style. You couldn’t be more wrong.

We are seeing the need for something very different for today’s leaders. Picture a man or woman, sat quietly in the centre of a meadow - a horse approaches and reaches down to nibble their hair. Or two people sitting in the shade of an old oak tree writing in their journals while the herd graze a short distance away. Or a group of five, meeting the herd in the morning mist by meditating together at the edge of the field - this same group, later, leaving any sense of competition or achievement to one side, and inviting the herd to follow them, simply, around the field.
In inviting participants to step into authenticity, the kind which can sometimes be uncomfortable as well as liberating, our attention and intention as facilitators rests on ‘tending to self’. As participants seek to build trusting relationship with the herd of horses the change of emphasis from what we previously might have called ‘self-awareness’ is subtle and profound.

The agenda is purely about kindness to self and as a result, to other. Those who come to work with us from all over the world are no longer Sales Directors, Chief Executives, Ops Managers, HR Leads or Regional Heads. Barely even spouses, wives, husbands, partners, siblings, parents or carers. They are quite simply themselves, with what seems like an infinite number of minutes and seconds within which to both expand and rest, renew and heal, heartbeats slowing to the steady rhythm of the horse. 

The question ‘What do I need right now?’ shines a light not just on what is needed, but also what can be offered. Tenderness begins to unfold where competition once bore supremacy. And with this simple inquiry of the self, a huge step is taken into a place where vulnerability and courage flourish in equal measure.

The relationship building with the herd is at the centre of the group and each individual’s experience. Prior to asking what is needed, there needs to be an attention on how am I right now? And, beneath the tough coping exteriors required by high pressure business environments, the answer to that is not always clear. 

As delegates learn how to communicate and build relationship with the horses, their equine learning partners offer direct and true feedback. This helps to surface that which needs to be acknowledged: self-limiting beliefs, unhelpful thinking and relationship patterns, as well as sometimes the imprint of old trauma or emotional injury. As people relax into their relationship with the herd in the heart of nature, the sense of ‘how am I right now’ is felt rather than thought. And from there ‘tending to the Self’ is so much easier. This might mean sitting with the horses in the field, running and playing with them, or even running and playing without them. It might mean asking for help, or picking up the grooming brush. It might mean standing in the rain or staying dry in the stable. It could involve working in a team to lead the horses away, or requesting space to be alone with the herd in order to pay attention to grief, sadness, joy or anger. 

Whatever form it takes, the opportunity to tend to self, to ask ‘how am I’ and ‘what do I need’ creates a reservoir at which each can drink. And that includes me. A well of kindness and hope and ultimately love brims, an elixir of leadership, of humanity. Simple gestures revive the exhausted soul and laughter can follow in abundance. 
I hope that this summer you too will be able to reflect on what you need right now and that this need, whatever it is, will be met. That you will be kind, then restored and enlivened, and ultimately reconnect with all that is good for you.

​I’m grateful to all those I have worked with in the past year, of course to the Equest team for their support, but also to all those who have participated in our programmes. You know who you are! For the love they have brought, for their courage in being vulnerable and for walking alongside me, perhaps unknowingly, on my own path to healing.

​Photo courtesy of Justin Featherstone 

‘I’d like to work with Ruby’, Cathleen said, as she approached the herd who were munching on hay around the small stone barn. But Ruby had other ideas and sidled away from the woman, disappearing into the barn and taking up position behind the herd leader, Winston, who was toasting himself in the autumn sunshine.

This perceived rejection brought up difficult feelings, tears came and overwhelm threatened.

I guided Cathleen out of the herd’s immediate space, asked her to close her eyes and began a short meditation, inviting the release of the self-judgements which the situation had triggered. Meanwhile Millie, the youngest of the herd, was observing events as they unfolded with what I might describe as mild curiosity. Suddenly her ears shot forwards like two arrow-points, and she bounded into a trot covering the ground between her and Cathleen in a couple of seconds. Enough time for the woman to open her eyes and exclaim a delighted ‘Oh!’

Millie is a pearl-white Connemara pony with a scintillating, vibrant energy. She is rarely still and if I was to liken her personality to a human trait I might say ‘guileless’. She will rush headlong into contact with others (both horse and human) without worrying about the consequences. This particular quality often results in reprimands from the more senior members of the herd and she sometimes carries the scars to show for it. But now with Cathleen she had found a willing playmate. They moved about the paddock together lost in their game. When it finished Millie stood with her chin pressing down lightly on Cathleen’s shoulder, nuzzling and nibbling her head and her long hair. The woman was radiant.

‘This is wonderful’ she beamed, ‘Millie has made me feel how I used to as a child - always curious and playful and lively, yet grounded as well. And trusting. How wonderful that used to be, to trust. I used to run at the world with arms open shouting ‘Hello World!’, unafraid of how I’d be received. Then it all stopped. I can’t remember when or how I ended up being this person who believes that I have to work so hard, that succeeding is so critical.  I tell myself I do it to get things done, but really it’s about pleasing others and trying to make people like me. It’s about me feeling worthy, this way of life I have constructed.’

I let Cathleen’s words settle into the autumn silence as she gently stroked Millie’s neck. Then she turned to look at me ‘I miss that person, you know, that person I used to be. I didn’t realise how much I miss her!’ And it was as if, as she uttered this phrase, she claimed that person back, that part of herself which had been lost.

In the days that followed Cathleen’s words echoed in my mind…. ‘I miss that person!’ Slowly it dawned on me that there were parts of ME I had greatly been missing.
 
A year before I had experienced a difficult bereavement. My younger brother took his life at 58 years old. Cathleen’s words helped me to see just how much of myself had died too in the painful complexity of this event. I realised that perhaps now I was missing myself as much as I was missing my brother. I’d been missing the ‘me’ who dances in the kitchen just because she feels good. Who feels buoyant for no reason, rain or shine, who laughs unguardedly and wears a smile for no-one but herself. Who wakes each morning saying ‘I am glad to be alive today’ and not ‘Why didn’t I see it coming?’ I’m missing the me who writes with joy, who cooks delicious things for pleasure, who has energy for life and soul. I’m missing the me who likes to play, with a lightness of energy, a sense of mischief.
Could this be the beginning of my healing? Of reintegrating the parts which were splintered and smashed in the emotional carnage of the suicide? 

We can’t shed grief, just like that, because we are tired of it. But we can create small opportunities for the overshadowed parts of ourselves to step into the sunlight and sing again.  Understanding this is enough to invite gentle transformation. I can choose to nurture my essential self in small ways, investing as much in honouring  this as much as I invest in honouring the lost life of my brother. Through the confusion and doubt and regret and the most profound sadness I can learn to be truly kind to myself, accepting that I am imperfect and the best that I can be. 

So should you pass my house early in the morning before the day dawns, you might now see a crazy figure bopping around the kitchen table, usually to 70s and 80s disco funk music. I don’t always feel like it, but somehow once my body starts to move my spirit finds a way of following. You might see me sat in my hay barn with a warm drink, smiling as I look up at the Little Owl which has nested wisely in the eaves and who likes to peer down on me while I work. Or you’ll notice me out in the meadow amongst the horses, allowing myself to dwell in the soothing embrace of nature. And if I am not there you’ll find me sat at my beautiful desk, designed and made for me by the gifted hands of my brother, bringing words together once more onto the page in a blanket of healing love. 

Photo of Millie courtesy of Brendan Gosling Gage

Recently I was invited to do a talk for a psychotherapists’ group entitled ‘How horses help us to heal from loss, separation and endings’. In introducing the session I recalled how it was in the midst of grief (when losing my mother in 2004), that I caught the first glimpse of my horse, Winston, as my healer.
The healing from him and my wider herd hasn’t always come in the form I might have expected, sometimes the lessons have been hard to take. Yet they have always come when I am ready to receive them,  bringing me closer to knowing myself and loving who I am.
When we are separated from someone dear, often we lose a part of ourselves for a while. Perhaps a part of us which was brought to life by them, which they saw and others didn’t. Or the part of us which cared for them, invested in them, nurtured them. Or the part which shared the dreams which can no longer be. 
Amongst the herd a safe place exists to find these lost elements of our soul and reintegrate them gently into our wholeness. We can give full snot-dribbling, chest heaving, angry expression to the terror, the sadness, the utter awfulness of how we feel, when we are ready. We don’t have to be polite with horses or shield their feelings. Horses are most comfortable with the truth, that is what they seek, and they offer us a place to explore ours. They also don’t need words, we don’t have to explain – anything. And they don’t judge the more difficult emotions which might be wrapped into our grief – like guilt, relief, rage, resentfulness. We don’t need to pretend we are OK, in fact things go much better with horses when we don’t. They are not holding a timer over our bereavement either – ‘hey, it’s been years now, shouldn’t you have got over it?’ They are alongside us, in the moment, however we are.

​At the end of the talk one of the psychotherapists attending asked me how horses had helped me through my own times of bereavement. It was difficult to answer that in five minutes, having written two books about it. Suffice to say that I expressed my gratitude to my horses for the healing they have given me over the years.
Grief has been a guest at my table more often than I would like. Often I have turned to the herd for comfort and companionship on the road to recovery. The greatest lesson of all during these most challenging of times is that in experiencing great pain, I am capable also of experiencing great joy. That feeling sadness doesn’t have to mean being unhappy. That when the heart cracks open it makes more space for love and compassion and kindness. So, instead of reading sorrow here, see in my message love and hope, gratitude and grace, strength and courage as we await the new Spring, new life, new colour, new ways of being in this year 2022.
My work and the life I now live, were borne of the pain of losing my mother. Somehow as I fell apart my horse stepped in and lifted a veil, revealing little by little a path of which I never could have dreamed. Perhaps a better title for the talk I gave would have been ‘Loss, separation and beginnings’. So if you are hurting right now, feeling bruised, I wish you comfort and that somehow, sometime, what might feel like an ending right now, will transform into something new, and something beautiful.

The powerful impact of our relationships with horses appears to defy description, it is after all “beyond words” to use the author’s own phrase. This book is a testament to the senses of grace, strength and agency that this relationship can gift us when we allow ourselves to be open and to let go of our fear. The author’s search for the new home that would allow her to live as one with her herd is intertwined with intimate and compelling stories of how individual horses have touched the lives of others, helping them to heal and to embrace the new and the possible. Both these strands are alive with emotional and sometimes physical jeopardy and cause us to reexamine our concepts of courage and connection. The book allows us to explore the physicality of trust and communication and to reevaluate how we frame the relationships upon which we rely and sometimes take for granted. It is also a playful but vital clarion call to see learning differently and to be prepared to engage more with our hearts and less with our heads, through immersive experiential encounters in which we are given permission to be our true selves.

At its heart, this is a poignant story of the authentic abandonment to the idea of relationship and the courage to be vulnerable. It is a masterful, insightful and occasionally unsettling work, so deftly crafted that you can feel the notions of power, raw emotion and discovery surging through each page; these messages are so urgent in these uncertain and tumultuous times, in which our ability to connect with others in our own human herds has been so severely disrupted. The Spirit of the Horse has left an indelible stamp on my heart and serves as a joyous paean to restorative and sustaining power of the horse. It is nothing short of a marvel.

​

The year has been and very almost gone, with the bruise of Covid leaving a mark on our lives, its hue ever-changing but never quite disappearing completely. There have been black days, blue days and then days when just the faintest tinge showed. Many days too when the kindness of people and the magnificence of nature brought great happiness. Hopeful optimism, adaptability, perseverance and creativity have come to the fore, too. And perhaps now we appreciate much which, previously, we may have taken for granted.

A phrase which seems to have punctuated many of the conversations I’ve been involved in is ‘… something to look forward to…’ Whether at moments when someone is sharing the bleakness of losing social contact: ‘I feel as if I have nothing to look forward to …’ Or when mustering positivity for the future, a return to doing what we love doing: ‘…that will be something to look forward to … ’ This fluctuation between feeling emptiness and hopefulness, has been one of the emotional signatures for the year.

What does this ‘something to look forward to’ mean to each of us? A rest? A reward? A goal? A holiday? A buzz of adrenaline? A change? Human contact? A family get-together? An achievement? It can be many things, varying for different people at different times. But whatever it is which we gladly anticipate, the implication is that it is better than what we are experiencing right now. And expecting it makes the ‘right now’ more palatable. The future desire brings us hope, strength, excitement, resilience, perseverance. 

Awareness of this reliance on looking forward to events made me reflect, too, on those in the world for whom existence is about survival and there is no place for pleasure. A deepening sense of gratitude has developed over the year for what I have, even without being able to enjoy, right now, many of the things I cherish: seeing my family including a new great-nephew, carrying out my usual work, even sitting at a local cafe with friends watching the world go by. The suspension of planning the many ‘somethings’ which, ordinarily, I would have been looking forward to has made room for a more profound savouring of the moment, a rootedness in the right now, an acceptance of changing priorities and a need for self care and the care of others.
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So, as we approach the holidays, whether you are able to enjoy what you usually might have done or not, I wish you peaceful, joyful moments in which you can immerse yourself, whatever the future might hold and however the year has affected you. May the New Year too bring a newness which refreshes and finds you restored.


Pam Billinge 

​You can learn a lot from a horse. I experienced this firsthand through an exercise we have built into A.T. Kearney’s Expanding Horizons leadership development program.

In the wild, horses were prey rather than predator, and so for eons before humans domesticated them 5000 years ago, hyper alertness and exceptional non-verbal communication were essential to this herd animal’s survival. By virtue of evolution, horses are remarkably good at reading the energy of any creature that might approach them.
To tap into this powerful innate ability, our program in London includes a train ride a few hours east into the Berkshire countryside, to a horse farm run by Pam Billinge and Equest. There our Partners have the chance to interact with horses under the skilled guidance of facilitators trained in Equine Assisted Learning.

Say Hello
I recall viscerally my own experience of this as if it were yesterday. The most basic equine exercise is to connect with an untethered horse in a paddock. An Equest facilitator explained that the proper way to say hello to a horse is by gently extending your closed hand. The horse returns the greeting by touching your hand with its muzzle. Simple enough.

One of my colleagues went first. I watched as he approached the horse, moving slowly while speaking to the carefully observant animal in a soft, reassuring tone. He then unhurriedly extended a closed hand, just as he was instructed. The horse turned away, refusing his greeting. I was puzzled. My colleague had done nothing wrong that I could see. Why had the horse not returned his hello?
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My turn. As I slowly crossed the paddock toward the same horse, I was still wondering why she had turned away before…. Then it hit me! This horse was a bit on the small side, while my colleague and I are both tall men. Our height intimidates her. I consciously tried to lower my center of gravity, thinking this would help her welcome my approach. As I got closer, it seemed to work and the connection seemed imminent. I was thrilled. And I was wrong. The horse quietly turned and walked away from my extended hand.

Presence Is Key
Having since observed a range of equine encounters, I now understand that my height had nothing to do with the horse declining my hello. Rather, it was because my focus was on myself. My brain was busy adjusting my posture and congratulating myself for my cleverness at figuring out why my colleague had failed and how I would succeed. Rubbish. The key to saying hello to a horse is presence. You must be there for the animal, with all your energy focused on making the connection you seek, freeing your mind from other considerations and motives. This is the kind of connection horses offer each other. So as you approach a horse, if your mind is even a bit clouded, they may instinctively sense you as foreign and refuse your hello.

Why does that matter? Non-verbal communication matters far more than most of us realize. The Equest people like to point out that humans — a highly social animal — are actually very good at non-verbal communication. But not as good as horses. That is why horses can teach us how to develop and pay more attention to this vitally important, yet often neglected, aspect of everyday communication.

“We achieve a great many things by thinking, but thinking actually gets in the way of connecting with a horse,” observes Herve Collignon, a Paris-based A.T. Kearney partner who has visited the Equest farm. “You can only establish trust through deeply honest conviction — by truly being yourself. Of course, in the world of management consulting, establishing trust is essential. So interacting with horses proved a surprisingly relevant learning experience.”
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Connection, Communication, Relationships
Here’s what horses have taught me: First, our state of mind impacts the quality of our connections and communications far more than we typically acknowledge. Second, the quality of our connections and communications shape all the human relationships we form as professionals, leaders, family members and friends. Third, it all starts with hello.
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Ask yourself:

• Are your hellos perfunctory, or a serious attempt to connect?
• Do you connect in ways that cause people to lean closer?
• How much of your attention is focused on yourself as you greet people each day?
• As a leader, do you set a clear example by being present in all your interactions?