KaizenTip 110: Our eyes met

This week's KaizenTip comes to you from Justin Collinge of the Kaizen team.

Her steady, deep, apparently bottomless gaze locked mine from under her endless eyelashes.

Was she warming to me or could I see a haughty gleam in those limpid brown pools?

Was that a gentle snort of derision hidden under the long slow breaths?

Was she even taking me seriously? As we exchanged something that couldn't be put into words I was suddenly afraid I was simply an object of amusement.

I lifted both hands and pointing with my fingers said sharply "Back! Back!"

There! I heard the scorn in her brief snort. I was sure of it this time. "Back Seren, back!" Whilst unsure what she thought of me, what I was sure of was that this horse was having none of it.  I was supposed to be encouraging her to walk backwards over a pole on the ground and it wasn't happening. And this was a fascinating moment for me...

I was privileged to be on a personal development day (as part of the Kaizen Blackbelt Development Programme) involving horse whispering.  Part of the idea was that a horse would only accept your leadership if it was authentic.   There are no ropes, halters, whips or bits - the horses are at complete liberty.  It was an absolutely brilliant day and I encourage you to try it sometime. I learned a great deal about myself and now, some months  later, I sit writing this with a whole new acceptance of (and delight in) who I really am.  

This moment of apparent failure, where Seren refused to accept my obvious superiority, was an important moment. I'd been encouraged to watch for patterns of behaviour - how did I handle failure, success, embarrassment, and so on.  For me this moment of not succeeding brought up an amazing sense of resourcefulness.  Instead of worry, panic, self-consciousness, I found myself becoming more and more creative in my approach, determined that I would win this one.  I was stopped before going much further but I'd learned an important lesson. I'd learned I liked opposition, I liked the challenge, and that conflict brought the best out of me. What a hugely helpful thing to learn!

My challenge to you is to look afresh for patterns in yourself. Look at how you handled your last success, failure or perhaps an embarrassing moment. What came up out of the depths? What does that say about how you work most effectively? What does it reveal about where your strengths are best used?  For me I know that those challenging training moments are some of my best performance moments. When are yours?

Seren and I made friends during the day and at the end experienced a wonderful sense of partnership as we worked together to meet each other's expectations and needs ... though she never did back over that bloody pole!

Call to action:
(1)    Look out for your patterns and allow those observations to inform how you work best.
(2)    Ask me for a questionnaire that will help you discover your patterns of behaviour (tips@Kaizen-training.com)