Accentuate Strengths & Talent

My lifelong partnership and journey with horses is the inspiration for “Straight from the Horse’s Mouth”. Lessons from the stable to the workplace.

Key to any successful relationships is taking time to assess unique talents and personality of each team member. This is true in business relationships and when working with a horse.

A general rule of thumb -- there is no such thing as a “one-size-fits-all” program. When working with horses:

• Build confidence (and trust) by focusing training sessions on refining strengths.

• Emphasis on strengths builds confidence and creates a great foundation for honing new skills or working on areas of weakness.

• Suitability to event is critical – be willing to choose different event that better aligns with horse’s talent.

Strong leaders take a similar approach when leading teams or mentoring people in the workplace – they optimize business outcomes by aligning employee skills to initiatives, projects and roles.

When an employee does not have the right skills for a particular role, good leaders offer additional training or help the employee to partner with others who can support them while they learn.

A best practice for businesses is to invest in cross-training & moving people internally to optimize alignment of individual talent with roles.

Effective leaders understand that people really are the most important resource. By recognizing when an employee has strong basic skills, good leaders take the time to find the job that suits the employee vs. letting the employee fail in the wrong job.

Attrition is expensive and disruptive!

Accentuating strengths & talent of employees leads to loyalty, innovation, teamwork and overall stronger and sustainable performance for the business!