The thing I love about horses is that they are, in my experience, and contrary to popular opinion, utterly predictable. It’s easy to see and understand the link between their behaviour and what you have done to cause it.

I think this is because horses always act instinctively – perhaps more so than, say a dog, because they are a prey animal. Prey animals have evolved to react without thinking – because the time needed to think, cogitate and reflect could be the difference between escape and being eaten. No prey animal wants to leave this Earth with the thought, “Yep, should have run!”

People, on the other hand, are different. We tend to not act instinctively at all. In fact, we often deliberately do what is contrary to our instincts. We hide our feelings and emotions from others. We play psychological games, like chess players trying to calculate the best move to make. In other words, we are such complex thinkers that we’re often actively adopting a behavior that is designed to provoke a particular reaction in others. Which rather overlooks the fact that they probably won’t actually demonstrate that behavior because they’re not behaving instinctively either. 

We build so many layers around ourselves that it’s often impossible to know what another person’s feelings genuinely are – hence the need for scientific processes like pulling petals from a flower murmuring ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ in order to ascertain someone’s true feelings. 

Of course, in the business world, it’s a good thing that we don’t behave instinctively all of the time. If we always followed our instincts, I’m sure many boardroom meetings would descend into fisticuffs and many a performance appraisal would result in tribunals. It’s important that we aren’t instinctive and that we don’t rush into a reaction every time someone does or says something we instinctively don’t like.

But on the other hand, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could strive to be authentic? If we could find a way to share our true, ‘instinctive’ feelings in a way that was assertive – in a way that didn’t involve giving or taking offence? 

So, my thought for today is let’s not define goodwill as being nice to someone’s face whilst lambasting them in private. Let’s define it as developing the patience and skills necessary to share our own thoughts and feelings openly, honestly, constructively and, most of all, authentically, and at the same time having the patience to understand that other people’s thoughts and feelings are likely to be different from ours, equally right to them and equally worthy of our respect. 

In training terms, let’s make sure our people are having Adult:Adult conversations, that they can behave assertively without tripping into aggression, and that they know how to use open questioning, active listening, summary and clarification and countless other skills covered by Trainers’ Library materials (I know, not a very subtle plug) in order to be able to communicate authentically.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com