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By Andrea Woodward, Innovation Network
Greg Furrow, Eli Lilly and Company
Diana Elliott, Dell Learning

For more on this topic, see the "Join Up" sessions at the Innovation Network conference

Introduction to "Join Up™"

Paradyne1, a network access company based in Florida, needed a complete overhaul of the management information system. The leadership sought out two leaders in the field of innovation and creativity, Ted Coulson and Alison Strickland of Applied Creativity, Inc.2, Ted and Alison proposed showing a video about a horse trainer, and Paradyne's V.P. and CIO John Guest thought they might be nuts, but he was willing to put his faith in them. When they showed the horse training video and asked session participants to write down any connections between the horse training process and the proposed organizational change, pencils began flying. At the end of the video, participants came up with more than 60 ideas for creating employee support for the change. The new computer system was implemented on time and under budget without disruption of service to clients. Guest attributed the successful implementation in large part to the lessons learned by observing the "Join Up™" video.

Awed and intrigued by the power of this "join up" metaphor, we3 began investigating what principles could be transferred from "join up" with horses to creating collaborative, productive relationships between people in organizations. "Join Up" is a term coined by horse trainer and author of the best-selling book, The Man Who Listens to Horses, Monty Roberts4. It refers both to the process of starting a young horse under saddle without force or fear and the moment when a horse chooses to step toward the trainer.

By observing how horses use their bodies to communicate with one another, Monty developed the dance he calls "Equus," a process of advancing and retreating until the horse joins him. Monty uses big gestures and noise and looks directly into the horse's eyes to send a horse away until it exhibits the signs of wanting to join up with him just as the lead mare in a herd will do with an unruly youngster. The horse feels safer being part of the herd, and Monty offers the horse safety when he collapses his body down, takes his eyes off the horse's eyes and offers a shoulder for the horse to connect with. This moment of "join up" when a horse, running full speed around the pen, halts, looks at Monty and takes a tentative step toward him is awe-inspiring. To horse people accustomed to taking as long as six weeks to prepare a horse to accept saddle, bridle and rider, the fact that Monty can achieve it in under 30 minutes is astounding. And, perhaps most remarkably, Monty can teach others to use the process. Join Up with horses is a skill that can both be replicated and transferred to others.

Unlike horses, people are not simple "flight" animals. People are unpredictable "fight or flight" animals, not governed solely by survival instincts as horses are, but often motivated by ego. However, people do share the ability to speak the same language and can bridge language barriers, making "join up" between people a little less challenging in some ways than speaking the language of another species. If join up with a horse is the first encounter that builds the relationship, what does the initial join up look like between people? When Monty and his colleague Flip Flippen speak to an audience of teachers on creating "join up" in the educational arena, they will start the session at the door as people are entering. They greet people, shake their hands, ask how they're doing and what they hope to learn at the session. This initial contact establishes the starting place for join up.

This article will explore further the process of creating joined up relationships between people in organizations. We've named each of these principles that can be taken out of the corral and into the workplace with a "Monty-ism," the expressions Monty uses to describe how he does what he does. Join Up principles include "Equus," "There is No Teaching, Only Learning," "Be a Leader," and "I'll be Your Fan."

"Equus"

Monty uses his body to speak a language he calls "Equus" in order to communicate with the horse. When Monty looks in the horse's eyes and faces the horse with his shoulders, it means "go away." Conversely, eyes downcast and shoulders turned at an angle to the horse mean, "I present no threat to you, and I'm open to meeting with you." In order to learn to speak the horse language effectively, Monty has observed, experimented with nuances and different phrases and learned through trial and error during 50 years of working with horses. Horses are simple and provide an excellent model.

People are much more complex. We may speak the same language, but there's still the need to bridge the gap between how differently people process information. Understanding oneself makes a great first step toward understanding others. There are a variety of thinking styles assessments5 that can help to increase both self-knowledge and understanding of diversity in thinking styles. Dale McIntyre6, who works in R&D; at Eastman Kodak, said that he sought out thinking assessments as a way to understand and improve his own creative processes and found that he increased his success in interpersonal interactions as a byproduct. In an environment that almost demands patents, Dale's first eight attempts at a product patent were rebuffed by the company's attorneys, because Dale couldn't convince them of what was new and different about the ideas. In 1993 he got his first patent and by 1998, he had patented 35 ideas and was inducted into the company's Inventor Hall of Fame. While Dale believes his skills as an inventor have improved over time, he attributed his increased success in large part to several assessment tools, including the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), Kirton Adaptor-Innovator (K.A.I.) Assessment, Myers-Briggs, and the assessment in Doug Hall's book7, Jump Start Your Brain. The understanding gained from these instruments helped him to better understand how he prefers to receive information and how to translate that into the preferred style of others.

In planning their work with Paradyne, Ted Coulson and Alison Strickland also administered the HBDI in advance in order to be able to read the group effectively. Understanding that Paradyne's employees included a high level of logical, organized thinkers with an element of creativity, helped Ted and Alison decide how to approach the group. "We had seen Monty's demonstration at an Innovation Network conference and knew it offered a powerful metaphor, but we knew the group needed to be able to perceive the value of looking at a man working with a horse very quickly or they would lose interest," Ted explained.

Alison added, "Stretching so far out of the normal business environment really stimulated the team's thinking about out how to 'market' this change to the employees. Metaphorical thinking and storytelling are things that we use regularly to boost creativity. It became very natural for Paradyne to adopt the metaphor of 'join up' and 'follow up' for the changes they planned for the company."

In speaking the language of Equus, Monty effectively mimics how horses communicate with one another in their natural environment. A noted expert in creative change strategies, Dr. Deanna Berg8 of Innovation Strategies International, said that in working with clients, many times she will consciously copy their body language, breathing and tone to build rappoire and trust, to let them know that she wants to meet them where they are. This idea of mimicry to build trust may sound like manipulation, but the approach should be judged by the intention, which is to build comfort and understanding. Another example of effective alignment is that Dell Learning consciously copies the computer business's rhythm. Since computers are intended to be disposable with new products introduced every three to six months, Dell's training for employees moves at the same pace and is intended to be rapidly replaced with new information and skills. Take management training, for examaple, because of Dell's high growth rate, at any given time, 40% of the company's management has been there for less than one year, Dell Learning's President John Cone' said, "It ought to be very good management training, but six months to a yearfrom now, it's going to be something else, so you don't look at it the same way; you don't build or operate it the same way."9

Beyond understanding thinking styles, an important part of the process of creating join up is to draw out what the person already knows about the situation. In working with horses, Monty looks for body-language clues about why a horse is resistant to a particular situation. Some of the horses Monty works with have been trained, or broken, using more traditional methods and have learned to respond to people out of fear. Through communication in the horse's language, Monty redefines the horse's relationship from one based on fear, to one of communication and trust. In today's world of downsizing, mergers, acquisitions, and massive reorganizations, many people have also been "broken" by the system. They too may respond out of fear and anxiety shaped by past experiences. Patience and communication are also keys to reframing human relationships.

I'll Be Your Fan

Monty keeps a vision of what he ultimately wants to achieve with the horse, but he is never harsh or punitive if the horse chooses not to catch his vision immediately. In the round pen when the horse is inclined to flee, Monty says, "Don't go away a little. Go away a lot." Using a lightweight rope, he sends the horse away from him without anger or malice behind it. He pushes the horse to keep running first one direction and then the other. Monty doesn't care how long the horse continues to run. Monty waits to let the horse choose to "join up," which is what Monty wanted all along, but he knows the horse has to choose on its own. This opportunity to be responsible for one's own choices, and even mistakes, and not lose Monty's supportive, consistent leadership is key to his success.

Some people never learn to be responsible for their choices. Parents take care of their children and protect them from failure, sometimes in effect teaching children that they don't need to be responsible for their choices. A bike gets left in the yard instead of being put away and gets stolen. The parent replaces the bike with a better one. A child leaves for school with the bed unmade, and the parent angrily makes it for the child. Some children grow up and enter the work place with a pattern of never truly being responsible for their choices.

In raising his three children and 47 foster children (most of whom came to him as troubled teens), Monty negotiated contracts with them, making clear what the expectations were for their behavior. The contract offered positive rewards of special activities with Monty for meeting the expectations and consequences of not meeting the expectations meant often unpleasant chores. The child must choose to complete the chores in order to earn positive rewards while Monty remained on the sidelines, saying: "I don't want you to have to do the chore! I wanted you to get the positives! I'm rooting for you!" But, the child has to choose and be responsible for the consequences. By creating the contracts and having the child as the enforcer of the system, Monty was able to remain as he calls himself a "cheerleader," supporting and waiting for the child to make the choices that would make life easier for everyone.

In an organization, being a fan involves giving people the opportunity to run away, make mistakes, even to fail. If they never have the opportunity to fail, they never have a genuine opportunity to succeed either. The role of the leader is to offer consistent support and a clear, engaging vision. Authors of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, James Collins and Jerry Porras, found a high level of long-term success in companies where the leadership was able to articulate the vision in language that grabbed people's emotions and with "BHAGs," big, hairy, audacious goals that truly challenged the people10. Monty likens an organization to the round pen, saying, "We shouldn't focus all of the attention on the people who are always looking for the gaps in the fence. We don't want them if they don't want to be part of the process. But, the goal of a leader is to make what's happening at the center of the round pen, or at the center of the organization, so intriguing, so engaging, that they want to be part."

Monty believes that the first steps in learning, the steps from 0 to 1 on a 10-step ladder, are the most crucial, which is why the majority of his time in the first sessions with a horse is spent in "joining up," not in riding the horse. Likewise, when a new employee joins an organization, the first contacts are crucial for establishing the relationship between the new employee, supervisor and co-workers. Dell Learning provides every new hire with a jump start package before they even show up for work. This attractive, self-directed learning package welcomes them and increases their confidence in their decision to join Dell. Like Monty's use of the horse's natural language as a way to reassure the animal, Dell's pre-start package lowers the anxiety which will enable a higher level of performance and risk-taking11. This new hire package also gets the paperwork out of the way so that the new employee doesn't spend the first day filling out insurance forms and can begin with a higher level of quality interaction with co-workers.

Using a "join up" dance of advance and retreat, new employees should be informed of the importance of their making use of all available employee benefits--breaks, vacations, sick days when they're unwell, so that they can re-energize for the work of the organization. Pushing an employee away from the work in order to take care of him or herself will help to assure loyalty that is based on the organization's demonstration that the employee is valuable and can be trusted. If an employee abuses this trust, it should be clear that it is behavior that will not be tolerated. SAS Institute, Inc.,12 a software development firm in Cary, North Carolina, offers unlimited sick days to care for oneself and family members, as well as a host of other benefits to ensure good morale including an onsite gym, daycare and lunch facility. SAS's Rebeccah Neff said, "Because of the other benefits that encourage wellness, such as the on-site health care (which provides free flu shots in the fall, for instance), the recreation and fitness center, and the nutritious food offered in our subsidized cafe, as well as free fruit every week, we have a much lower than average absence rate due to illness." The average number of sick days used by employees in 1998 was 3.5. One new SAS employee, who took a 10% pay cut to work for the company, said, "It's better to be happy than to have a little more money." SAS's employee turnover rate has never been higher than 5%, much lower than the average for the software industry.

A Texas-based trucking company, Transit Mix, a division of Trinity Industries, suffered 70% annual turnover among its drivers. Since it costs $2200 to train drivers, employee retention was a major issue. Then, the company made a few small changes that increased the drivers' appreciation of and loyalty to the company. Supervisors began greeting drivers at the gate and welcoming them to work. In addition, the company hired a "corporate social worker" to help drivers' families with problems like cars not working, finding child care, etc., especially when the drivers were out on the road. This program of caring for drivers and their families resulted in a 30% reduction in turnover.

There is no teaching, only learning

There's an old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." It's the same with learning. When the learner is ready, the information needs to be readily available. Dell Learning, which is not a physical but a virtual learning center, uses this model. John Cone, President of Dell Learning, said, "The ideal 'learning event' at Dell has a class size of one, lasts 5 to 10 minutes, and takes place within 10 minutes of when someone recognizes that he or she needs to know something. Our challenge is to reduce learning to its smallest, most-useful increments and to put the learner in charge of the entire process."13

The Dell Business Model, with its questions to test understanding of why Dell sells direct to consumers, is available to all employees through the company's intranet at any time. All employees are expected to master the model soon after starting their employment with Dell. Similarly, employees who complete the newly developed internet training module get a poster with CEO Michael Dell pointing one hand in a "you-da-man" salute saying, "MICHAEL SAYS I KNOW THE NET." Dell's continued growth shows that employees will choose to learn things critical to their success if the information is readily available.14

Monty says, "There is no teaching, only learning," which highlights the roles of the learner and the environment, or context for learning, as opposed to the content. Monty's work with horses focusses primarily on the context and not as much on the specific content of what the horses are learning. The ideas about the ideal learning context for people come from accelerated learning expert Marshall Thurber, who cut the time for learning a new computer programming language from 10 8-hour days to a total of eight hours! Comparing the contexts for accelerating learning between people and horses, we see:

Accelerated Learning for Horses:

• Taking time early on to "join up" and establish the relationship based on trust
  
• Continued, calm support even when the horse chooses not to join up
  
• Physical environment--the round pen is specifically designed to assure that the horse can't injure itself while it's deciding whether or not to follow Monty's leadership. It must be round so there are no corners for the horse to feel trapped in, no sharp edges, no fence rails for a leg to get caught and high enough to avoid outside distractions. This environment also assures that the horse has no choice but to focus on Monty.
  
• Motivation--Monty uses the horse's natural desire to be part of a herd to make joining up with him preferable to continuing on its own.
  
• Monty uses what the horse has already learned to teach it new things. For example, when the rider is mounted, Monty continues to communicate with the horse in the same fashion he did during join up, gradually making the transition to having the rider give physical cues for the horse's response until the horse knows to respond solely to the riders' cues.
  
• Short lessons--no more than about 30 minutes at the start and less than 2 minutes of riding the first time the rider gets up on the horse
  
• Positive reinforcement--a rub on the forehead, indicating that the horse has offered the desired response. Always ending on a positive note means that the next time the steps to get to that point will be shorter

  Accelerated Learning for People

• Spending time early on to establish the big picture "why" are we doing this to make sure that everyone has "joined up" with the need to learn the content to be presented
  
• Creating listening: ask about what's happened in the past so that past experiences are not distracting from the future learning
  
• Reducing fear: offer a $100 reward for asking a "dumb question," which removes the fear that the person is dumb for not knowing the answer
  
• Connecting what has been learned before to what is to be learned now: For example, in teaching a new software programming language, accelerated learning expert Marshall Thurber introduced the concepts of "new," "different" and "tricky," to relate the new programming language to the one the programmers had already learned.
  
• Colors-the concepts above were each color-coded on flash cards: green for "new" concepts; yellow for the things that were "different" from the previously-learned language and red for the things that were "tricky" about the new language. The association with color speeds up understanding.
  
• Physical environment-a comfortable 72 degrees
  
• Short lessons--no more than 50 minutes of presentation and work at a stretch
  
• Physical stretching in between learning sessions
  
• Music-baroque music played during breaks to stimulate brain activity
  
• Recognition for performance-a physical symbol or artifact, such as Dell's internet poster with the CEO, which holds meaning for participants serves well to denote successful completion of a project or learning module.

Be a Leader

In order to better understand join up, Andrea went through a four-day join up clinic with her own horse. The instructions were explicit. "Be a leader. Step out and expect the horse to follow you." This vision of leadership-step out and expect the horse to follow-is an important one that comes of Monty's 50 years of experience working with horses. He's ridden them, shown them, trained them, and experimented with different ways to achieve his vision of what he wants for them-a useful life as companions with humans. He says about himself, "I'm not practicing anymore." He has unshakeable confidence in his ability, and he comes to the work with an authenticity and appreciation for the horse that is unmistakable. Even though he's no longer practicing, Monty continues to learn from each horse that he works with.

In thinking about leaders who truly inspire others, it's their passion and belief in the rightness of the direction they choose that inspires as much or more than any other single element. Great leaders are those who can articulate a grand vision, inspire others that the vision can be achieved and then create the environment for success. One of the most compelling arguments for this model of "servant leadership," in which the leader's role is to create the environment for success, is found in Built to Last. Strikingly, authors Collins and Porras found a high correlation between leaders who served as "clock makers,"15 creating the machinery that could operate without them, and long-term business success. In addition, they found charismatic or dominant leaders may enjoy success while in office but the companies suffer when the leader is gone. Compare GE and Westinghouse in their early days. Charles Coffin, GE's first president, didn't invent a single product unlike prolific inventor George Westinghouse who founded 59 other companies besides Westinghouse. However, Coffin established the General Electric Research Lab. In 1990 (the time the study was completed), GE's stock return stood at $679.25 while Westinghouse was at $345.94. 16 Overall, in Collins and Porras's study the financial performance of visionary companies in which the leader creates the environment for others' success exceeds that of the comparison companies.

Join Up Summary:

"Join Up" is a process of creating collaborative relationships and of learning about leadership and what intuitively "feels" right based on the experience of the participants in the relationship. It includes ideas such as "There is no teaching, only learning," and "I'll be Your Fan." It is also a learning journey for the researchers that does not end with this report. It continues on to Convergence 99 17 and into work with Monty Roberts on his book on creating "join up" between people.18

1 For more on Paradyne, see http://www.paradyne.com

2 http://www.appliedcreativityinc.com Also Ted Coulson and Alison Strickland will present two sessions at Convergence 99. See http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/iustrickland.html and http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/experientialcoulson.html

3 The presenters of this workshop are 1998 graduates of the Innovation University Best Practices Fellowship program: Greg Furrow, Eli Lilly and Company; Diana Elliott, Dell Learning, and Andrea Woodward, Innovation Network. After seeing a demonstration by Monty Roberts at the Innovation Network's Convergence '98 in Santa Barbara, they became intrigued with the question of how "join up," a process designed for building a collaborative relationship with a horse, could be applied to human interactions both in personal and professional life. Their research included analyzing Roberts' book, videos of join up and then spending several days interviewing Roberts, his staff and. Andrea Woodward attended a four-day clinic at Roberts' ranch, learning to "join up" with her own horse. The research team also conducted a series of conference calls with people interested in "join up" on topics ranging from "Learning without Fear" to "Accelerated Learning Techniques." For more about Innovation University, see:

http://www.thinksmart.com/innovationinpractice.html

4 For more on Monty Roberts, see http://www.montyroberts.com

5 HBDI http://www.hbdi.com, Innovation Styles Profile http://www.clarityintl.com , Myers-Briggs, Thomas "Bi-Polar" model. For an informative review of seven different assessments, see Cynthia Carlisle and Dan Logue's report from Innovation University 1997 http://www.thinksmart.com/members.html

6 Dale is also presenting at Convergence 99. See http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/roundtablemcintyre.html

7 Doug Hall is presenting a keynote address at Convergence 99. See http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/keynotes.html

8 For more on Dr. Deanna Berg, see http://www.profitplay.com also Deanna Berg will present at Convergence 99. See http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/iuberg.html

9 See http://www.traininguniversity.com/magazine/jul_aug98/dell1.html

10 Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Harper Business, 1997, pp. 91-144.

11 For more on Dell's new hire learning, see http://www.dell.com/dell/careers/benefits/university/annual/review/orientation/index.htm

12 Fast Company magazine, Jan. 1999, p. 85, http://www.fastcompany.com/online/21/sanity.html

13 See http://www.traininguniversity.com/magazine/jul_aug98/dell1.html

14 See http://www.fastcompany.com/online/20/cone.html

15 Built to Last, p. 28-29

16 ibid, p. 298.

17 For information on sessions at Convergence 99, see: http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/halfdayjoinup.html and http://www.thinksmart.com/conference99/roundtablejoinup.html

18 As a result of the interviews, clinics and teleconferences with Monty, Andrea Woodward and Joyce Wycoff of the Innovation Network, with assistance from Greg Furrow and Diana Elliott, have been selected to serve as editors of Monty's book in progress on how his work applies to human beings.