Following my December 1 blog, “Change is Our Companion but NOT Our Friend in Business Management…Ollie the horse is teaching me why”, I received lots of emails, some phone calls and a few people actually walked up to me at meetings asking for more ‘implementing change’ insight from Ollie the horse. In the Ollie Blog I discussed implementing change in business and how trust is often the rate limiting factor in managing change. In the blog, since I love a metaphor, I wrote about Ollie the horse as if he were a consultant helping me implement change. Hang in there; I understand that it is a little out of the main stream business management thought process. The best thing to do is to back up and read the Ollie Blog and then come back to this one. In case that just seems to be too complicated here is a summary from the Ollie Blog that will sort of bring you up to speed.
“My current hobby objective is to learn to jump. I hired (actually bought) a well-credentialed Irish jumping consultant with a great track record who really knows his business, Ollie the horse. Kathleen, my wife and riding coach, has told me that the business of jumping the fences is divided into Andy’s business and Ollie’s Business. Andy’s business is to point Ollie at the middle of the jump and have him going at the proper pace. Ollie’s business is everything else. At critical points in the process of implementing change necessary to reach my objective, I stopped letting the expert, Ollie, do his job and I tried to do his job myself. The results were 100% poor, yet I continued to do it occasionally and even blamed poor Ollie..
Why, you ask, would a person with three college degrees refuse to let the expert do his job? Ollie the horse is teaching me about trust. Managing change is about trust. I have been an independent and resourceful person all of my life. With the help of trusted mentors and friends I have met life’s challenges by implementing change. In this situation, learning to ride in and English saddle and jump with potentially severe consequences, I am having trouble trusting Ollie to do his job. I’m stuck where I am until I can learn to trust that Ollie will do his job. Only then will I will be able reach my objective. I have assembled the resources I need, but until I trust, I can’t make the change necessary to be successful. Maybe that’s why we resist change. We aren’t used to trusting. Perhaps we should work on trusting instead of changing…change might take care of itself. “
Ok, here is the next chapter in the Ollie the horse change management story. When I completed the first Ollie Blog, I was having trouble trusting Ollie, the jumping consultant, to do his job helping me implement change in my hobby. Since then, Ollie and I spent ten days in Ocala, Florida, working on jumping cross country jumps. First of all I would like to make an observation. It is remarkable how much bigger a log looks if you plan to jump over it than if you plan to ride around it. While we were in Florida, I made some great progress trusting Ollie to do his job. He’s a star and I looked like a good pupil once I learned to do my business, address the middle of the jump at the proper pace, and trust Ollie to do his business, everything else. Ollie trusted me and I trusted Ollie. Things were going great!
The big day came when Ollie and I were going to jump over a 3 foot 3 inch tall obstacle called a ‘roll top’. We had a great warm up and were ready to jump over the brute (not classic jump terminology but that’s what it looked like that day).
Here is the scenario; I did part of my business, I addressed the jump in a straight line toward the middle. However, as we approached the jump I wasn’t sure how much pace was appropriate. I was apprehensive, so I slowed down (less pace), exactly the wrong thing to do. Ollie the horse recognized that I was not doing my part of the business, establish the propper pace, so he tried to step up a little. I resisted. Kathleen called out “MORE PACE.” I couldn’t believe she was seeing the same thing I was seeing so I resisted her advice as well as Ollie’s advice. I didn’t trust the two experts.
Let’s stop here and look at the situation at that moment. I am approaching the biggest thing I have ever jumped; I have a great horse who is trying to make up for the fact that I am failing to perform on my part of the business of jumping, establish proper pace. I have a great coach who is telling me what to do to get my part of the business of jumping back on track, proper pace. I resist both. About this time we arrive at the point of takeoff. Since I haven’t given Ollie the pace he trusted me for, he tries to do his job in spite of me. Ollie jumps the fence with massive effort.
Now let’s see the results of my inability to trust my team and the problem lack of trust caused. I had always heard about being ‘jumped out of the tack’ but it never seemed that dramatic when it happened to someone else. WRONG! Visualize a human being launched from a Roman catapult. Due to the massive jumping effort necessary because I failed to establish the pace, Ollie was the catapult and I was the human. As I was falling upward for what seemed like a long time, I realized that it was going to be a very long drop to get to the ground. I’m just fine so there was a good ending. I landed lying on my back with my feet pointing in the direction we had been jumping. Ollie was standing motionless with my head between his front feet. I clearly remember my head hitting the ground and being really impressed with how well the helmet worked! Ollie just stood there staring down his nose at me. The image was similar to those head on photographs of a horse that are taken from way too close. Ollie looked embarrassed if that is possible.
In a moment of exhilaration at not being dead, I had the epiphany that the entire fiasco was due to my unwillingness or inability to trust the ‘consultants’ I had engaged to help me implement change. Since I didn’t do my part, Ollie the horse/consultant, had to try to do my business and his business in spite of me. Splat was the result. While I was still lying on the ground, I remember thinking “Wow, this is going to make a great blog!”
When I was a kid, ‘getting back on the horse’ was an expectation. Now, I think that’s movie stuff. I did get back on Ollie but I rode back to the barn instead of jumping again. The next day we had another lesson. I trusted Ollie and Kathleen. I not only approached the middle of the obstacle but I also made sure the pace was right. The brute just looked like any other jump and Ollie and I declared victory over the brute at the end of our lesson.
Ollie the horse is working hard to teach me about the importance of trust in implementing change. If this educational effort keeps up, Ollie the horse may be a presenter at the managing change seminar we are planning to present in 2013. Let’s work on trust. I think change will be easier.