A CENTER FOR 21ST CENTURY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT:
Where the wisdom of the past, present, and future of leadership comes together for the dignity and benefit of all.
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To see our digital program brochure, click here.
Horseplay for Leaders is a series of playshops for corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations.
They are available individually, but are best taken as a series, with the communications playshop first, then the emotional intelligence module, and finally using conflict productively.
Horseplay for Leaders: Introductory Communication Module
Strong communication skills aid in all aspects of life, and from a business standpoint, all transactions begin and end with communication. Low skill levels lead to frequent misunderstanding, frustration, and disengagement. In a 2016 LinkedIn survey conducted in the United States, communication topped the list of the most sought-after soft skills among employers. First Nature Foundation’s HorsePlay for Leaders: Communication Intro Module helps you and your company to boost trust, commitment, and productivity by building your communication skills. The program is fast-paced and interactive with assessments, classroom activities, and strategies for improving your communication skills that are relevant in your workplace. But that’s not all. What makes the First Nature Foundation playshops unique and practical are the experiential activities with our horses, which drive home the classroom lessons and provide an opportunity to experiment with new strategies in a safe and low risk environment.
Horseplay For Leaders: Emotional Intelligence Module
Leaders with high emotional intelligence (EI) typically enjoy teams that are more motivated and connected and usually get better results than those with lower EI skill levels. Emotional intelligence includes empathy, social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation, which are all teachable soft skills that are the focus of our advanced Horseplay For Leaders module on emotional intelligence at First Nature Ranch. Our program aims to help you develop a solid understanding of how your emotions and actions affect the people around you, so you can build better relationships, reduce team stress, defuse conflict and improve job satisfaction of those who you work with and manage. Our playshop will include both classroom learning and playing with horses in ways that evoke the patterns that may hold us back, as well as provide an opportunity to experiment with new patterns.
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Horseplay for Leaders: Using Conflict Productively and Enhancing Teamwork Module
Our purpose in this final module is to recognize how to improve individual, team performance, and reduce conflict avoidance, which leads to impasses, gets in the way of morale, executing on strategy, and causes disengagement. We’ll explore a process for loosening up where we might be stuck, and to increase your ability to understand how diving into conflict can be much less painful than ignoring it and much more productive than trying to “make nice”. We will also engage in some team-building fun to strengthen understanding and deepen relationships. This program offers a taste of starting to work with these key collaboration and conflict resolution skills.
Program Co-Facilitator: Debbie Zmorenski
Debbie is an accomplished Senior Leader with more than 40 years of experience in operational leadership, training and development, customer service, production manufacturing, and corporate cultural engineering. Debbie has collaborated with established and start-up organizations to assist them in creating long-term success. Her broad areas of expertise include management consulting, change management, instructional design, organizational development, management and executive coaching and training. Throughout her career, Debbie has held leadership positions with Walt Disney World and has founded, owned, and operated three advisory and training companies.
She is a skilled speaker and dynamic trainer, who has designed and delivered training for both the private and public sector.
What Our Participants Say About Horseplay for Leaders:
“What I liked best about the program [is it] helped you think about management style & how to improve on effective communication.” -J.S.
"What I'm taking away is communication and leadership isn't about me, but it's about who I'm communicating with or leading." -G.R.
“It made me think of my management style. What skills I need to improve to become a more effective leader.” -J.J.
"What I'm taking away is the importance of identified communication styles and to be flexible and listen to others." -J.D.
*First Nature Foundation is a Equine and Nature Facilitated Personal and Professional Development center. We do not provide any form of equine therapy.*