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Corporate communications, taught with a horse's aid |
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HairOnFire trains execs in management,
leadership, communication and team building |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
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Jamilee Shaffer, Terry Atzen and Sarah
Hahn give demonstrations on Fridays so potential customers can see
what they’re talking about. What they propose doing for their
clients and what they propose to do it with appear the way peanut
butter and jelly put together must have sounded like until someone
actually tried it.
The business
the trio started in February is called HairOnFire, one word.
Shaffer, Atzen and Hahn — president/owner, VP of business
development and VP of marketing, respectively — do training in
leadership, communication and team-building.
They use horses. Only no one rides the horses.
It’s hard to describe with words, they say a lot. You have to see
it to understand.
On Friday, at a horse barn on Bald Peak where HairOnFire
rents stalls, two potential customers were there, seeing. Before
they left, they understood what the trio meant by “equine-assisted
learning.”
The pair said things such as, “It simply reminds me I’m not using
all of my abilities to communicate” and “When you’re dealing with
live animals ... the lessons connect themselves a lot more than in a
classroom application.”
HairOnFire customizes training to address different skills,
including “management and leadership,” “communication,”
“team-building” and “gaining personal insight.”
The recipe: They have people perform simple tasks made harder by
forcing them to do the tasks together, not unlike running a
three-legged race. For example, they will have three participants
(one’s an instructor if there are only two potential customers) put
a saddle on a horse and then take it off. Two of them are
blindfolded; the other tells them what to do.
What it’s supposed to do: The exercise teaches the person giving
the instructions about his or her ability to lead. The task doesn’t
get done if his or her directions are too vague, nor does it speed
things up if the instructions are overly specific.
Why it works (Or: What’s the horse for?): Horses are herd animals.
As a matter of survival they sense what others around them are
feeling. Their herd can be horses, or it can be dogs or humans —
their herd instincts remain. When the herd is humans, and if one of
the humans gets frustrated, the horse can feel it, and the horse
shows the frustration, too.
Now the person who thinks he or she is doing a good job leading,
and would like to say he or she is not frustrated, cannot lie, and
has to concede that his or her leadership skills could use some
work.
“(The horse) doesn’t care if you’re the boss of the biggest
corporation of the world,” Shafer said. “It will reflect how you
really feel.”
Training costs between $300 to $500 per person per day; corporate
rates are available. Free demonstrations are given on Fridays,
including this Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. The barn is at 17600 Albert
Way. For more information or to attend, call Hahn at 971-237-1060. |
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From
Sept. 14,
2005, Newberg Graphic
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