The Power of the Herd (54 page)

This increases fear, mistrust, secretiveness, defensiveness, and aggressiveness in the entire group, especially over time. (Vulnerabilities include lack of training, skill deficiencies, miscommunications, mistakes, fears, past traumas, and interpersonal weaknesses.) Do not reward others for using colleagues', employees', or leaders' vulnerabilities against them. And do not tolerate gossip. Create an atmosphere in which people can admit they need clarity, help, time, planning, or additional training. This includes people who need emotional- and social-intelligence training. (For more information on vulnerability's effect on the workplace, leadership, and community building, see Guiding Principle 5, in
chapter 17
.)

Each affects the other. When individuals feel afraid, jealous, or disrespected, their emotions intensify and become contagious, even if they manage to hide their discomfort relatively well. Chronic negativity affects the entire team, reducing morale, creativity, and productivity over time.

Do so and you
will
become the conductor.

I
n professional and personal interactions,
much needless strife, agitation, anger, apathy, and inefficiency occur as a result of a lack of training in how to set and respect boundaries, how to motivate others, and how to tell the difference between the two.

Mainstream equestrians have been taught that horses should not be allowed to set boundaries with humans or they will become dangerous. These animals instead must submit to being touched anytime, anywhere, for any reason whatsoever without objection, or they are punished, sometimes severely. This results in a great number of horses who dissociate, who become apathetic or machinelike (which some people consider a well-trained horse). These animals lose their vibrancy in the show ring and act dull and disinterested in daily interactions with people. At the other extreme, some horses, like my Arabian stallion Midnight Merlin, fight back, becoming hypersensitive to human touch, throwing riders and attacking anyone who walks into the corral. These horses are often destroyed simply for lack of mutually respectful treatment by humans early in life.

In the business world, people who try to set boundaries with coworkers and, most especially, with bosses are often punished too, though usually in more subtle ways, developing reputations for being cranky, perhaps losing a promotion in the process. For this reason, most people avoid setting boundaries, swallowing their discomfort and anger by becoming increasingly dull and apathetic. Over time, this creates a toxic work environment where people not
only “retire in place” but also use cynicism and sarcasm to release at least some of the resentment seething underneath a complacent facade.

But what are boundaries, and why must we set them? At the most basic physical level, a boundary helps you claim the personal space you need in order to feel safe, connected, and therefore engaged with a person who's approaching and interacting with you. Most of us have dealt with people who stand too close. It's hard to think straight, let alone pay attention to what they're talking about, when you're leaning backward, holding your breath, glancing toward the door, or perhaps dissociating (going blank and numb) to appear polite.

Giving others the physical or emotional space
they
need helps them feel respected and actually allows their
minds
to work more effectively. Quite simply, they hear and remember much more of what you're saying, an important consideration for efficient, results-oriented leaders.

If you're a person who likes to stand or sit close to others, your goal may be to communicate support, camaraderie, and at times, intimacy. But because people have differing needs for space, you must pay attention to nonverbal cues of discomfort —
if
you want to be heard. Many people will only process and remember half of what you're saying if you move into their zone of personal space, as this literally causes their blood pressure to rise and their minds to lose focus.

Students often ask me if this is a “cultural thing.” It is only to the extent that in each country, there are some people for whom the accepted standard of physical proximity works, and others for whom it does not. In cultures where close contact is the norm, the most successful, gregarious people are the ones who feel comfortable, even energized, in close proximity to others. But there are people for whom this same spatial formula is debilitating. These are the seemingly aloof members of society who live on the outskirts of town, work at home if they're lucky, and either don't attend parties or must drink copious amounts of alcohol to deaden their sensitivity to the sensory overload they experience in rooms filled with people. Some are “helped” with medication to reduce chronic anxiety, not realizing they might be able to bypass the drug and its side effects simply by teaching others to respect
the space their bodies need for their minds to be present.

I've even found that some children diagnosed with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, need more physical space than the classroom allows. Simply sitting in such close proximity
to their peers causes their blood pressure to rise; then these students either dissociate and don't hear the lesson or release the tension by acting out. Several teachers who studied the simple techniques I discuss in this chapter reorganized their classrooms to allow for differences in spatial needs, finding that test scores rose and unproductive behavior dropped. Salespeople who have been taught the same nonverbal spatial protocols have seen revenues rise. And business leaders who have the power to give employees their optimal amount of personal space, in meetings and in workstations, find it's an easy way to save time and money, boost creativity, and avoid many interpersonal difficulties that undermine the daily functioning of an effective team.

Standing close is
not
automatic connection. Luckily, determining others' spatial needs isn't difficult. You simply have to pay attention to nonverbal cues and adjust accordingly. The next time you see someone leaning back, looking distracted, refusing to make eye contact, holding her breath, or going blank, try taking a few steps back and breathing more deeply. Quite often, you'll notice the person relax and lean forward in response, engaging in more thoughtful conversation because she's feeling safer and
more connected
to you, for “intuitive” reasons that she may never guess are simply related to space.

This crucial element of social intelligence has been virtually ignored by scientists and leadership coaches alike. But don't feel bad if you've unknowingly been standing too close to certain people. Or if you thought you were learning impaired and socially inept because you couldn't think straight in groups of people that you now realize were standing or sitting too close for
your
comfort. I noticed the importance of this issue only upon the threat of death!

In rehabilitating my stallion Merlin, it took me several months to realize that he had a larger need for personal space than most horses, that
this
was the root of his intensely aggressive behavior. And at first, I had no idea what to do about it. Over time, I discovered that the positive benefits of working
with
his heightened sensitivity, rather than trying to desensitize him as past trainers had done, instantaneously made him much less violent, more thoughtful, and much happier, and I realized that
space is the place where relationship begins.
Something as simple as physical proximity turned out to be crucial not only to his mental and emotional health but also to my ongoing safety.

In approaching Merlin, I learned to watch for increasing signs of tension. He would raise his neck, begin to pin his ears back, and prepare to either move away or attack. Yet at the moment I saw these signs of physical stress, if I simply
paused, rocked back slightly, and sighed, Merlin would sigh, lick and chew, and relax, avoiding a confrontation. Some trainers recommend turning and walking away to release the pressure; but with Merlin, doing so not only temporarily broke the developing connection, it turned out to be unnecessary. As I was walking toward him, I would simply stop when I saw a stress response and shift my weight from the leg that was moving forward to the leg that was now behind me. As I rocked back, I would sigh, literally breathing out audibly, relaxing my shoulders and solar plexus. As I later realized when I began teaching this technique to doctors and studying its effects with the physiologist Ann Linda Baldwin, the stallion instinctually preferred the “rock back and sigh” protocol for another reason: his tendency to “catch,” or mirror, my sigh activated his parasympathetic nervous system, which calms the body and focuses the mind. (To understand how breathing deeply activates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering stress and allowing clearer thinking as a result, see Guiding Principle 12, in
chapter 24
.)

Eventually, this same “rock back and sigh” protocol motivated him to walk gently, respectfully toward me with an engaged, cooperative attitude — until he got too close to me for his own comfort. I could almost see his blood pressure rise. (Actually, I could feel it in my own body: a buzzing sensation that would steadily intensify.) If I didn't make him back off at that moment, setting a boundary with
him
— for his comfort and my safety — he'd lash out and try to bite me.

Merlin wanted to connect, and he was confused by the overstimulation. Once we found the optimal spatial proximity between us — the place where both of our bodies felt naturally relaxed — his personality changed dramatically. (See
chapter 10
for a more extensive discussion of the unexpectedly fascinating elements involved.)

Through this process, I learned that, contrary to what the mainstream equestrian world still believes, sensing and respecting Merlin's boundaries made him less dangerous. But it
had
to be a two-way street. As a result of this experience, I came up with a boundary rule that works with people too: When I'm approaching the horse (or another person), he or she sets the boundary. When this same horse or person approaches me, I
must
set the boundary.

Both elements were essential to building mutual respect. If I had respected Merlin's need for space without insisting he respect mine, he would have dominated me, which is incredibly dangerous when someone weighs a thousand pounds. But encroaching upon others' space to control or dominate them is also an instinctual tendency in humans. As a result, effective nonverbal protocols for setting and respecting boundaries are similar in both species.

Over the years, I learned to watch for similar cues in people. I noticed that when I hit that bubble of personal space unique to each individual, his shoulders might rise slightly. He might lean backward, look away, blink more often, or hold his breath. People who are more stoic in facial expression often unconsciously twitch their hands or adjust their necks. Others, women especially, are deceptively expressive, actually smiling to release the tension in a socially accepted way — only this type of smile looks forced and might even turn into more of a grimace if you continue to stand too close. These involuntary physical responses to proximity often signal that you're approaching too fast (if you're farther away), or getting too close for comfort if you've reached someone's zone of personal space. If you rock back and sigh at the exact moment you see these cues, however, previously distracted people will often relax, even lean forward. A light seems to come back into their eyes, and they suddenly seem more interested in what you're saying.

The practice of noticing escalating tension in others, rocking back and sighing in response, has become a simple yet surprisingly effective tool in working with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. I've taught this skill to family members and counselors. In equine-facilitated workshops for soldiers and their spouses, wartime trauma survivors realize that often all they really need in order to calm down is a little more space, that their nervous systems, like Merlin's, are hyperaroused.

“Incorporating what I've learned from my Eponaquest experiences
and training is an integral part of my counseling practice, especially when working with military veterans,” says Lauren Loos, a licensed professional counselor who graduated from the Eponaquest apprenticeship program in 2010.

Although there is no substitute for direct equine experiential learning, part of the elegance of Eponaquest's approach to this field is that it's entirely possible to extend the concepts beyond the barn and into my counseling office.

Of great importance to veterans is the concept of the warrior archetype applying to horses as well as people. Drawing that parallel creates an opportunity to relate some very skillful ways of functioning that are demonstrated by horses and herds. By suggesting to human warriors that this majestic and strong being might be a model for processing emotion, veterans may come to view their own experience of emotion as a sign of strength and courage rather than weakness or cowardice. Viewing their
body as “the horse their mind rides around on” [Guiding Principle 2] gives a tangible, tactile suggestion for experiencing the bodily sensations corresponding with emotions. With practice, clients are able to detect even subtle stirrings of their “horse.” They are then better equipped to recognize and experience increases in arousal level with enough wherewithal to get the message their body is giving them and to respond to the message behind the emotion rather than react to avoid discomfort. I have heard more than one warrior proclaim, “If a horse can do it, then so can I!”