Join-up: Horse Sense for People

Join-Up describes the way that Monty Roberts invites horses to join with him willingly, how he encourages co-operation. "During Join-Up I never force the saddle or bridle on the horse - instead I provide an environment in which the horse willingly decides to allow itself to be saddled and eventually ridden. The horse takes responsibility for its actions and the whole process is both more effective, speedier and more positive than that used by traditional horsemen. ... Choice is equally as important to human beings...." (p.197)

"It seemed to me, as I watched my father and other traditional horse trainers work, that their entire focus was on telling the horse that he had no choice, on subduing him into an unequal working relationship." (p.xvii)

We communicate before we put things into words. A large part of the book concentrates on explaining why non-verbal communication is so important to us in all our activities: in our family relationships, in our working lives. It is the responsibility of the person with the most power to gain the trust of those with less power: be it parent to child or manager to employee. Roberts illustrates this by discussing his work with horses as prey animals.

Roberts uses examples of his work with horses to illustrate his observations of human interaction and takes us away from our usual ways of seeing and experiencing events (where we may not always be able to see the wood for the trees). We hear of the wild mustang mare which connected with him so quickly that she 'protected' him from what she perceived to be a terrible threat. We learn about the horse's advance and retreat communication process. We understand and empathise with those stories and then are guided to transfer our learning to human-to-human communication, being provided with metaphors from the equestrian world.

"If I could take every corporate executive and put him or her through a few sessions in the round pen with a horse, their understanding of trust would be elevated to such an extent that they would go back into the workplace with a whole new confidence. They would also give more importance to what goes on in the lives of their colleagues, both inside and outside their workplace." (p.98)

On the one hand, the academic in me wants to see rigorous research methods employed, not only one man's stories and interpretations. On the other hand, the horse owner in me respects the work of Monty Roberts and his groundbreaking and sensitive techniques with horses, his study of their non-verbal communication, forcing himself to interpret horses, encouraging them to trust him. His work started with keen observation of the horses, noting how they communicated together, learning as much as he could from them, moving on to a more participant observation where he made contact with the horses and interacted with them, all the time "listening" with his eyes to the language of their bodies, noting their responses, all the time building up his stock of knowledge and understanding, all the time learning from the horses.

"There is no such thing as teaching, only learning. Knowledge cannot be pushed into a brain; it must be willingly drawn in to the brain by the recipient." (p.62)

We as humans, too, communicate non-verbally. It seems the words we use are only a small part of the communication process, but all too often we give all our attention to the actual words we use. Only infrequently do we become aware of the effect of our tone of voice and our body language. If our words say one thing, but everything else we do contradicts our words, then our credibility is lost and we are trusted less.

This book shows us how a horse's previous experiences affect his present behaviour and we are shown how this is also true of humans. Managers can learn from this: "Abused people need much convincing before they are willing to trust again." (p.106)

"If company policy relies more on a big stick than a big carrot it tends to erode trust. If the messages handed down to employees are confused or hard to discern it equally erodes trust. The enlightened executive who identifies elements of distrust within his corporate family should take swift action to remove that influence from his team." (p.97)

We are given some concrete examples of Monty Robert's suggestions for parents communicating with their children, such as 'the blackboard system' which he recommends for dealing with children's behaviour. "The primary objective of this system is to bypass the parent as the administrator of discipline or punishment. It sets up a contract whereby child and parent bilaterally agree on the response to positive or negative behaviour...." (pp.145-6). We are provided with several examples of how people have successfully implemented this system.

I am left wanting such concrete examples for business-people, too and I would love to hear exactly how the corporations he mentions designed and implemented changes to their business methods.

"No one has the right to say, 'You must or I will hurt you.' To any creature, animal or human." (p.xviii)


As good as The Man Who Listens to Horses   November 8, 2000
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

If you liked The Man Who Listens to Horses, I'm sure you'll love this. I think that Monty Roberts is a great storyteller - and this is full of great stories. It's not at all a 'new age' book: Monty Roberts just shows how well his horse gentling technique works in human relationships, passing on the lessons he's learned about communication. Some of the stories moved me to tears. It's the sort of book I'd like to give to every bullying teacher or parent or boss.