HORSE SENSE
FOR PEOPLE
MONTY ROBERTS
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers as Join-Up: Horse Sense for People in 2000
Copyright © Monty Roberts 2000, 2001
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780006531616
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007381869 Version: 2016-02-26
To those thousands of people who have come to me and said “You must give us the human version of the concept of Join-Up.”
It took almost my business lifetime to begin to understand the tremendous power that can be leveraged when people’s individualism, creativity and wisdom are unleashed.
In recent years there has been a growing appreciation of enlightened forms of leadership that seek to engage, involve and inspire, as opposed to the long-standing practices of “direct and control.”
Meeting Monty Roberts and absorbing his philosophy was a really magical moment for me—I am inspired by his beliefs and impressed by his actions. He clearly demonstrates that kindness and respect for the horse are superior to the traditional breaking of the animal’s spirit. Monty’s notion that the teacher (or leader) must create an environment in which the student can learn and grow is simple, direct and honest—it fit perfectly with a style of leadership that I have been experimenting with since the early eighties.
Monty Roberts certainly listens to horses but, in my humble opinion, he delivers a powerful message to people and, in particular, people at all levels of leadership. What he achieves with a horse is a metaphor for a style of management—employees will produce exceptional results if they are treated with dignity, respect and honesty.
In the world of organizations and business we make the mistake of putting people in boxes and limiting their abilities and creativity—we need to find a means of changing the way people think about themselves, their jobs and how they work as individuals and in teams. I suggest you couldn’t start anywhere better than this book.
CLIVE WARRILOW
Volkswagen North America
CEO and President
I am not usually to be found kicking up the sawdust of a riding ring, especially if it means taking a long drive to get there. My encounters with horses have been limited to having them step on my feet on hot summer camp mornings nearly forty years ago. As an adult, I look at them as not much more than a one-horse power motorcycle with a mind for unpredictability. I once spent a ludicrous amount of money to ride a horse named “Cheesehead” while I looked, dry-mouthed, down a thousand-foot drop in Yosemite National Park convinced that my mount was more interested in biting the rear end of the horse in front of me than concentrating on his footing. I have never grasped why so many people, including gaggles of little girls, have such a big thing for these creatures of tonnage that can decide to run like a demented rabbit just because a piece of paper blows across the trail.