A horse whisperer from Harrogate whose work with animals with behavioural problems has been featured by the BBC, Channel 5 and ITV, has turned her attention to the world of business.

Sarah Kreutzer became a household name with her innovative techniques to help horses and their owners overcome communication issues and she believes using her skills to improve the way business leaders communicate with their staff is a natural step forward.

“Businesses are facing challenges they have never had to deal with before with many rebuilding teams and structures following major organisational change,” explains Sarah, a former pupil of renowned US horse whisperer Monty Roberts.

Sarah’s corporate training venture Learning to Listen has already coached teams and leaders from the NHS and big name firms including G4S, Warburtons and London-based recruitment company Addison Fowle.

Her mission is to motivate business leaders to adopt a more holistic approach to business and she believes recession has created a corporate mindset that will allow this depth of change.

“Most employees are giving just 30 per cent of what they’re capable of so by creating an environment for success productivity can be improved dramatically.”

Horses, Sarah explains, offer a perfect example of engagement in practise because their survival instincts make them fully present in the moment.

“A horse will give you its full attention whilst you are engaged with it but as soon as your attention drifts it will start to move away from you. It’s a powerful exercise that increases self awareness.”

Most people who attend Sarah’s courses have never been near a horse before and are understandably nervous but they are introduced to the animals gradually and participants in some of her most intensive leadership programmes have been known to progress from being completely horse shy to triumphantly standing upright on horseback.

Harrogate business coach Hayley Erner of ActionCOACH enrolled six of her clients on Learning to Listen’s leadership training programme and said that although they were all apprehensive about working with horses they came away from the experience having learnt something about themselves and each other.

“When it came to understanding leadership, every single person’s natural tendency bar none was to lead from the front which is something that requires a great deal of effort.

“Once they’d grasped that leading from behind allows them to conserve energy and to see a lot more of what’s going on they recognised where they could improve and reflected this back to what was happening in the workplace.”

Sarah organised a range of activities for the group which included leading horses through water and into horse boxes.

“Once they got the horse moving during an exercise the horse gained its own momentum and was progressing but the interesting thing was that every single person had the tendency to want to keep pushing because of the fear the horse was going to want to stop,” explained Hayley.

“Again that happens in the workplace where there’s a fear to let go and let people get on with their job.”

Chiropractic clinic manager Debbie Shaw was one of those taking part and was anxious when she arrived.

“I’d had a nasty experience with a horse as a child and I was terrified about being around horses but I was also excited because I knew I’d be learning something knew,” she said.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to go near a horse all day but I quickly overcame my fear and found it incredibly useful to observe others and recognise how I reacted to different situations under pressure.

“Sarah was feeding back to us constantly throughout, asking questions and referring what we were doing back to the way we behave in the workplace. She comments and feeds back on every single move you make and helps you to understand how that relates to business.”

Gillian Randisi attended with her husband, Joseph, and said they have both made changes to the way the run their recycling business since undergoing training.

“We started making changes to the way we work immediately. The first thing we did when we got back to work was to talk to the staff to explain their role to them. We understood that it was easy for people to feel frustrated if they hadn’t been told what to do or what is expected of them.

“We have done some goal setting work with the staff and are going to make sure we are behind them, supporting them and giving them the freedom to get on with their jobs.”

Issues identified during training are used to set objectives and when the course is over Sarah usually visits the teams or leaders in their work environments to make sure the agreed aims are being worked towards.

One of her biggest projects involved the entire staff of a failing Middlesbrough school, a process that took almost three months to complete.

She has also run in house team building days and coaching sessions, without the horses, using the same techniques to achieve results.

However, she believes that coming face to face with her horses provides one of the most powerful learning experiences currently available to businesses.

“Horses will give the most honest feedback you have probably ever had and offer participants an incredible insight into their own self-imposed barriers to personal development.”