Episode 5: Experiential Leadership Development with Ira Morris

In Episode 5 of Let's Talk Leadership, Ian and Ira discuss experiential leadership development using horses.

About Ira:

Ira is an experienced leadership and team facilitator and coach. He works for the Center of Creative Leadership, Mobius Executive Leadership, and runs his own business, Leading By Design. Ira was Regional Head of Leadership and Organisation Development for Genzyme, a leading biotechnology company. At Genzyme, Ira partnered with business and functional leaders across EMEA and Asia Pacific. Prior to moving to the Netherlands, Ira worked as a ‘Managing Psychologist’ for a boutique practice of Business Psychologists in Oxford. He lives in the Hague and enjoys cycling and working with horses.

Transcript:

Ian Sturgess (00:02):

Okay. So welcome. Welcome to Let's Talk Leadership. I'm joined by my friend and colleague Ira Morris here. Hi Ira.

Ira Morris (00:09):

Hi Ian. Good morning. How are you?

Ian Sturgess (00:11):

I'm very good. And thank you so much for joining us today for this session. So we're going to have a short, I say, session, but 10, 15 minutes on a few topics. Now, what do I need to share with the listeners about you? So, you're living in The Hague-

Ira Morris (00:24):

That's right.

Ian Sturgess (00:25):

... Netherlands now with your wife and your two daughters, but you're not originally from that part of the world. I think you were originally from Chicago, is that right?

Ira Morris (00:34):

That's right. Exactly. People never really believe it because they can't really hear it in my accent, but yeah, I was born in Chicago, and then when I was seven, the family and I moved to Berlin. I lived there for a few years, and then we moved to England when I was 12. And now, I've been here-

Ian Sturgess (00:49):

Where exactly in the U.K. were you living? I forget now. Where was that?

Ira Morris (00:51):

Just to the West of London, a little village called Bourne End, which is near Marlow, Maidenhead, High Wycombe, that kind of area.

Ian Sturgess (00:58):

That's nice, the home counties on that corner on that side.

Ira Morris (01:01):

Indeed.

Ian Sturgess (01:01):

Excellent. And you have many interests outside of the work that we do together. We've met through work and client work that we'd done together. But you like a bit of rowing and long-distance cycling, right?

Ira Morris (01:12):

Exactly. Because as you probably know from your experience in the Netherlands, here we have lots of cycle paths that crisscross the country. And so, you can cycle to your heart's content along the coast. It's uninterrupted. It's separate from the road. I enjoy cycling through the dunes sometimes up to a 100 kilometers round trip, and you're on your own and enjoying the fresh air, the view of the sea. So yeah, it's a good way to stay fit and also process experiences during the week and things like that. It's lots of good fun.

Ian Sturgess (01:45):

For you, are you cycling together or on your own mostly?

Ira Morris (01:48):

Well, sometimes with a group of friends. It might be a couple of us, so it's a mix. In the current situation, I try and cycle at least maybe three or four times a week and then one long distance ride at the weekend. Sometimes it's with a friend of mine, sometimes on my own.

Ian Sturgess (02:05):

I'm sure for many people that have more of a long distance hobby, the running or cycling is a meditative type of focus where to process and obviously to be more resilient.

Ira Morris (02:13):

That's right.

Ian Sturgess (02:15):

Thanks for that. The other thing that we have in common, we have children. You have two daughters. What was interesting with my children, they're a little bit older than yours right now, was growing up, I got involved with football as a soccer coach and a soccer referee. But your involvement with your children's pastime, your two daughters, took a different path into horse riding. Is that right?

Ira Morris (02:35):

That's right. Yes. When they were quite small, so five and seven at that time, we took them to the stables. We had a mutual friend who was really into horse riding. They started their horse riding classes, and being very polite and, dare I say, rather British, I talked to the instructor. I said, "Do you also teach adults?" He said, "Sure. How about tomorrow?" I said, "Well, it's okay. Let me think about it." And my wife said, "What a great idea. Why don't we try that?" So, I started a little bit after my children, and we continue to ride to this day. We have lessons once or twice a week at the moment.

Ian Sturgess (03:09):

It's like seven or eight years, right?

Ira Morris (03:11):

That's right.

Ian Sturgess (03:12):

It's been some time now.

Ira Morris (03:12):

Yeah, exactly.

Ian Sturgess (03:13):

Of course, you didn't stop there, right? You saw an opportunity. Tell me about how you went from being a horse rider and enjoying horses with your two daughters to bringing it into our industry, into our world. How did that happen?

Ira Morris (03:26):

Yeah, that's right. There is something very special about horses, and we'll talk about that perhaps in a few moments. I actually joined a webinar through someone based in North Carolina. Her company is called TeachingHorse. She had a webinar back in 2017, and she talked about how she brings horses into her work with individuals and teams to really give them the experience of learning more about themselves, learning more about how they work with each other as an intact team. I thought, wow, that's actually a pretty cool way of working, very experiential and very profound.

Ira Morris (04:03):

I looked into that in terms of, how does one become able to offer such a service as part of a leadership development program? And so, I did some further work at the beginning of 2019, and now I have a couple of clients who I work with.

Ira Morris (04:23):

It's profound in so many different ways. Firstly, I love horses, and my belief about development is really about focusing not only on the cognitive, for example, building skills, although that's clearly very important, but really developing somebody at a holistic level, so cognitive, emotional, somatic, and spiritual as well to some extent.

Ian Sturgess (04:46):

My sister, she did some horse riding years ago, and I was really scared when I was younger, and I was looking up at these huge horses. I have a scar on my head where I was in a stables, and my sister was about to have some coaching and training, and the horse kicked the door. It was almost like the horse sensed that I was scared. I turned, and I just caught my head on a little bit of metal.

Ira Morris (05:10):

Oh, that's pitiful.

Ian Sturgess (05:11):

But it was interesting because I was clearly showing up as somebody who was not comfortable. I know I was scared, if you like, of these horses. I'm sure the horse could sense that. And this is part of this process, right? You talk about affinity, I think, if that's the right term, and also the way you show up, your attention, your focus and your being, your state of being, and a horse can sense that.

Ira Morris (05:36):

They can sense it very well. And I think that's part of their beauty, part of their power. People might ask, "What does it mean to be coached when working with horses? What does that look like?" And the first thing to say is that you're not actually riding the horse, you're on the ground, alongside the horse. And so, as you say, they are very impressive, very large animals. There's something about, for many people, a sense of trepidation. It's quite a grand animal. A lot of people have some degree of anxiety or some concern about being in their presence.

Ira Morris (06:09):

And because they're what we call herd animals, it means they're very social, they're used to being with other horses. But also, their prey animals, so that means that they collectively need to really pay attention to their environment. They have highly attuned antennae that detect signals in their environment to ensure that they're safe and that there's a sense of harmony in the herd of horses. It doesn't mean there's not competition for leadership amongst the herd, but those qualities are very powerful, very effective, when we bring individuals and teams to work with horses.

Ira Morris (06:47):

Because if someone is anxious, as you say from your own experience, they'll pick that up. But we talk about that in terms of congruence. Is your internal energy aligned with your external behavior? And if there's discrepancy, the horse without judgment, this is also part of their power in terms of helping us grow as individuals and leaders, they will give you that feedback. Because they're not censoring their feedback, they have no need to, and they're doing it in service of their own needs as well. How you show up is very much mirrored by the horses.

Ian Sturgess (07:24):

Is that a big element of trust? It's a good way to illustrate trust. Because if you don't trust yourself in this moment, but you say something which would indicate that you are strong, powerful, or very convinced about a course of action, if the horse doesn't buy that for whatever reason, instinctively, they just won't follow you. You won't be able to get them to do anything, or they won't choose to do anything, whatever you do, right? You have to-

Ira Morris (07:50):

Exactly. It's exactly right. I think, as leaders, this is where it has applicability to our everyday life. We have to think about, why is it interesting for the horse to follow me? In organizations, one can use role authority. You have to follow the boss. But we know that's not the most effective way of doing it. But when we think about the horse, you've got really two things you're focusing on. One is connecting with the horse. How do we know when we connect with a horse, or how do we know when we connect with someone else? And then also, we try and lead the horse. Again, you're on the ground. You're not using any lead ropes. You're encouraging the horse to follow you. It has to be interesting for the horse, so we often focus on rewarding the horse by saying, "That's a good boy," as opposed to "Come one, come on." And the horse then will respond if you can create an environment where the horse thinks, "Oh, this is also interesting for me to follow you."

Ian Sturgess (08:45):

So there's connection. There's some affection as well, I guess.

Ira Morris (08:48):

Yes.

Ian Sturgess (08:50):

Now, didn't you tell me a story, I forget if you were out walking, and you met, was it a wild horse or a horse in another field somewhere that you built a connection with?

Ira Morris (08:58):

Exactly.

Ian Sturgess (08:58):

In the moment kind of thing?

Ira Morris (09:00):

Yeah, that's right. I was there with my riding instructor with whom I also do this equine-assisted coaching work. We were thinking about, how do we support leaders in the current situation with COVID-19? And so, we're in the field with the horses that belong to the stables where we do our work, and they have a new horse that they've just recently purchased. And for some unknown reason, the horse approached me, and there was something about affinity. There is that sense of mystery. Like, why is there that connection? And we know with colleagues and with friends, we connect more with some and less with others. There's no real obvious explanation for that. There's an affinity which just happens almost magically in some ways.

Ira Morris (09:48):

I think then the other point to add to that would be this point about attention. How do we work with horses where we don't have that natural affinity? The horse will detect whether we are noticing the horse or not. And also the question is even before that, are we noticing what's going on for us personally? Do I really want to connect with this horse, or am I feeling distracted, or do I sense there's maybe even a bit of competition with the horse? How do we find some congruence, some alignments, even if there isn't that natural affinity? This is all the kind of things that we would cover in a workshop. People really learn for themselves, what does it mean to tend to me as a person, not only in my head, but also in my body? This is what I mean about doing work in a somatic level.

Ira Morris (10:42):

I know with some sessions I've run in the past, where someone really wanted this to work because they're there with their colleagues, they're probably feel a bit self-conscious of being observed. They're very much in their head: Okay, the horse will follow me. I want the horse to follow me. And yet it's not happening.

Ira Morris (10:57):

We invite the person to really reflect on a time from the past where they're really in a state of flow. So, think about a time either at work or outside of work, when you were just totally absorbed in what you were doing. Now, recall that moment, viscerally. Put yourself back into that situation. Now connect with a horse and see what happens.

Ira Morris (11:22):

And then oftentimes what we noticed is that the horse will then follow that individual. They go from being in their head to being in their body, and as we said earlier, the horse will detect that, that sense of alignment, that sense of I can identify with you as someone I want to follow. That's very, very powerful for the individual.

Ian Sturgess (11:43):

Imagine I'm on a program then where you and I have designed it. We'll come to how we sell this to clients in a moment, because I'm sure you're an innovator, you like working with entrepreneurs, these smart leaders who embrace different ways. But if I'm a participant, and I've been through a process like this, or I'm going through it, of course, I could say at the end, "Well, all right, I'd work with horses. I'm not with any stables. I don't run that sort of business. I'm not into racing. And how does this apply to me in the workplace?" I can start to see some connections, but how do you position it to make it totally applicable to colleagues, clients, stakeholders?

Ira Morris (12:17):

Yeah, it's a great question. I think the most important place to start really with your question there, we invite people to think about a question they want to address. Now the link between the question of the horses might not be obvious at first, and equally, we can ask people to think about a particular challenge that they're dealing with. So for example, recently I worked with a leadership team at a university, and their challenge was, hey, we're all doing our own work individually. The five of us, we're not really connected as a team. Our challenge is, how do we work more closely with each other? And how do we have an agenda in the university so we're not only a support function, but we can promote what we're doing? That was the presenting question. And then, we create a series of exercises, both individual and team, where people explore that particular question.

Ira Morris (13:09):

And, I think, a bit like yourself, we rely on different theories or models or frameworks of leadership. So it's not without some input. We might give a very simple model of leadership and invite people to think about, where do you feel you are on this model? And what is it you want to practice? For this group, it was really about their sense of leadership, their sense of vision, and also the sense of connection with one another. That's how you start. And then, you design the exercises accordingly to link to their challenge.

Ian Sturgess (13:43):

It's nice, isn't it? Because that's causing you and your colleagues that work on these topics to be more creative as well about, hmm, how do we help in this situation? Because we know this typically works, but how can we make it work?

Ian Sturgess (13:55):

How do you sell this to some of the people? In our business, we are not selling to the people who are enjoying the programs that we run, whether you have the horse element in terms of learning or not, but we're selling to people who obviously have the budgets. They can be a bit more cynical to say, "Well, prove to me this works." How do you convince or influence? How do you do that?

Ira Morris (14:16):

It's a great question. I think a lot of people are afraid of this, to be honest with you. I know of teams where they're very keen to do this work, but the leader didn't support the idea. Although this was never really expressed as such, and it's only a hypothesis, it could be wrong on this point, it involves being willing to show yourself, show who you are in front of your colleagues. That's the starting point. And are you up for really putting yourself in a position where how you show up will be mirrored by the horse, the good, the bad, and the ugly, as it were?

Ian Sturgess (14:56):

So, real vulnerability then.

Ira Morris (14:56):

Real vulnerability, yes. And I think that's where the learning comes from. I think that's the first thing to say. The second thing is, although a lot of work that you and I do is very much classroom-based, and so on and so forth, this goes obviously, by definition, out of the classroom. If you work with leaders and they say, "We've done some really good classroom learning. We want to try something a little bit different, something quite profound, something very experiential," that's something that can appeal to individuals.

Ira Morris (15:27):

I think the proof is in the pudding. For skeptics, I guess, what gives them some reassurance is that we say that we are facilitators first and horse people second. It's a matter of choice. Some people might prefer to work with those providers who are horse people first and facilitators second. That's really a choice that one would make. But we emphasize our experience of being in leadership roles and supporting leaders in organizations, and this is an additional provision that we can offer or additional service.

Ira Morris (16:00):

And I think it's starting small. Just start maybe with a half-day session. Get a feel for it. It's becoming a little bit more mainstream, I think.

Ian Sturgess (16:10):

It's funny, isn't it, these alternative medicines, if you like, to relieve the leadership illness that we're all trying to deal with? And in fact, we have a session plan where myself and some colleagues were going to sample this. It would be really interesting to maybe come back in a future session, Let's Talk Leadership, having me had the experience. We can come back to these points. I think it would be lovely to see that. And I'm looking forward to having a go myself. So, thank you for that.

Ian Sturgess (16:37):

One last thing, as we wind up. As we prepared for this chat, you spoke about the concept of smart leaders. You enjoy working with smart leaders. Let's finish on that. How would you define a smart leader?

Ira Morris (16:50):

Yeah. I'm not quite sure why I have that interest, but I know that I do. I guess it's because I have a background in biotech. I'm used to working with medics who are PhDs, surgeons, MBAs, so very, very cerebral, very bright people who are creating cutting-edge medical solutions, therapeutics, etc., etc. I also enjoy working in the tech sector, so people who create software for autonomous vehicles, for example, as part of their mission at the moment. I enjoy working with those people because they're trying to solve very complicated problems, and they're very committed to that endeavor.

Ira Morris (17:32):

I think where this comes in is to complement their skills in solving very complex problems, to help them deal with issues and challenges in managing a team of people, managing the organization. It's smart in terms of intellect, in terms of smarts, in terms of cognitive skills, and this complements what they focus on in terms of their skill sets. That makes them more well-rounded, I think, as individuals. And it's sometimes where they find life's a bit more challenging. How do I motivate people who are very different to me? How do I make sense of ambiguity? Those kinds of complex problems that they have to deal with in everyday life, that's something I find very interesting.

Ian Sturgess (18:18):

And it's, of course, very relevant in the world that we're living in today, as we're transitioning into all the aftereffects of what's creating this distance between us. These learnings from the horse experience, working with intelligent people, but they're struggling in some more of these complex environments right now. This chaos that we're living in, it's a challenge, right?

Ira Morris (18:39):

Exactly. Very much so. And I think when you work with the horses, it's actually very exhausting by the time you've finished, because it's touched you not only at a cerebral or cognitive level but touched your heart and your body. I've had this experience as a participant but also as a facilitator. I see how tired people are. It's a satisfied feeling of tiredness as opposed to feeling spent or exhausted.

Ira Morris (19:01):

But when we talk about transformation, I think things shift when you're just simply in the presence of horses, and you're really in touch with your whole being as you connect with a horse and you try and lead. Things shift through that experience. And what's important as well, just to finish with maybe, it's free of judgment. There's no right or wrong. It doesn't matter if you can't do the exercise with the horse. It's more about, what are you noticing, and what are your colleagues noticing about you in the spirit of curiosity and compassion? I think which is really [crosstalk 00:19:34].

Ian Sturgess (19:34):

A great mindset and a mind shift maybe.

Ira Morris (19:37):

Yep.

Ian Sturgess (19:37):

I'm curious. Now, if you go back to the beginning of the talk today, we started this with your involvement with horses and horse riding some seven or so years ago. Your daughters were learning to ride. Did they find it easier to ride and to connect with horses than you or the other way around?

Ira Morris (19:52):

Yes. Thanks for the question. They did. And simply because they don't think about it. That's the beauty. I think as adults, when we learn, and we obviously continue to learn, that's what we find in our profession, we often rely on our cognitive skills. And for younger people, when they're learning to ride horses, they feel it. My riding instructor says to me, "Feel your connection with the horse, don't think about it." It doesn't mean you should not think. Of course, you should. It's more about being well-rounded. So, the girls are naturally more skilled already as horse riders than I ever will be, which is great for them.

Ian Sturgess (20:30):

Well, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing your passions, giving us your insights. We will have part two once I've had the pleasure of working with you and the team to experience it myself. But for now, thank you so much, Ira. It's been a pleasure.

Ira Morris (20:40):

Thanks, Ian. Enjoyed the conversation. It was very...

Ian Sturgess (20:42):

Look forward to the next time. Thanks for your time and your efforts. Thank you.

Ira Morris (20:45):

Pleasure, yeah. Okay. Wish you well. Take care.