Eliminate Sour Arguments and Petty Attitudes in the Barn Aisle
By: Doug Emerson, The Profitable Horseman
A peaceful barn atmosphere is a common goal of boarding, lesson and training facility owners. Nothing takes the fun out of owning your own business faster than sour attitudes and petty arguments. Summer heat and high humidity add substantially to the potential for disagreements. If you operate a boarding, lesson, or training barn and haven’t had customer vs. customer conflicts, you probably also say you’ve never fallen off a horse, too.
When horses have disagreements with each other and don’t get along, a different stall or pasture mate generally solves the conflict. You wish it was that easy to make peace when customer vs. customer conflicts erupt and when boarders or students live by their own selfish rules instead of the rules of cooperation and respect.
Resolving conflict may require the job skills of human relations counselor, peace negotiator, and even benevolent dictator. There has to be an easier way.
Since sending the feuding parties to their rooms for a time-out isn’t an option, a strong set of barn rules can be a solution for promoting harmony between everyone. However, a strong set of barn rules is not a numbered list of 137 Don’ts to cover every conceivable problem. This type of complicated document tacked on the bulletin board is most likely as readable as an insurance policy.
What you really need is an approach to tell boarders and students, in a nice way, that the barn family, like any functioning family, has rules to be followed for the benefit of all. In search of a nice way to do this, a few years ago, the answer appeared to me in a flash as I was sorting through my pile of old books destined for new homes. Author Robert Fulghum’s manifesto on the back cover of his book almost mugged me for attention.
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum, copyright 1986, is old enough to be new again. There’s no getting around it; People have conflicts with others from time to time and Fulghum has some great advice. The book is a masterpiece of simplicity and has a solution on the back cover for most of the problems people create between each other.
You might want to adapt some of his philosophy and post it as your barn rules inspired by “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
Here is the core of Fulghum’s philosophy:
#1- Play Fair
#2- Don’t Hit People
#3- Put Things Back Where You Found Them
#4- Clean Up Your Own Mess
#5- Don’t Take Things That Aren’t Yours
#6- Say Your Sorry When You Hurt Somebody
Simplicity always trumps complexity. If your barn rules aren’t working, Fulghum’s approach may be worth a try. This list of six maxims applies to life in general. I guarantee you’ll get a positive response from your students when using this philosophy. It takes everyone back to a time when life was much easier to understand and fun was the norm, not the exception.
That’s all for now. I’m off to follow his advice: “warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, and take a nap every afternoon.”
Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Visit his website: www.ProfitableHorseman.com for more articles like this one and to subscribe to his free electronic newsletter about being profitable in the horse business.
