Warrick County farm offers horse activities to unify organizational teams
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Organization leaders in the Evansville region searching for a unique team-building experience will find what they’re looking for at Carey Springs Farm in Warrick County. The Elberfeld operation offers professional development and leadership training that includes equine-assisted learning.
Dr. Cathy Carey, founder of CSF Team Dynamics and Leadership Coaching, told Inside INdiana Business interacting with horses allows group members to collaborate in a memorable way.
“It’s your normal team-building activities in a unique venue,” Carey said. “It’s just adding something to make it more interesting. It’s experiential learning. You’re more likely to retain it.”
Carey said most people are familiar with personality assessments such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, CliftonStrengths and Everything DiSC. The farm provides a space to explore the conclusions from those evaluations in an unorthodox setting.
“I can do the boardroom. I can do the classroom. I can do Zoom and the usual assessment activities that you would do,” said Carey. “But what I would like to do is bring in teams. They’ve got their assessment results, and then I’ll custom design activities involving the horses that will allow them to learn more about themselves and more about their team members.”
Teams can participate in a variety of activities with the horses in a barn on the farm. However, none of the tasks involve riding.
“You never get on a horse. They’re all on the ground,” Carey said. “Horses can be so valuable without getting on them. They have personalities. They’re sentient beings. They develop connections. They’re looking for a leader.”
Starting the business
Carey is an economics professor at the University of Southern Indiana. She previously served in various leadership roles including dean of the Romain College of Business at USI and interim dean of the Gordon Ford College of Business at Western Kentucky University.
Carey’s love of horses stems from childhood. However, she didn’t spend much time with horses in adulthood because of her husband’s allergy.
“And then I was given a free horse. So that changed the dynamics. You get a free horse, you buy a farm, and then you buy another horse, and you buy a tractor, and you buy a trailer, and before you know it, you’ve got five horses,” said Carey.
As Carey managed the farm with her husband—whose allergy turned out to be minor—she started thinking about a way to use horses to help people work better as teams.
“I have been on well-constructed teams that get along very well together. And then I’ve been on teams that don’t,” Carey said. “I saw advertisements for [equine-assisted learning] on social media and thought it sounded interesting. I followed up on it and the next thing I know, I’m in St. Louis learning with mustangs how to do equine-assisted learning.”
Carey was certified as an equine-assisted learning facilitator by the EAL Academy in 2023. She also has certificates and is an authorized partner in Everything DiSC and The Five Behaviors.
How equine-assisted learning works
Carey conducts team and leadership workshops at organizations and online in addition to hosting the equine-assisted learning workshops at Carey Springs Farm. Even the horses have been assigned Everything DiSC styles.
“I don’t want to train it out of them because that’s what makes them great for this. They still have personalities. They have attitudes, and they connect with people in different ways. They’re great for this type of work,” said Carey.
Last fall, Brittney McWilliams brought her team from McWilliams Vision Care in Evansville to the farm to do the Everything DiSC Agile EQ program. One of the activities included coaxing a horse into a specific area.
“They couldn’t talk to the horse. They couldn’t use a lead rope. They couldn’t bribe the horse. They just had to build a connection with the horse so that the horse wanted to go with them into the box,” said Carey. “It opens up an opportunity to relate that experience to the workplace. When you get frustrated, when things aren’t going the way you would like, when you’re having trouble connecting with a client. We call it Open to Outcome.”
Some of Carey’s workshops may take up an afternoon while others could be three days long. With each client, she learns about the organization leader’s goals, caters a program to their needs and offers an action plan after the session.
“She put together a whole packet that showed not only where our strengths lie individually, but as a team as well, along with some questions about things we could ask our team that might make meetings better,” said McWilliams.
‘It’s all about communication’
No matter whether a team development workshop is in the office, on the computer or at the farm, Carey said organization leaders share a common goal.
“It’s all about communication and learning how to communicate better. You learn about yourself, you learn about others and then you use that information to build better communication,” she said.
In the Agile EQ program, Carey’s mission was to teach McWilliam’s team how to communicate with each other by stretching their mindsets and expanding their comfort zones.
“The ones that were asked to be assertive, who normally weren’t, said they felt like they were being bossy and that they were being pesky. So we talked about that. Why is being assertive interpreted as being bossy? And how can it not be? It leads to those kind of conversations,” said Carey.
After the farm excursion, McWilliams noticed a difference in one of her employees as a result of the workshop.
“Since we’ve been back to the office, she has been much more verbal. She has voiced her concerns, offered ways we can fix or do something differently,” McWilliams said. “She’s able to step into her role and own what she’s doing and try to make changes for the better.”
McWilliams believes the equine-assisted learning experience also benefited her staff regarding customer service.
“We have to deal with not only each other but all of our patients every day in different emotional states and with different things going on in their lives,” she said. “You can say one thing in a workshop, but then to see it play out in person with the animals is something that hits home a little bit more so than just talking about it.”
For more information about Carey’s team dynamics and leadership coaching, contact Carey Springs Farms online or call 812-549-7536. You can also find the business on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.