Missy (photo by Jo-Ann Gerde)
What we finally figured out is the Missy Method. And it applies to conflict behavior in humans, too.
While working with a group of bank executives and managers a few weeks ago I shared the Missy Method for supporting and encouraging more effective conflict and customer service behavior in their teams. This is what I told them:
When there’s a behavior change we’d like to see – whether our own or someone else’s – we tend to focus our attention primarily on that problem behavior. We put our energy there.
With Missy, trying to get her to stop barking consisted of actions like: Loudly calling out Quiet!. Getting up and moving quickly from the room, so she’d follow us out of curiosity and stop barking in the process. Distracting with toys. Working hard to get her attention at all. Instantly starting to play with our other dog, hoping she’d join in. Each of these actions had a bit of success, but we knew we’d lose our sanity long before she gave up barking incessantly.
What did it take? One clicker and the space between barks.
We had to learn to click the minute she paused her barking, to reinforce the behavior we did want. Bark, bark bark, pause — instant click of the clicker and a piece of kibble to reward. It was astounding how quickly she understood and how wide the gap between barks became as we upped the ante — longer pauses before she’d hear the click and get the magic treat.
Today, Missy barks only occasionally, does it for the right reasons (someone is coming to the door, for instance), and stops when we ask her to. And boy does she wag a lot now, too.
It’s not enough to teach staff better conflict resolution skills and repeatedly correct the misses. You’ve got to reinforce the hits, too. You’ve got to click between the barks.
What is a clicker? I've never heard of it?
A clicker is a little gizmo that makes a click sound when you press it. It's used in animal training. Here's some more information on clicker training.
Wonderful example of how to bring about positive behavior change! And it made me smile, too.
yes! I love the reminder to see the good – keep my eyes open for the good – so the negative does not drown me. Thank you.
I liked your site a lot – as it connects the conflict them with the diversity theme, very fruitful I think…but this page is the single and only of your concepts, that I do not agree with and think we are decidedly different from the dog regarding on how lasting motivation is triggered.Daniel Pinks reviews 40 years of research indicating clearly, that carrots and sticks are outdated and should be replaced by autonomy, mastery and purpose… in his book on "Drive" or for a short reasoning see his ted.talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.h…
Regards
Silvie
Thanks for the feedback, Silvie. It's helpful to know what readers take from what I've written.
I'm familiar with Dan Pink's work, have read his books, have seen his TED video. He's a smart, interesting and informed guy whose book "Drive," which you reference, Silvie, is about the importance of intrinsic motivators in the workplace, not just extrinsic motivators like wage increases (I'm saying this for other readers who may not be familiar with Pink).
Perhaps I made it too subtle in my post, but I'm not talking about any of the career motivation things Pink is. Neither am I talking about positive and negative reinforcement (and did not use or discuss negative reinforcement with our rescue pooch featured in this story). I am talking about the behavior that the supervisor focuses on — the behavior that the supervisor will then decide how to motivate. So, I'm talking about something that's "pre" carrot/stick/intrinsic/extrinsic/whatever motivator — I'm interested in helping supervisors consider that there's an alternative to fixing the problem behavior (however they decide to motivate the repair) — there's the space between the barks. I hope that helps you understand my point more clearly.
And while I'm at it, an aside about Pink's recurrent use of the phrase "what science knows" in the TED video: I caution us all to be wary of reductionist thinking when it comes to new information coming our way from neuroscience research. For Pink to use the phrase, "what science knows," is memorable for a speech, yet it suggests that the insights neuroscientists are finding are scientific fact when they'd be more accurately described as, well, insights. "What science suspects" or "What science thinks it knows" would be more accurate, though not as good an attention getter in a speech. It's seductive to want a nice clean permanent answer that says when we do X, people's brains will do Y, but so far the we don't know enough of about the brain to get that. I'm sure Pink knows this and I wish his TED video had cautioned against reductionism instead of feeding it.