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ABA Inside Track
Episode 1019 - (SUPERVISION) OOPS! Book Club (feat. Dr. Judy Agnew)
02:17:17
To celebrate the end of Supervision September, we’ve got an all new Book Club episode! And it’s available for everyone RIGHT NOW! We celebrate the life and work of Aubrey Daniels by checking off all of the supervision mistakes one can make as we...
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey Everybody. Welcome to ABA InsideTrack, the podcast that's like reading in your car but safer. I'm your host, Robert Perry Crews and we have so many people who'll be joining us shortly. But before that, we're just going to do a little introduction here. Now most of you know it is so Supervision September, meaning all episodes on supervision and super every supervision September. For at least the past number of years we have done a supervision book club that has gone out to everyone. Usually our book clubs are exclusive to our patrons. Then eventually we release them to the free feed. However, for supervision, we just want everyone to get access to these book clubs. This is what our book clubs are usually like. Get a taste of that and also enjoy two more hours of content all about supervision that we cram into September because we don't always have four episodes in September. So this month, this year, I should say we are going to be discussing Aubrey Daniels book Oops 13 Management Practices that waste Time and money and what to do. Instead. We're very fortunate in that to start this episode we're actually going to have an interview that I did with Dr. Judy Agnew who works at Aubrey Daniels International. Unfortunately, Dr. Daniels passed away last March, so he certainly wasn't available to be on the show. However, we spoke to Dr. Agnew who was kind enough to come on on to talk about Dr. Daniels work and his legacy in the field of organizational behavior management and behavior analysis. That will lead off our discussion of the book Oops. Now we talked about Dr. Daniel's books before. We talked about bringing out the best in people on a previous book club, but we really enjoyed this one as kind of a nice real intro. I think we talked a little bit about that. It's an intro to the idea of organizational behavior management and gives you a lot of actionable steps you can do to up your supervision and game. So without any further ado, we are going to go to the interview that we had talking about Dr. Daniels and the work at Aubrey Daniels International and generally the state of organizational behavior management with Dr. Judy Agnew. All right. I am here talking with Dr. Judy Agnew about her experience working with Dr. Aubrey Daniels and her experience in the field of OBM as it relates to kind of our discussion of, you know, supervision practices that we're doing this month on the show. So Judy, thank you so much for, for taking the time to kind of come on and discuss Dr. Daniels, his legacy, his work with us. We really appreciate it.
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B
Yeah, happy to do it. Thanks for Asking, of course.
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A
Now, would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit about yourself as a professional in, in your work in the field of obm?
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C
Sure, sure.
- [02:45]
B
So, well, by training, I'm a behavior analyst. I have PhD in in psychology and really joined ADI right out of graduate school, which was, I don't know why they hired me, but anyway, I guess they saw something potential. Anyway, so I've been with Aubrey Daniels for 34 years, so my entire career with the company.
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A
Wow. Yeah, that's. And I was, I was looking at the ADI at the ADI website. I know you do a lot of work with sort of safety, safety skills. Is that, is that still kind of a focus or you sort of have to do a little bit of everything in obm?
- [03:19]
B
Yeah, yeah, you do have to do a little bit of everything. I mean, historically, ADI didn't start in safety. They the start really was in the textile industry. They were having a lot of absenteeism and turnover and that sort of thing. So that's kind of where I think he Aubry sort of got going in terms of the application in business. ADI has always historically worked on, you know, whatever a client's interested in. You know, our expertise is human performance. You want to improve quality, we can help with that. You want to improve productivity, we can help with that. In probably 20, 25 years ago, behavior based safety became popular. And so we, you know, we had always been doing safety. If a client said, look, we got an issue with safety, we were always working on that and kind of had evolved a behavior based safety system. But anyway, that whole movement really brought behavior analysis to the forefront, of course, which has largely been a good thing, although not without some problems, but. And so our work really started getting more and more safety focused where we just were getting a lot of requests for safety work because people knew about behavior based safety. And you know, so, so for me, I started off doing, my first project was a quality project. I've done lots of various things, customer service, et cetera. But really for the last probably 20 years, most of my time has been spent on safety. And then I'm now heading up, so I'm senior vice president of safety solutions for adi and that continues to be a big chunk of our work is safety.
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A
Now just, I know it's a little off, off topic, but I kind of want to talk a little bit about behavior based safety. I mean, even in like Dr. Daniel's books, like a little bit in bringing out the best in people, but certainly in the one that, you know, we'll Be discussing more, you know, with my other hosts. Oops. There. There is that sort of view of when you're pinpointing, it really has to be like a holistic pinpoint in which you're sort of including those components of. It can't just be quality. It's got to be quality plus safety plus the customer service. When you're talking about behavioral safety, is that really just focusing on the safety components, or is that. Is it that same idea of it's no good to be safe if you're not actually producing anything valuable? You kind of have to do it all? Or is it more specific than that?
- [05:34]
B
Yeah, I mean, I would say the overarching position is that, you know, what we're looking for is safe production. Right. And Aubrey was always big on saying that we have to. We have to run a business. Right. So there's a practicality there. But, you know, I don't think. We certainly don't work with any clients where they would forsake production, et cetera, for safety. I mean, it's. We're always sort of battling the other direction just to try to bring safety up on par with what. What I will say is, you know, as we bring behavior analysis to our clients, which is a big part of what we try to do, we're very much about educating our clients. And they very quickly see this isn't just about safety. This is how to manage behavior, and it can apply to everything. And so very often they do start with safety, but then they expand and start using it for whatever.
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A
Oh, that must be a good feeling when. When there's a generality to the. To the work you're doing in just one area, and then it starts permeating the rest of the business culture. That's. Wow.
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B
Yeah. And that's always our goal. It's kind of interesting how people see it, but it's hard for them to make that leap sometimes. But least they see it. And we know. And we certainly know people are using it at home because they tell us all the time they've been to our workshop, and they started using it at home with their kids, and they see the power of it. So that's always good to hear as well.
- [06:55]
A
Oh, that's. That's great. So I. I want to talk a little bit about Dr. Daniels, sort of as an individual. I. I did have the chance to see him speak in person at an early Massachusetts ABA conference. Oh, boy. This would have been a long, long time ago, I think. I think it was around the publication of. Of. Of the oops. The 13 kind of supervision strategies. It was like 10, it might have been, you know, I, I had. We, we, we. I was able to get a copy of the book signed for my father in law who worked in, he's. He's retired now, but he worked in, in the kind of the, the wood treatment industry for a long time and my wife had given him a copy of Bringing out the Best in People. He sent us a copy saying I'd used what was in this book and I got a big promotion and so he, he inscribed it for, for us. And then I thought, oh, I'm going to get him a copy signed by Dr. Daniels and WHO was so sweet, he was so nice. I loved his talk. I still remember some of the components of it even for like some modern, you know, almost 20 years later now kind of work issues that you know, are in the news. But I didn't ask him to ever sign a book for me, which I was always very sad about because I never had the chance. So I keep thinking I might swap my copy of Oops out for my father in law's but that seems a little, a little crummy. But certainly what I remember is how well spoken he was on business. He seems so approachable even though he was like, you know, a big name at this smaller conference at the time was one of the earlier conferences and when you read his books, there's such a distinctive voice in them. There's a real kindness, there's a real sense of. While we might be able to have sort of fun at some of the silly situations that businesses end up in, we're not making fun of the business people. We're really here to support individuals. And he seems very worker focused, you know, just the capital of human beings. I gotta ask, was he really this amazingly kind and nice and thoughtful in every day to day interaction?
- [08:48]
B
Yes, he was. He was just a delightful human being and you know, kind interested, always interested. Like he, he would, you know, love to talk to people. After talk, you know, people just swarm up to talk to him and I mean he would have stayed there all day. We would often have to like pull on his arm and say Aubrey, you got a flight, you gotta go. You know, and he, he loved to talk to people. He, he was always interested in, in any stories. He loved to hear how people might have used it, you know, in their work or at home or whatever. Yeah, just a lovely human being. Funny. And you know, to your point, he had to me the magic of Aubrey was he could take the Science of behavior analysis, which we all know and love, that can be dry and, and can be off putting right to. To people. And he just had this way of talking about it in a way that was compelling, funny, enlightening. And he never made people feel like, oh my gosh, you know, I've been so stupid.
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C
You know, he. It was always like.
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B
It was always like he could let have people sort of go, yeah, I kind of always thought that, you know, so he brought them along in a way that made them feel good, made them feel, you know, validated, so to speak, and, but. But really change their minds about things. That was, it was magical to watch him do that.
- [10:15]
A
Every time I read one of his, his books, and I've certainly only read kind of. I haven't read any of like the textbook lengths one, you know, like, I haven't really performance management or any of the really, really big ones because I'm not an OBM practitioner. However, every time I read once, I think, you know, measure of a leader and certainly, oops, now I do feel like I've. Now that I've read this book, I think I'm ready. I know it's not ethical because I haven't been trained in it, but I feel like I'm ready to practice obm. You know, I hope Microso calls me because I got all the answer.
- [10:45]
B
Yeah. And you know, we get a lot of calls from people who say that. They say, I read the book, I tried something, and very often they're successful, you know, in a small way, but, you know, I mean, guess it's good for us, for business, that they can't just go out and do it. It's because, of course, it's always more complex. Right. I mean, the thing about behavior analysis is on the surface, the principles seem simple. Right. Use more positive reinforcement to get the behaviors. You want simp. Yeah, but it's not. So anyway. Yeah, and. And I think that was, that was his goal. He doesn't want to put people off. He doesn't want to make it sound so complicated that they say, I can't do all this. You know, he was very much about shaping, let's get people started and using it and then get them interested in learning more.
- [11:30]
A
Oh, I mean, I, I certainly. I'm always fascinated by obm. I think I have like two careers that if I quit, I work in, in schools myself. But if I were like, you know what? That's enough. I don't care about education anymore. OBM is like really at the top of my Like, I kind of, I wish I'd learned more. I wish I'd done some business classes. I could jump, you know, maybe get some mentorship, see what's going on. You know, work at a place like ADI is kind of my, like, second, my second. It's probably not going to be a second career because by the time I get there, you know, a little, little late to start something brand new, but so fascinating.
- [12:00]
B
Yeah, it is. And it's, you know, one of the fun things about it is it's a different company every time. Right. So, you know, we certainly work in some industries a lot, but every company is different. And so it's, it is very interesting. And of course, meeting lots of people and dealing with different situations that it's always entertaining.
- [12:22]
A
Now I'm always curious because I know, you know, certainly I've, I've looked like the ADI site and I know that there have been some, like, really great time. I think there was a timeline either I got from ADI or an old ADI website of like, behavior analysis, which you wouldn't think an OBM company, a consulting company would have, but it's very informative. I'm curious, did Dr. Daniels ever talk about sort of his, like, lifetime process of how he went from teaching psychology, teaching behavioral science into and now OBM consultation? Because on the one hand, you're right, it does use so many of those key components, but on the other, it feels like such a huge shift and change.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Well, he was shaped into it. He, he doesn't, didn't have formal training in behavior analysis. He was trained as a clinical psychologist, and he started working in the Georgia Mental Health Institute, you know, setting up token economies. He, he, he, he. I don't exactly know how he was exposed to behavioral principles and tools, but he was, and he started using them in his work there. And then he got this grant with somebody else to do some work helping people. They called them hardcore unemployed people get jobs and used the principles there and then discovered that once they got the job, the supervisors weren't really dealing with them very well. So then he started turning his attention to, well, hey, wait a minute, we can use this with supervisors. And sort of evolved from there. And so I think it was really the power of behavior analysis and just using it in a variety of settings. And then he would, I remember him telling stories about this, just how even in the mental hospital when he would have these token economies, the problem was not patients, it was the staff. Right. Getting the staff to do what they needed to do. And so I think, you know, sort of right from those early stages, he could see that, you know, the people who are managing are the ones you really gotta spend a lot of time focusing on because they set the context for what it, what the people are going to do, whether it's patients or employees.
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A
Okay, so. So it just sort of the natural progression of, well, let me solve this problem. Hey, wait, that wasn't actually the problem. And over time, you find yourself the head of a worldwide recognized OBM consulting company. Okay.
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B
Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, it was a windy path, I think. But you know what?
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C
What?
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B
He was always very evidence based, science based, so. And he was constantly reading the literature, not just, you know, in his later years and wasn't just reading job, he was reading literature from a variety of sources. And so all of that always informed him. And so he was always adjusting the way he talked about things and looked at things based on all of his research.
- [15:14]
A
Wow. I'd love to talk a little bit about impact, you know, specifically of, of Dr. Daniels and the work of ADI, but, but certainly we could talk, you know, more specific, more broadly about obm. I mean, do you, as someone who's been a, you know, veteran of, of the field for, for so many years now, do you see like OBM having had, and Dr. Daniel's work having had, you know, an impact on how businesses have changed in a way that it's, it's like, hey, you look at businesses 30 years ago, it is a sea change. You know, what, what we're seeing right now, are there like any, you know, standout shifts that you noted?
- [15:46]
B
Yeah, and I would say definitely in safety, and I'll talk about that in a second. But I think generally, and I can't, you know, it wouldn't just be Aubrey who's done this, but I can tell you, when I started 34 years ago, when we use the word behavior in a business setting, we had to say. Now when I say behavior, I don't, you know, I know y' all think it just, it's about kids. Kids behave. We had to literally explain that, you know, adults in a business setting also behave. Clearly that's not the case anymore. Behaviors become mainstream. People are talking about behavior. You see a lot more, you know, applications of behavior analysis, but, but variations on those themes out there. So I think, yes, there's been that impact. I would also say there's been a much better understanding of positive reinforcement, which, you know, Aubrey was a huge champion of. Right. So I think people better understand what that is and how important it is in a business setting, in safety. There has absolutely been a sea change. You know, 30 years ago, if somebody got hurt, then the company would say, well, we trained you, you had all the PPE and you chose to do it the wrong way. So it's your fault you got hurt and we're going to fire you or discipline you or whatever now. And some organizations still do that. But, but most have come a long way to say, okay, if we trained you and gave you the equipment and you knew what to do and you didn't do it, what is it that we as leaders fail to do to set you up to be successful? So that transition, it's taken 30 years, that, that transition is, is really taken hold. And again, you know, we can't say that's purely Aubrey or purely Adi. There's been a lot of voices in that. But, but to me that's been a, that's been a huge impact in business that will persist.
- [17:45]
A
Oh, well, that, I mean that is good to hear because I, I do, I do find most of the time if I'm reading stories about business these days, it's about how kind of horrible many of them continue to function or they seem to be going back to older patterns of. I know sometimes you read the paper. Is this like a historical document where I'm reading about like union, you know, knee breakers in the turn of the 20th century. It's, it's kind of rough.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Well, and you know, I think that you're right and I think sort of the political climate now has encouraged more of that old school, you'll do it because I told you to do it kind of approach. So yes, that's making a bit of a resurgence. But you know, I'm confident that it won't last because it's not, it's not sustainable and the upcoming generation won't tolerate it. They're not going to work for a company who says you'll do it because I told you and you know, you, you, you don't need any reinforcement. That's what the paycheck is. They're not going to tolerate that. So, you know, people can try it again, but I don't think it's going to be successful happily.
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A
Sure. Oh, I mean, kind of on that subject, are there areas maybe like you, you and Aubrey would, you know, late night just be like opining about how certain kind of aspects of behavioral science just didn't seem to be sticking with business. Like any areas that just. This feels like a no brainer. I don't know why this one isn't taking off as much as, say, positive reinforcement has or changes in safety procedures. You know, having managers think about their impact. Right. What, what, what never kind of clicked the way you felt it should have or Dr. Daniels felt it should. It should have, or it seemed like it would have.
- [19:21]
B
Yeah, I can't. I mean, what first comes to mind is not that there was a particular thing or concept that didn't take off, but that in general, OBM hasn't taken off as much as I think we all think it should. You know, unfortunately, businesses, like many parts of our culture, are. They're exposed to trends, right. And so they kind of get pulled. Oh, this is fashionable now. This is fashionable now. And. And they get pulled away from things that are more effective towards things that just are being talked about or whatever. So that's always a frustration. I think if I had to pick one thing that I don't think people really understand, I would say it's negative reinforcement. Because, you know, we always say, for leader, it's the default. If you're a leader and you're in charge of whether someone continues to work there or not, you can say, do it or else. I'm the boss. If you don't do this, you won't work here anymore. So there's always this underlying ability to use negative reinforcement. And I don't think people understand that. I mean, we, we, you know, we certainly talk a lot about it with our clients, but in general, I don't think people understand that, that. That if you are not purposefully using positive reinforcement, you are using negative reinforcement by default. You know that. I wish people could understand that because I think it motivate more people to do. To, you know, really look at what they're doing and change how they manage.
- [20:52]
A
I. I gotta say, I'm shocked that that's one that hasn't been more understandable, because I feel like I pull many of my examples of how pernicious negative reinforcement in any workplace can be from bringing out the best in people. I feel like that. Right. You know, Dr. Daniel's writing there really encapsulated that idea of if your goal is to make people do just more than they need to so you stop yelling at them, you technically will have a business that works. However, it won't be performing to an extent that you want. And the next time you say, hey, everyone, let's. Let's reach for the stars with these new goals, you're. It's. It's. It's a. It's failure to launch because of just how you've set up that environment. So I, I can't believe it. I don't know. It made perfect sense to me. I also came from behavior analysis, you know, right field, so. Right bit of a confound, I guess.
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C
Yeah.
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A
You know, I, how. How has OBM changed with, you know, you mentioned some of those, like the trends. I'm kind of curious how. Certainly, you know, reading today, it feels like a day doesn't go by where there's not a story about business thinking about employees as so disposable. AI will solve that. Therefore we don't need as many employees. I think just today, actually before we came on, I was reading in the Wall Street Journal about how big companies want fewer people and they just think people should do more with less and not in the way that. Certainly one of the oopses in oops is the downsizing. The idea of just. That's a great way, you know, downsizing. There's a, there's a direct reinforcement because stock prices go up when you downsize. However you are setting up, you know, these long term problems. I mean, Judy, do you see that as kind of the, like you mentioned, it's just one of those trends that we're just going to have to ride it out in the world of business and just OBM is going to have to watch from the sideline aghast and just wait for it to happen the way you predicted. Do you have a big I told you so banner that you're going to roll out, you know, five, six years from now?
- [22:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. That's tempt. Yeah. I mean, I think there's, there have always been businesses who treat employees as disposable. Those in those companies don't call us. So we have a biased sample, I guess. You know, our clients are typically people who care very much about the people that work for them and they want to do right by them. Certainly they want to get better at whatever, safety, production, whatever. But they, you know, they're interested in doing the right way. So by sample, you know, again, I think trends like that, you know, you live long enough and you. There's always a pendulum, right. And I think it's swinging in that direction now. And certainly AI is fueling that. But inevitably it comes back to humans. It, you know, no matter what you're doing, AI is not going to do everything. Still need human beings and if you treat them like they're disposable, you can have a hard time getting people and keeping people and so I think, you know, people will come around and learn that it does no good to treat people that way.
- [23:59]
A
I mean, I was always, I, you know, someone speaking of those trends and I was saddened because I remember in, in Dr. Daniels talk way back when someone asked about unions and Dr. Daniels feeling of like so many more businesses are looking to do positive reinforcement and that some of the protections and some of the reasons people are looking for unions and some of the sort of at that time trend of sort of the downward trend of unionization in America that's he predicted to some extent that might keep going because more businesses are looking at humans as, you know, important components. They're looking at using some of the, you know, various behavioral, scientific principles to improve performance. And to some extent I see the increases, I don't know statistically, but at least increases in unionization talk recently as almost sadly like just a reverse direction of many of these places of. Rather than thinking about employees as meaningful components of their productivity, seeing them as getting in the way of productivity, such that people are now in these like contexts of fear where they feel they need the union protections. But I mean, I guess that's just another kind of pendulum. Pendulum swing that it's hard to predict how. What business is going to do at any given moment.
- [25:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure about that. Certainly, you know, a trend that we also, my colleagues and I. I see. And that is, you know, you said it's like do more with less. People are absolutely overwhelmed with work. And so perhaps the push towards unionization is, you know, partly fueled by that. I. I'm not sure.
- [25:37]
A
Anyway, I just remember, I just again, I remember his vision for what he thought management could be. It is just. I'm. I'm like a heartbroken every time I see that. No, read these books. Like, they're really, really clear and good as to how you could be a bit like. I feel like I could run like a business with a bunch of employees. You know, reading those books, I know.
- [25:59]
B
I couldn't the most, I'm sure. Yeah. And, and listen, that, that, that is true for many. I mean, you know, again, from a safety perspective, the changes that I've seen in organizations over the years has been extremely heartwarming. And I don't think those organizations are going to go back to the days of you get hurt, it's your fault. I just don't think it's going to happen. So. So there's certainly lots that are headed in the right direction. Not all that's always Going to be the way, right?
- [26:29]
A
Yeah. There's a lot of businesses and if they're too big to fail, you know, why. Why do I have to listen to someone tell me to do it differently?
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B
Yeah.
- [26:35]
A
Yep. That came out a lot in Oops. So it's like, why do people keep doing these 13 stupid management. He didn't. Dr. James didn't call them stupid. I'm going to call them stupid. But just that idea of people continuing to do the same thing because where's the re. Where are the reinforcers? And thinking about those interlocking behavioral contingencies of the big business if they're not in that supervision. Some people are okay with good enough sometimes that's all right.
- [26:58]
B
Well. And a lot of times they don't know what else to do. And, and so, you know, a lot of those things are just, well, we've always done it this way. What's the alternative? And that's what he was trying to do. And oops. And also the book that I wrote with them, Safe by Accident is sort of a. An Oops for safety. Right. Same kind of thing. Like here are things that most companies are doing, here's why they don't work, and here's what you can do instead. And I think that's a great approach because we get so much feedback that, yeah, I knew this wasn't a good thing to do, but you know, we always did it this way and didn't know what else to do. So.
- [27:33]
A
Oh, I. Speaking of Safe by Accident, I'd love to hear more about sort of Dr. Daniel's process of writing the book. You know, I know the two of you co writing it probably a little different, but there definitely is such a clear voice in the books I've read. I kind of imagine you just sat down and sort of just kind of banged out a whole book. Just what do I know about this topic. And here it is in a nice organized fashion. I know that's not how anyone writes anything, but maybe, I don't know. I'd love to hear more about that. That process.
- [28:00]
B
Yeah, well, for, for that book, you know, first of all, you know, he's, he's the one with a great idea. So his, the title is His Idea, which is a great title. And again, I think the Oops book, that notion of why don't we present some things that people do in safety that don't work and tell them, you know, why. It certainly came from him. You know, he, he wrote a lot. He was a great writer. I tried to as Best. I could kind of mimic his voice for the very reasons that. That you've described. He's just so effective at pulling people in, you know, using. He was a master using stories, lots of humor, and so just, you know, that, you know, he. He collected stories. I mean, he loved it when people told him stories and, and he would use them in his talks and he'd use them in his. You know, I would. I think most of the fun stuff in the stories would have been him in that book. And then I would just fill in with the, you know, the. The technical details and that kind of stuff. He was delightful to. To write with. I mean, as you might imagine, delightful to work with under any circumstance.
- [29:12]
A
Oh, I mean, it definitely comes through in, in the books. I'm. I'm so glad to hear that. Because, you know, there's something about when you're reading a book, you put so much of yourself into the book. If you're enjoying it and you're learning something from it. And it's kind of nice to hear that the imagined process, the imagined, you know, authorship voice is genuine. That's really what it was like. It just happened to be in the book form. That's great.
- [29:32]
B
Yeah, that was him. Yeah.
- [29:35]
A
Well, Judy, I don't want to. I really appreciate having you chat. Do you have any sort of, like, really good, kind of Aubrey stories that you think sort of capture kind of what you see as kind of his legacy for our field of behavioral science?
- [29:50]
B
I can't think of a story. Again, I'm not the storyteller that he was in terms of legacy, I think. Well, obviously he's hugely responsible for the field of obm, Started jobm and all of that. I think his books will continue to educate people in universities and in businesses, and I think that's an enduring legacy. You know, I'm trying to think. I've got his picture up there. I'm looking at it. I'm trying to think of what would he want his legacy to be. I think he would love to think that people were using more positive reinforcement. He used to say in talks, if I ever ask a question and you don't know the answer, say positive reinforcement and you'll be right most of the time, you know, and that was just his way of saying, look, the answer to a lot of your issues is positive reinforcement. Reinforce what you want, then you don't have to worry about what you don't want, all that kind of stuff. So I think that, you know, is part of his legacy, is just helping people understand the power of positive reinforcement when used appropriately.
- [30:57]
A
Oh well. Dr. Judy Agnu, thank you so much for your time for sharing about knowing Dr. Daniels about his legacy. We're very excited to have another chance to read one of his books for our show. So it's really nice to get a chance to to have some additional perspective this time around. Thank you.
- [31:13]
B
Well, you're very welcome. It was fun to talk to you. Thanks for ask.
- [31:30]
D
Hi. Do you want to be a bcba, also known as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst?
- [31:35]
B
Sure.
- [31:36]
C
We all do.
- [31:37]
D
Now you can come to Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts to get your graduate degree just minutes outside of Boston.
- [31:44]
C
Choose from any one of these Masters.
- [31:46]
D
Of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis, Master.
- [31:48]
C
Of Science in Special Education, dual degree in Special Ed and aba or be.
- [31:53]
D
Eligible for your Postmaster Certificate.
- [31:56]
C
You can complete your degree and be ready to sit for the exam in two years.
- [32:00]
D
And our 2022 graduates had a 92% pass rate on the BACB exam.
- [32:06]
C
Come enjoy approved fieldwork placements, ethics, mini handbooks, PhD levels, professors, small class sizes, and a service trip to Iceland if interested.
- [32:15]
D
And don't forget our program is accredited by the association of Behavior Analysis International or ABAI as a Tier 1 master's degree program.
- [32:23]
C
Don't delay. Supplies are limited. Learn more@regiscollege.edu.
- [32:28]
D
Again, that's www.regiscollege.edu regiscollege.edu one more time www.regiscollege.edu.
- [32:40]
C
See you there.
- [32:41]
D
Bye.
- [32:47]
A
I had a great time talking with Dr. Agnew. Thank you so much Dr. Agnew for being on the show to kind of introduce our discussion of oops. And now we are going to take a little break and when we come back we are going to have our full discussion of OOPS Book Club with all of our regular book club crew. But wait, before that break I want to remind our listeners that ABA insidetrack is ACE and KWABA approved. And by listening you're able to earn two supervision CEs. All you need to do is finish listening because we got a lot of content to go and then go to our website abainsidetrack.com you can click on click on our get CES section of the pages or you can look at the notes in your podcast player to enter in some key information including two secret code words. I am going to give you the first of those code words now and the other one will be somewhere in the rest of our episode. We got a lot of episode to go and that code word is Britney B R I T N E, Y, Like Britney Spears. Oops, I did it again. Right? It's thematically appropriate. B, R, I, T, N, E, Y. You can capitalize it or don't. It's okay for. For our purposes, Brittany. All right, without any further ado, we're going to take a short break, and when we come back, the full Oops Book Club discussion. Hey, everybody. So I hope you enjoyed. We all hope you enjoyed our initial discussion. Initial part of this podcast, talking with Dr. Judy Agnew about Dr. Aubrey Daniels, the author of Oops. 13 Management Practices that waste time and money and what to do instead. And again, a little background as to who Dr. Daniels was, his contributions to the field. And now the rest of the show. We're going to be getting deep into our discussion, which means we're gathering and assembling our book club folks. So, of course there's me, Avengers, Rob Perry, Crews. Again, you've been hearing me already. But who else is here for our book club discussion?
- [34:42]
C
I'm Diana Perry Cruz. I'll be playing part of the Silver Surfer.
- [34:46]
A
Not an Avenger.
- [34:48]
C
Oh, that's a Fantastic four.
- [34:50]
D
I'm Jackie McDonald, and I'll be playing the part of Green Lantern.
- [34:56]
A
Not Marvel at All.
- [34:59]
E
I'm Alan Haberman. Oh, I was gonna say I'm Alan Haberman. And I'll be playing. I'll say man Bat, just to be really obnoxious and villain from DC Marvel.
- [35:11]
A
I don't want to do this discussion anymore.
- [35:14]
D
I don't know who the Avengers are. So that's like unfair advantage there, you know?
- [35:18]
C
We prepped for a different topic.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, okay. None of it.
- [35:22]
C
Which was Oops. Book club.
- [35:24]
D
Okay, I did it again.
- [35:26]
A
You weren't reading. Yeah, you did it. You messed up your mom. That movie made billions of dollars. And Jackie still doesn't know any of the Avengers.
- [35:34]
C
Okay, Sandman.
- [35:35]
A
Well, mistake number one. You don't know the names of Avengers. It's terrible. Anyway, let's get into our discussion. So we've got our book here. We're going to do a little introduction to the book, our reading of the book. Then we'll start kind of going into the chapters. We're going to do this a little differently than some of our other book club episodes in that this book is very set up as to, hey, 13 things. So we're kind of going to switch, taking turns. Who wants to sort of lead each chapter? Some of the beginning chapters, I think, are a little bit more applicable to behavior analysts. I don't know if everyone agrees with that. I don't oh, okay. Some of the later chapters, I feel, are more like big picture social issues or very businessy. So they may or may not be relevant to the average behavior analyst.
- [36:16]
C
I do agree with that.
- [36:17]
D
But I can say that behavior analysts own their own companies, and that's very relevant for behavior analytic companies. Like, if you are the business owner of a behavior analytic company, you have likely thought about downsizing or merging with like a bigger company.
- [36:34]
C
Right?
- [36:35]
D
That happens all the time.
- [36:36]
E
Yeah. Or if you, even if you work in the private sector, some of this talk and consideration does happen around you and about you. So it is helpful to, like, have context and understand.
- [36:48]
D
Yeah.
- [36:49]
A
All right. Well, I was trying to keep this to a shorter podcast, but I guess we'll have to make it super long now because every chapter is very, very important. So before we get into our 13 oopses, according to Dr. Daniels, let's just kind of do a really quick round about people's history with Dr. Daniels work with OPM and with these practices. What you thought about the book in general? Like, let's just do a really quick one of those because we already had some discussion with Dr. Agnew about some of this and we'll get into the 13 oopses. So just generally, thoughts on the book. Overall.
- [37:21]
C
I liked it and I thought many of the things in here are very practical and it's a book that people who are in charge of other people should read.
- [37:32]
D
I liked it too, actually. I thought it was super readable. It wasn't one of those heady books where they're like I'm better than you, which I appreciate because I hate the I'm better than you books. One thing I I wish they did a little more is gave a little bit more depth into the what to do. Instead, I think they gave us like a broad like here's broadly what you could do, but that sometimes I felt myself wanting more in most chapters on how like a concrete example of how this might play out. But maybe that's me wanting the book to be longer because I liked it and I like the little surf, the little faces at Starlings.
- [38:12]
E
I mean, I, I think it's a book that definitely starts a lot of discussion and is a good intro. My experience with Aubrey Daniels Institute is all of the performance management books I had to take in my performance management slash OBM class classes that I took. So, you know, it was familiar sort of information but much more condensed. And I can see this being good for like an intro to all of these topics before you read One of the more dense textbooks.
- [38:43]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [38:44]
A
Yeah, I hear you there, Alan. It kind of feels like while you'll read this book quicker and I think get more out of it if you've already read something even like a sort of mainstream is Bringing out the best in People, this might be a better intro to the idea of obm. And then you read Bringing out the Best in People to sort of fill in the gaps that this book covers a little bit. Like they mentioned performance management. There's even an appendix in the back where Dr. Daniel shares his performance matrix, which they go into a lot of depth in. In bringing out the best in people. So. Yeah, but this feels like a good intro starter and I do love you always run that risk. I think when someone's like, here's 13 things that it's going to turn into this just like really weak listicle. And it feels like there's just the right amount of content in each one to get you interested, to not be too exhaustive or boring and to not necessarily repeat itself. And then the book is over and then you can move on to another book, which I appreciate for intro books. I hate intro books that never stop and you're just left at the end being like, I wish I hadn't read this. I almost feel like I wish I'd gone on to the harder stuff. And I think this one kind of really threads the needle there. So a lot of fun to read. And quick.
- [39:50]
C
It is quick.
- [39:50]
D
It's quick.
- [39:51]
C
A couple hours to read this book.
- [39:53]
D
One thing I loved is that it was sitting on my coffee table for a little bit of time because I read my nonfiction books in the morning. And every single person that stopped by, because lots of people are stopping by right now to pet my dog so I can get into Canine Good Citizen, they're like, oh, I've heard about that book. I've thought about reading that book. I'm like, have you read it? They're like, no, but I've thought about reading it. And it was like behavior analysts and non behavior analysts alike. So that was like, pretty interesting to see people like pick it up and be like, oh, I heard about this. I'm not ready yet. But I thought maybe I should.
- [40:26]
C
That's cool. It has broad appeal.
- [40:29]
D
Yeah. And the COVID is super cute. It's a great title.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah, it's very, It's. It's very good. And for folks who didn't hear, I think we talked about it on the preview, this book, I did get a signed copy of this signed by Dr. Daniels way back at like, like the 1st or 2nd Mass. ABBA Convention here in Massachusetts. I know I got to see him talk in person. Anyone else get to see him talk in person?
- [40:53]
C
I don't think I did well.
- [40:55]
A
Well, looks like I'm the specialist. And it was, it was a great talk. He. He similar to recently unlocked Go to Go to Sleep book club. We did with Dr. Pat Fryman's book. This has a tone that is exactly the way Dr. Daniels presented it. The. You know, one time I saw him present in. In person where it just. It's very, it's. It's clearly written by someone who understands the science. But it is not written to confuse people who don't understand the science. But it also doesn't try to be like this is all the science you'll ever need. Like it understands what it is trying to do, which is get you started and get you interested in learning more but still give you some actionable steps.
- [41:32]
D
Yeah. And he recently died. I can't remember we said that in the preview. He died in March of 2025. So. Of this year.
- [41:38]
A
Yes. And. And we talked about that with Dr. Agnew. Yes, he was.
- [41:41]
D
It's real old. Hope I live to be that old.
- [41:45]
A
That would. Yeah, it's great to live to be old. But I got him to sign this book for my father in law who recently visited and we were telling him we were going to record this and he was very excited. He wished he'd brought his copy to show to. To for his visit. But I stupidly did not get a book signed by him for me to keep, which is my favorite favorite like book hobby. So that will forever frustrate me. So the only thing I don't like about this book is that I do not have a signed copy of it. But I know one exists for somebody else I know. So, you know, that's just me being sad about that. Anywho, let's get into it. So we're going to do this book club, like I said, a little differently. We're going to go through each of the 13 oopses and sort of do a kind of led discussion by one of us. So we're switching up chapters. I did want to do a quick the preface. Did anyone else when they read about that preface starting the book? The example of Circuit City laying off all their top performers back in 2007. Does anyone remember Circuit City?
- [42:40]
C
That could happen because at Circuit City, service is state of the art.
- [42:44]
A
Apparently it was not state of the art enough for them. To keep employing those people.
- [42:50]
D
I don't remember that.
- [42:51]
E
My. I do, because my sister was an. Was a management employee at Circuit City around that time and left the company around that time. Oh, wow. I don't. I don't think she was necessarily part of the layoff, but they didn't live much longer as a company beyond that.
- [43:09]
D
It's probably your sister's fault he left and then they just tanked.
- [43:13]
E
No, I think they started to tank and she was not eager to stick around. The writing was on the wall.
- [43:21]
C
Yeah.
- [43:21]
A
Yeah. Again, this serves as an example. So you sort of think, why would you fire, like you said, Diana, why would you fire your best performers and expect that to be, this will keep our business going forever as opposed to this briefly increases our stock value because now we have less overhead. But there's no way in hell our business can be salient with this kind of a strategy. And Dr. Daniels does not blame managers like, these managers are a bunch of dumb dumbs and don't be dumb like them. He sees it as endemic to sort of the challenges facing many managers and people in charge, which is that they learn about business. They may learn about, like, cognitive psychology, light, but they don't learn about human behavior. They don't think about behavior as impactful on their business. They think about the things and the. The statistics that they're looking for, which is really detrimental because it leads them to make decisions based on other decisions that other people have made that aren't actually useful decisions, but maybe resulted in an increase in a value for the company, maybe resulted in something cool like a new invention coming out of being horrible to your employees, but not really leading to meaningful, lasting change. And so in the preface, the central tenet of the book is that quote, people's actions, behaviors are the central determinant of business success. Meaning if you're not paying attention to the behaviors of your employees, you will not have any success. I think we're going to come up to this. I don't know how much people want to talk about AI, but I kind of feel like the message of today's managers is, this is all important and we need to be better with humans, but what if instead, no humans involved in our business. So we'll see how that one works out. And I'm sure that's not the last time that discussion will come out. Managers use lots of systems, pay systems, appraisal systems, recognition systems, but most of the time they use them poorly. They're based on sort of commonsensical reasons or history or custom. And it really is not leading to the outcomes that businesses are really looking for. Again, it might in the short term, but not in the long term. There's also a section if you were like newly, you know, a new behavior analyst, that sort of just goes into the general gist of what's positive behavior? What's negative? What's. Sorry, what's. What's positive reinforcement? What's negative reinforcement? What are rule governed behaviors?
- [45:54]
D
I love those parts and books because then I can kind of skip over them.
- [45:57]
C
Yeah, right. I'm like, yeah, like the first half of coercion and its fallout.
- [46:04]
D
Yeah, right, huh.
- [46:07]
A
But I think it does lead to, you know, one of the other issues is that a lot of people these days, I'm not sure what this, exactly what the business world was like when this book was written, but these days it does feel like everybody gets the idea of positive reinforcement in that it exists. However, they don't understand the positive part of positive reinforcement. They see positive as. And Daniels points this out that positive, while he thinks it is, quote, the most powerful interpersonal concept known, that it is also, quote, the most misunderstood and misused. Because people tend to think of positive as being nice or I have a smile on my face. And that's the positive part of positive reinforcement as opposed to positive, in that you're adding something to the environment that leads to the reinforcement of some target behavior. And I, you know, so again, even though many people know of positive reinforcement, just like they know about positive parenting, they think that means never stop being nice all the time. And then when that doesn't result in change that they like because they're not actually using positive reinforcement, they say, this doesn't work and it sucks and I hate it. We see this a lot of times and the workplace is where we'll be talking about it right now. And even if you are hearing this and you say, I don't care, I want money, money, money, money. That's all I care about in my business. Well, guess what? Dr. Daniel says behavior is time and is money, meaning if you're not actually making behaviors of your employees more efficient to lead to the product or service that you are trying to sell, you're wasting that money. So if all you care about is money, I'm guessing you're listening to this and not being a behavior analyst, but you are also, by not caring about behavior, you're shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to money. You're wasting a lot of time doing things that cost money, that cost time and that don't get you money. Or give me money, earn more time. Unless it's that movie with Justin Timberlake where time was money.
- [47:53]
D
I would love to earn more time.
- [47:55]
A
I don't. I don't know if that movie is any good, but you earned. You lost time, then you died. You got to use time to buy everything.
- [48:00]
C
That was, like, on your wristwatch. Yeah, you could count down.
- [48:03]
D
Yeah, I didn't watch it.
- [48:04]
A
I don't think anybody did. I do know there was a time heist. They steal the time.
- [48:09]
C
It doesn't matter.
- [48:10]
A
I don't know.
- [48:11]
C
We are running out of time. All right, move on.
- [48:13]
A
So that's the beginning sections of the book. Anything else about the preface or any other quotes, Anything salience. Okay, great. So again, your behavior analyst. You can kind of go through this a little quicker because it's just a review. Now let's get into our 13 oopses.
- [48:28]
C
All right. But. Oh, this is my other section.
- [48:31]
A
I do. Would you like to. I. I'm. I just saw this right now.
- [48:34]
C
Okay. Yeah. So as we go through these, I have some rules for us. Okay? So, first and foremost, I am declaring myself to be the boss in the context of this presentation that we're about to give. So each of you are my employees now, and I'm giving you these assignments that you need to do these chapter reviews. After you do all the reviews, I will decide who will be presenter of the month. And every one gets five minutes per chapter. If you go over your five minutes on your first one, that's fine. I will give you more time in the future. But if you are under five minutes, great job on the next one. You only get four minutes now. Yep, exactly. And I know that you're all very smart, very talented. That is why you're here. That's why we keep you around. However. But I'm pretty sure you can also do better. I do like your shirt. Okay, just so you know. Can I tell you how to do better? No, not specifically. I just would like for you to do better. And then at the end, I'll let you all know how you perform. Additionally, if you can sit quietly while others are presenting and listen nicely, eg, no interruptions, they'll each get a. That's gonna be hard in Diana Bucks. I know you're already failing, but everyone's gonna get the same race. Okay? So those are the ground rules that I've laid out for you. We'll see how those go. And you can tell me at the end if you think that I am A good boss. All right, I shouldn't even ask because.
- [50:06]
B
You'Re just the boss.
- [50:07]
A
What you're saying is I should take more than five minutes because then you feel bad for me and I get more time.
- [50:12]
C
Interesting.
- [50:13]
D
Rob always takes more than his time allotted.
- [50:16]
A
Well, it's my strength.
- [50:17]
C
I'm actually going to time you. Your time starts now.
- [50:20]
A
That's what I do in my interviews. I say, what's your. What's your greatest strength? And what's your weakness? I was like, well, it's also my strength is that I could talk forever.
- [50:27]
D
You're like, I can take lots of time.
- [50:29]
C
On your mark, get set, go.
- [50:32]
A
I was gonna say. Should we just say the 13? All right, fine. So here's the first one.
- [50:37]
C
Okay. Yeah, you can say the 13.
- [50:38]
A
Okay.
- [50:39]
C
That's actually good.
- [50:39]
A
I was gonna ask if someone else would like to read the 13 in a dramatic voice.
- [50:43]
D
I want to.
- [50:44]
A
All right, Jaggy, what are our 13 oops?
- [50:48]
D
And remember, they're in no particular order. As Audrey Dynamo tells us, we can jump around at any point, but we won't because that will be confusing. So, number one, employee of the month. Number two, stretch goals. Number three, performance appraisals. Number four, ranking. Five, rewarding things a dead man can do. That sounds like something a Jeopardy would have. Six, salary, Salary and hourly pay. Seven, you did a good job. But eight, the sandwich. Nine, overvaluing smart, talented people. Ten, the budget process. Eleven, promoting people no one likes. Twelve, downsizing and thirteen, mergers acquisitions and other forms of reorganizing.
- [51:48]
A
Wow, Jackie, that was great.
- [51:49]
B
It was incredible.
- [51:50]
A
I'm excited to talk about all of these for way more than five minutes.
- [51:53]
C
No, you only get five. Okay, on your mark, get set, go.
- [51:57]
A
So I'll start with, number one, employee of the month. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on what Employee of the month is because we've talked about this in many other episodes in which we've also labeled it as a big oops. But it basically boils down to a system in which your employer gives some sort of recognition every month or quarter or year to some number of employees for reason. We've talked about why this doesn't work in terms of reinforcement tends to be competitive, if anyone cares about it at all, that it cares too frequent to be meaningful reinforcement and that it's very vague as to why one would even earn Employee of the Month. There is a great quote on page 27 in which he did a survey. Daniels did a survey of 77 employee in a business where There was some sort of like Employee of the Month plaque. And they said, hey, how do you get that plaque? And nobody knew, but one guy did say, quote, I guess be nice to your manager. Which means the system probably isn't working unless that is actually what the business is looking for. Employees who kiss up to their manager. So there's also the issue of what's the reinforcer. Hey, you get a plaque, maybe you get parking spot, maybe you get a coupon. Does that matter to anybody? To maybe do something for some period of time and maybe get something of little to no value? Probably not. However, it's easy to do. It looks like you're doing something, which many managers just love doing something. And usually people just sort of mistake money for reinforcement. And then sometimes they say, well, I'll just give everyone Employee of the Month, which then also devalues it further or makes people who aren't earning Employee of the Month feel bad. I have two examples of Employee of the Month from my own career. One, fancy a recipient of Employee of the Month many, many years ago. And shout out to to Sally Roberts, who nominated me to be Employee of the Month. She told me exactly why she nominated me, which was due to my really good work on a progress report and iep. And I was super excited to receive this honor from Denny Strali at the New England center for Children. Just to let you know where this was. And it was, it was great. It was so awesome. Now, again, it worked for me because I also was very happy in my job that year. I was working with an amazing team. Sally was a great manager. So again, was it Employee of the Month that made me happy or was it just a nice capstone to a year that was already going? Well, flash forward to another time in my career in which there are. There's sort of like a shout out section in a newsletter that a manager was putting out or a supervisor was putting out and they'd name here's some employees that are the best. You, you as a staff member, nominate these employees. I have never gotten this thing. I looked back in the past year's worth. I have never gotten it. Every other BCBA that I know has gotten it. Meaning I am the worst BCBA in my job according to this thing. It doesn't make me want to work harder. Alice making a face doesn't want to make me work harder because either I am the worst BCBA and there's nothing I can do about it because I don't actually know how I would have to kiss up to People to make them vote for me. I guess I could probably just say, hey, could you vote for me next time? I really, really want this. And if people did, I think that would mean, I guess they like me enough. Does that mean I'm good at my job or just friendly enough? I don't know. So even if I got it, I don't know if it would make me feel any better. Especially because I'm pretty sure I could do it if I just campaigned for it. You don't get anything other than a shout out in a newsletter. So that is one way in which I'm kind of sad about it. So here's a system that maybe didn't do anything even though I liked it and then definitely made me feel kind of crappy, even though I could probably be going for it. So I personally don't like EOM in general.
- [55:26]
D
I got Employee of the month too, Rob, and I actually really wanted it as well. And I worked for a company for like over 10 years and I never got it. But then when I put my notice in, they gave me employee of the Month, which is hilarious. It literally was like the next day I like, I'm like, I'm quitting because.
- [55:40]
C
I don't feel value. They're like, you've got employee of the month.
- [55:44]
A
Too little, too late. So employee of the month. Not personal, not immediate, not contingent, not frequent. It probably doesn't function as positive reinforcement in any way. You probably can't reinforce enough people. You can't do it frequently enough. There isn't a good enough reward that's meaningful to people. So. And also a lot of times it's like the last ditch effort of many companies, according to Dr. Daniels, of companies that use only negative reinforcement and punishment. So the idea of like, maybe you get it and maybe if it's a valuable prize, you're kind of happy. You're already in a terrible mood, so it probably isn't going to change it. You're either happy in your job and it's a nice addition, but who cares? Or you're not happy and it just makes you feel worse. I'm relatively happy. I'm not in the position I was in with that newsletter. That's like one thing of many that were that went wrong in the year that otherwise went very nicely. So what to do instead? And this book is very nicely set up into what is the practice, why it's no good. Here's what to do instead. And again, this really focuses on what we always talk about when we're talking about reinforcement, what do you actually. What is the behavior you hope to reinforce? Because no matter what it is, employee of the month probably won't function to reinforce that behavior. So you need to ditch it and look at other reinforcement system. All right. And the nice thing is, we're going to be talking about a lot of those other reinforcement systems in many of the other OOPS sections.
- [57:02]
C
Nice job.
- [57:03]
A
Thank you.
- [57:04]
D
Oh, that was really great. Alan, go ahead.
- [57:06]
E
I want to say just the one comment I had was I've never worked at a company. I've never heard of any company that used employee of the month quite like that in this classical way. Only know about it from sitcoms, to be honest.
- [57:21]
A
Speaking of sitcoms, I know I'm over my time, but does everyone remember the Simpsons episode where Homer went to space?
- [57:26]
D
No.
- [57:27]
A
Oh, okay. Well, at the beginning of it, it all starts with him wanting to do something important because the union mandated employee of the month ceremony is there and everyone has to eventually get employee of the month. And it's Homer's turn. He's the only employee who hasn't gotten it. And guess who gets it instead? An inanimate carbon rod. And he's very upset. And that's what leads him to be an astronaut.
- [57:45]
D
Great.
- [57:46]
A
I already made that. The picture for this episode, by the.
- [57:48]
D
Way, the second Oops is something called stretch goals. And stretch goals are goals that a manager or a supervisor that you have sets for you. And typically these stretch goals are goals that are attained less than 10% of the time. So it is a goal that is very, very difficult and sometimes impossible to get. And these are horrible for a lot of way, a lot of reasons, mostly being that goals are discriminative stimuli, right? And behavior analytic terms. And when the goal setting behavior, the goals that you need to do to get those behaviors, if you can't access reinforcement, then the desire or the opportunity or motivation for you to engage in future goal setting behaviors diminishes quite frequently, like quite a lot, right? So with these stretch goals, you know, they're like, sometimes people are gonna do it. Like a very small percentage of people are going to be motivated by luck or creativity, or they're gonna lie about it, right? Because they want to get this goals. But typically what you're gonna see is extinction, right? Because you're gonna be breaking that response reinforcer relation between goal behaviors that access the goal and no reinforcement. So if another thing that could do too is lessen the likelihood that people are going to set goals in the future, right? So if you're like, you made the stretch goal for me and I didn't, I didn't reach it and so I didn't get that bonus. That's what usually it is, right. If you work this many billable hours, insurance based funding, then you get a bonus that's extraordinarily huge. But it's actually impossible to meet this goal unless you're like giving up your whole life. If you don't meet it, then people are less likely to make goals and give up. Right.
- [59:43]
C
So that's not really disheartening.
- [59:46]
D
Yeah, yeah, it's really disheartening. And hopefully we're using goals as a way to motivate employees to improve on their performance or maintain these programs. Those stretch goals really don't do a good job of that. And research by, oh, I forget, it wasn't in the book. But I've done a lot of research on goals and goal setting and what the research suggests in the OBM literature is that you set a tiny bit challenging goals, right. With many tiny goals embedded in that chat, that slightly challenging goal. And you'll see more people are likely to persist and to meet those goals if they're slightly challenging, not too easy, and then there's many goals in between. And that's what they recommend, is that these goals need to have, they need to contact reinforcement. Right. So if you have these mini goals instead, you're going to see more reinforcement, then you're going to see more and maintenance or increase in the behavior that you're looking for. And if you're setting these goals on specific behavior like you should. Right. Sometimes stretch goals are like, you know, we're going to get 10% profit across the company. Right. But that's not for one specific individual. But if you set individual specific goals, mini goals that will lead you to this somewhat challenging goal, you're, you're more likely going to be able to see your employees acquire those goals. Right. And you want to make sure that they're visible. Maybe not for everyone, Right. Not everyone loves to see their progress, you know, publicly posted. But you should be displaying the progress. They said, if you can do it hourly, that's great. If you can do it daily, that's great. If you can do it weekly, that's not so great. Let's make it sure that, you know, if you can do it monthly, that's even worse. So make it so that it's a consistent visible progress so that people can change behavior.
- [61:36]
C
Yeah.
- [61:37]
D
So it's really good to set goals. Right. As long as they're individual goals and that you're putting these mini goals. Yeah, done.
- [61:46]
C
All right, Great job. Jackie, a quick comment.
- [61:49]
A
I was interested because Dr. Daniels lists a bunch of research that people often cite as this is why stretch goals rule, and sort of pointing out to like, well, here are the factors in that research. It doesn't actually point to. We should all be using stretch goals all the time. I was curious if people still use them. And I found a Harvard Business Review article talking about stretch goals, which was not a behavioral article, it was a business article. But it did talk about if you were going to use stretch goals.
- [62:15]
D
It.
- [62:15]
A
It could work if you already had lots of resources, meaning you probably were able to deliver lots of reinforcement in many forms to your employees for their behavior. And if you were using stretch goals after multiple successes, or at least after, you know, a big success, but after lots of successes, again, probably because you're giving a goal after lots of reinforcement has been delivered. So if you're a company that's floundering and you're like, we're going to shoot for the moon, probably not, because everyone's contacted so much like you said, Jackie, so much punishment or every. All the behaviors on extinction, it's not going to work.
- [62:49]
E
I just. I want. I don't know if this was the article you're talking about, but I pulled an article from Ramnero and Tornica, which is after this book is published in the Psychological Record, but it's on having a goal. Goals as representations of behavior. But it's like a behavior analytic, relational frame article about goal setting.
- [63:06]
D
Definitely not what I was talking about.
- [63:08]
A
Nor what I was reading.
- [63:09]
E
It's a really good article about goals, whether that's in psychotherapy, in business, in any setting.
- [63:17]
A
So my guess is the goals were not like, hey, you know, whatever goal you think is achievable, let's go 10% more than that.
- [63:26]
C
Okay. Well, Jackie kept her own time underneath five minutes, so great job, Jackie. Thank you. That means next time you get four minutes. Nice work.
- [63:34]
D
I can do it.
- [63:35]
C
Okay. All right. I'm going to time myself because I'm talking about chapter three, which is performance appraisal. And by performance appraisal, they mean like performance review, right? Like the annual review that you get. And the main purpose of this chapter is to reiterate that nobody likes these types of annual review. And specific here is the idea that within this review, they're going to tell you, like, where you fit within the. The company's performance. Right? So it's not just maybe like you being measured against some standard, it's you being measured against other employees as well. So, like you're one of our top 10% earners or your top 10% valued employees or whatever it might be. So the point in this article, I'm sorry, in this chapter is nobody likes this. They say 80% of employees think that they're in the top 20% of performance. So most people, when they get this type of review, learn that where they think they are is not in the eyes of management. They see themselves. And so, once again, it's very disheartening and discouraging to get this type of feedback from your boss and say the whole process is quite punishing for both the person who has to give the report and the person on the receiving end of the report, which if this is intended to motivate and reinforce behavior, it's going to do quite the opposite. So people will avoid giving the reports and they will, when they receive those reports, it likely will function as a punisher rather than a reinforcer as well. The key here, I think, is that they're talking once again about this, like, distribution of performance across the agency. And they're saying, if you're trying to hire. This was the part I took away. If you're trying to hire the best people, right? And you've gone out of your way to seek out the highest performing, most creative, smartest, motivated people to hire into your agency, and then you're telling them through this performance review that they can't be the best anymore. Right now they're falling somewhere in the middle of the distribution or maybe at the tail end of the distribution. Well, then you're no longer going to be able to say to them, like, I hired you because I think you're the best. And now I'm here telling you, telling you that you're one of the worst, right? That's just not good business practice. If you're trying to get the most out of your employees. They talk about the. There's an anecdote in here by someone named Jack Welch, I believe. Is that right, Rob?
- [66:10]
A
Oh, Jack Welch from NBC? No, GE. GE. It's like some GE, some business guy.
- [66:15]
D
GE, General Motors.
- [66:17]
A
They mentioned him all the time on 30.
- [66:18]
C
Oh, they really do.
- [66:19]
A
Okay, G. General Electric.
- [66:20]
C
Like, sounds like familiar, but they were saying that they, in, in this example, they, they would get rid of their bottom 10% of performers every year. And that was supposed to be like a good model, but it's really not a great model because those people likely could become Good performers. Instead, if you just grew their ability instead of just firing people. And then they gave another example of if someone performs in the bottom 10%. Some companies have the policy of if that happens three years in a row, then they fire those people. And so they gave the example of rotating through who has to get, like, draw the short straw and has to get the bottom ranking. So thereby just, you know, obliterating the purpose of that system in order to save. Save your employees. Because you don't actually want to fire your employees. Say, what should we really do? Instead, you want to think about, like, what is the purpose of this type of appraisal system? And can you make it better? Here is where they reference the performance matrix and they give an example of it at the end. If you're unfamiliar with it, you should go check it out. But it breaks down each of the responsibilities of what that job should be. And then actual gives, like, an index of rankings that you could. Scores you could get for how you perform on that skill with behavioral examples. And then the weighted. How much of your job is that aspect of your job? Right. So some things might be 25% of your job, and some might only be 10. So a way to actually get your own personal performance score. And that would be far more useful than trying to grade people on this type of, like, bell curve where they have to fit in, where everyone could do their best possible that they could on their own individual performance matrix. That's the overall takeaway from this chapter. Yeah.
- [68:11]
D
What do you got, Diana?
- [68:12]
C
19 seconds left.
- [68:13]
A
Wow. So you get more time because you didn't go over.
- [68:18]
D
No, she gets less time.
- [68:20]
A
No, we get more. I think we get less time if we. If we do the. If we meet the goal.
- [68:23]
D
No, she's a bad supervisor, Rob.
- [68:26]
A
Oh, okay, fine.
- [68:27]
C
What?
- [68:28]
A
So you're doing it. Okay. All right. Anyways, I appreciate how this chapter also. No, I understood. I got mixed up. We've been going for a little while, so I appreciate this. Also talks about how many of these appraisals. Performance appraisal. It's manager behavior as well. And how, as a manager, it is your job to help your employees do better. And therefore, you should be thinking about this as, what am I targeting? Like you said, Dan, what am I targeting? And then how can I set up the systems or get rid of the cruft. That's making it impossible for you to do your best, Which I appreciate. It's. You know, we always say the organism is always right. Except you're. Unless you're an Employee. In which case you're probably wrong and the CEO is correct. That's not it. Is that how that saying goes?
- [69:08]
C
Cruft sounds like something you'd name a bakery or pants.
- [69:12]
A
I always thought cruft is like. It's like crap. It's like grow. I always think of it as like belly button lint. Like, oh, all this croft is in here. These scones have so much cruft in them. Yuck.
- [69:21]
D
I love belly button lent though.
- [69:24]
A
There's a lot of bacteria in your belly button, Jackie. You don't even want to know.
- [69:28]
C
Number four, his own ecosystem.
- [69:31]
D
Wow.
- [69:32]
C
Yeah. Are you ready? Me start your timer.
- [69:34]
D
Yes.
- [69:34]
C
Someday Alan's going to get to go, but not today.
- [69:38]
E
No, that's all right. There's one thing I wanted to say about this chapter that both the oops solution and perhaps even the performance management solution I think doesn't capture everything that like some people are valued by a team socially.
- [69:59]
C
Yeah.
- [70:00]
A
Yeah.
- [70:00]
E
If they're not a high performer, their presence lifts everyone else performance. And so if you were to get rid of that person for being a low performer, you would. And replace them with a high performer who was not as pleasant to be around. It might actually be punish the rest of the team or at least put some extinction procedures in place accidentally. So I just.
- [70:23]
C
Great point.
- [70:24]
E
Yeah. Like, it's just something that I notice and like it's one of the, one of the, one of the like drawbacks of, of the sort of general business system that we work in when we think about like performance. It's. Your contribution can be more than the output of your labor.
- [70:43]
C
Yeah. There should be a social validity section. Okay. Great point. Jackie, you ready?
- [70:50]
D
Yes. So number four.
- [70:51]
C
Yeah. You only get four minutes. That's fine.
- [70:53]
D
I got this. Number four is ranking. And this is where we take lots of data in the organization and depending on what you are measuring, you put your employees in a ranking system from best to worst or worst to best. Right. And this is a really bad idea. It's pretty horrible. I never can imagine when this would be good. Right. Because it's just going to lead to competition within the organization. It's going to, you know, if you're. It's not going to promote collaboration at all. They give a. An example here where someone was doing the best and there was a problem that one of the managers fixed in one of the distribution centers and. But he didn't share it with the other centers because he wanted to be the best.
- [71:41]
A
Oh no, Jackie. He didn't want to be the best. He just didn't want to be the worst. That was the sixth of seventh best rank.
- [71:47]
D
Oh yeah, you're right.
- [71:48]
A
So they were not doing well, but they solved one problem. So they were a little better than the worst.
- [71:53]
D
Right. So competition is really destructive. Right. People might take shortcuts, they might lie, they might skip quality steps, they might cheat the results. Remember one of, I don't know if it's in this chapter with one of them, like, oh, I made those results up because we didn't want to be the worst. Oh yeah, like right when you read that, like, oh yeah, my manager told me to make this up. So what they recommend instead is to not use ranking as a way to motivate employees. You could use it as a way to say, here's where you're doing individually and use that for promotions or like, you know, assignments like, oh, you're doing really good here. Here's an additional thing that you could do that might be exciting for you, but you could also use it as an external, like using external benchmarks like what other people are doing, what other companies are doing and having everyone individually and as a group try to be better. Right. Than that other company. So try to be one. If you're selling bathtubs, be the best bathtub seller then the second best bathtub seller. Right. And not trying to be rivals within your company, but outside of your company. Yeah. So I love that. And I did like the antidote where the professor made the course and they laid it out with the goal of the finishing course, but then it was set so if the students had to meet the goals, they can move to the next unit. I actually went to a. I had an undergraduate class like this which was really neat and if you didn't meet the next unit, you had to do additional assignments and you know people, you got a grade. And then mid semester, half the class had an A because they could move self paced through it. But they still came to class and they still worked with other students that weren't earning an A because it was like a group collaborative effort and not competitive. And I found that class really fascinating. I can't. It was my learning and behavior class in my undergraduate and it was really neat that there was a system for me to do my best. But also I got extra points if I worked with the group. Right. So if I helped other people so that everyone could be their best, that's how you could do it and not rank people. Done.
- [74:02]
C
Wow.
- [74:02]
A
Yeah. The, the year, great job. The year I mentioned where I got employee of the month. That was a year where our team was very much like, in that anecdote of. It was, I think. And it's something I can really think of in my career where there was a sense of. There was like, kind of competition for everyone to come up with awesome ideas. But it wasn't like, because I want to show everyone I'm better than them. But it was like, because I'm so exc. To share these ideas. And we're all going to get so much better because we're all working on this stuff together. It was like a magic. I don't know if it's just my age at the time or it was your age. It was. Yeah, I guess it was. When you get older, you're just like, no, I'm getting better than everyone. But at the time, it was just so exciting to think of everything we're learning is making us all so much better at our work and at behavior analysis, at education. It was so cool. So, yeah, if you can use these systems, man, what a magical place that would be to work. Just think about that.
- [74:49]
C
Just think about that.
- [74:50]
A
Just think about it. I will use my time to think about that.
- [74:53]
E
This chapter more as well as many others just made me think of anybody who has watched Andor the.
- [75:03]
D
I haven't.
- [75:04]
E
I know you haven't. I. I almost started to say you can turn. You can just go away for like 60 seconds if you need to. There's a prison that. If you watch Narkina five episodes and you. Your behavior analysts think about how they're misapplying, like, be really effectively misapplying behavioral principles in a very unethical way. And this chapter really made me think about that. That there is like this group contingency, but it's punishment and there's ranking and all of this horrendous, horrendous system that I was just. Yeah, the whole time I watched that show, I. Or those episodes, I really thought, like, that's actually a correct but unethical application of our science. And this chapter really, really reminded me of that. So I invite people, whether or not you're behavior analysts, but especially if you read your analysts who read this book to then go back and re. Watch those episodes of Andor and be like, wow, that's why it's such a hellish place. It is literally a, like, corporate prison based on bad management principles.
- [76:12]
A
So good. So I remember sitting like on the. I literally sat on the edge of my seat while watching that episode. I was like, how is this? Is the best Star Wars I've ever seen.
- [76:20]
E
Yeah, Jackie, at least those episodes, you would love it. But be incensed. Like they use positive reinforcement. If you're the tape. The best table on your shift, you get flavor with your food paste.
- [76:33]
B
Yes.
- [76:34]
E
Yeah. Reinforcement, right.
- [76:37]
D
Yeah. My husband watches that show and he works out, so I know what it is, but I've never watched it because it's in the other room.
- [76:46]
C
It's supposed to be really good. I haven't seen it either, but it won awards for writing or was nominated one the best.
- [76:53]
E
Star wars doesn't have a lot of sci fi really, so you were probably appreciated for that. But those prison episodes, there's like three. Thank you. Really should watch them as a behavior analyst because they are really evocative of like our science being applied unethically. Like the writers do a really, really good job of applying behavioral principles to a hellscape prison.
- [77:18]
A
So if you ever meet a manager who's doing these principles, say, you don't want to be like the Galactic Empire, do you? And they'll probably say, yes, I do. I love the heroes of Star Wars.
- [77:28]
C
You mean just. I just also want to say that like in watching the Jetsons and stuff like that as a kid I was always really worried that they were actually going to be able to perfect the technology where you just had to eat like a food, like a pill that was your food for the day. And I was going to be. I was like really worried that that was going to happen because I never wanted meals. It's like, I don't want to live in that future.
- [77:55]
E
Sorry to derail it, but I just, I really had to bring that up.
- [77:59]
C
Okay.
- [77:59]
A
No, that's a great one.
- [78:00]
C
I appreciate it. Okay, so because I was under on my last one, I only, I was under budget. So I only get four minutes this time around. And I'm going to talk about chapter five, rewarding things a dead man or woman can do, which is now I'll start the timer, which is abbreviated dmb. And so everywhere in the notes it's dmb. And Rob made multiple Dave Matthews band references in here as well.
- [78:27]
A
It says identify DMVs that exist and eliminate them. And I wrote in the notes, unless your DMV is under the table and dreaming, in which case put that one on again.
- [78:35]
C
You know, take these chances. So I am a mixed thought on this chapter. So the, the main basic point here is if you're going to reinvoice your employees behavior, make sure it's something that they're actually doing. Rather than an absence of something that you don't want to see them doing. Right? So if you're trying to say, let's reinforce safety, don't say, oh, I'm reinforcing zero accidents. Because if none of your employees came to work or they were all at work but just, you know, dead and not doing their jobs, there would also be zero accidents. So that's not a good measure. Or, you know, you guys made zero defective widgets at the factory today, so great job. Well, if they'd also just been sitting around not doing their job, they also still would have made zero defective widgets because they would have made no widgets. So that's like where the origin of this is coming from. If it's the dead man's test, then there's no actual behavior occurring necessarily and therefore there's nothing to reinforce. Right. It's the absence of behavior. So that's kind of an issue. And the. Then. So I'm cool with that. But then they kind of pivot toward we only should be reinforcing behavior. That is. And this bleeds into chapter six as well. Like above and beyond, I think is my interpretation. Above and beyond what sort of the expectation here is. Because if we're just reinforcing coming to work, then that's kind of the same idea as re. It's not the same, but that's kind of like where they're coming from, the same as reinforcing the dead man's test idea. So we should be selecting particular behavior that we want to see occur more and more. And you know, hitching our reinforcement, which means hitching our, our monetary raises to those specific behaviors. And then he kind of like takes a detour and is talking about how they started doing cost of living raises like back in the day or Henry Ford did it, or maybe it was in England or both.
- [80:35]
A
The cost of living was tied to like bread and how many kids you had old time Elizabethan England or something, I don't know.
- [80:42]
C
And that was a mistake. So this will, like I said, bleed into chapter six. So I don't want to like take away Jackie's thunder. Who's going to talk about that chapter. But I did find my gears being ground a little bit here. I think maybe the underlying reason why is, I think that this is operating on the assumption that workers are being paid fairly to start with. And at least in our country, we have not seen minimum wage jobs pay for those rise commensurate level as the cost of living increases have. Have risen across the last you know, 20x years. And so hearing something like no one should be getting a cost of living raise, I think, you know, can rub us the wrong way because many people are already not being able to meet those costs of living. Now the idea of let's find behavior to reinforce that's actual behavior occurring. I'm cool with that part. So.
- [81:36]
A
So it shouldn't be a cost of living raise. It should be a you've been improving in your job raise would ideally be the system that you'd want to have in place. Yeah, that's how, that's how I took it from the chain. It wasn't so much like these loafers don't deserve more money just for surviving, but that we're not reinforcing the behavior that will grow your business. We're just reinforcing stuff either because we have to where we think we're supposed to. Yeah, but that's not a, that's not good business.
- [82:00]
C
Yeah, but I also, and I also like touched on this in my notes too. Is that, oh no, you made me be out of time. Well, that's fine. Next time I get five minutes. Oh, how do I stop it?
- [82:11]
A
Turn off George Thorogood. He's not bad to the bone.
- [82:14]
C
What was I saying? Might as well keep going since I already get more time next time. What I was saying is this seems very tied into the idea of the output of work is some type of productivity or some type of hard something that we can measure monetarily, but very much of our field is not measured that way. It's in how much compassionate care and good service do we provide to the folks who are in our care, which is a much different type of output measure that's not tied into bottom line profit in the same way. So I think that there are, like you said, Alan, a lot of things that are not necessarily measured via this model. That should be.
- [82:56]
B
Right.
- [82:56]
E
Well, and if your only idea or your only like really reinforcement schedule is one based on fine, like money. But there's multiple behaviors being reinforced, whether they're low effort behaviors like showing up to work or high effort behaviors like, that's probably going to be, it's probably going to weaken the like, the like impact of the. I feel like you have to consider that there does actually need to be reinforcing contingencies in place that are not just about going above and beyond like you. The place needs to be an enjoyable place to come to. Yeah, you need to be reinforced for showing up to work. It doesn't have to be monetarily but it could have a monetary impact on the business, of course.
- [83:55]
C
So people also need to feel safe and secure in their jobs and in their work. And, you know, in other literature we've seen, if you keep pushing and pushing and pushing, what will happen? People won't continue to produce more and more and more. They'll get burnt out. They'll quit, they'll quiet quit, and the morale at the agency will completely deteriorate.
- [84:16]
E
And then my. Also, I was. I'm ready to. We won't have time, but I'm ready to. To wrestle Jackie about this. The idea of, like, reinforcing the absence of a. Of a behavior is antithetical to the dro, which I have found to be an effective tool in the field time and time again. So also not.
- [84:36]
D
I have to fight you a little bit is. I think it's sometimes an idea. It's a good idea to use a dro, but it's not. It shouldn't be your end all. Be all.
- [84:47]
E
When I. When a DRA has not proven effective, a DRO can often help reduce.
- [84:56]
C
A.
- [84:56]
E
Challenging behavior through our mission training. So I just had to point that out that, like, actually, it is a science. Something. A tool we have in our field.
- [85:04]
D
You should listen to why Jackie Hates DRO episode.
- [85:07]
E
I know, I know.
- [85:08]
A
That's why I said I would wrestle.
- [85:09]
E
You about it, because I. Yeah, okay, fair enough.
- [85:13]
C
We'll save that fight for another day. All right, Jackie, I won't take you down to three minutes, but you were under four last time. Thanksgiving.
- [85:23]
D
Yeah, it's like I knew what this was and picked the shortest ones. Just kidding. I didn't. All right, mine is salary and hourly pay. I'm salaried. Diana, salaried. Rob, you're salaried. And Alan, you're salaried, too. We're all salaried, but I am certain that we've all worked for hourly pay before. Right. I used to be a long time, but, yes, I was a lifeguard. I was a bartender. Right.
- [85:50]
C
I don't even want to tell you what minimum wage was when I was.
- [85:53]
D
I know, it's ridiculous. Like, $8.
- [85:55]
C
Yes. It was less than $8.
- [85:57]
A
$8 when I was an assistant manager at Funko Land.
- [86:00]
D
Oh, my gosh. I was an assistant manager at Burger King. I was food and crew safety manager. Anyway, okay.
- [86:05]
E
I was gonna say my first BCBA job was actually hourly.
- [86:09]
D
Oh, there you go. Sometimes the hourly actually can make it more if you actually do do the hourly. But anyway, so here. Both these. Both of These hourly or salary are super wasteful. Right. Salary is just for showing up. In my current job, I actually get paid on the first of the month before I've done anything, which I kind of love. So September 1st, I will get my paycheck for September.
- [86:35]
A
You promise to be a great professor. Right?
- [86:38]
D
Right. And it's definitely not related to my performance. Right. Because I haven't even done anything yet. And although I don't get bonuses, usually bonuses are loosely contingent on performance and money is not tied to performance in business, but it just keeps getting used as the way.
- [86:53]
B
Right.
- [86:54]
D
And payment usually is on a fixed time schedule only. Right. And a fixed time schedule is not like a fixed interval or a fixed ratio. Fixed time is behavior is non contingent. Reinforcement is delivered non contingently on fixed time only. Like I get paid on SEP all the first of the month, every month. Right. Regardless if I've done work or not. Right. And we've talked about it before, Diane, and brought it up in the last one, is that raises are really expensive over tide, over time, and they're typically not tied to better and better performance. Right. Every time you get a raise, you don't like, become a better and more superstar employee. And people start expecting to get raises if you have not given them raises in a while. And so it's really not motivational. Right. Since when you get it, you keep it. You don't, you don't like lose it. They're like, oh, you've stopped being a bad employee. That raise is gone. They can't really do that. You could take them to court. Yeah. So, you know, that's not great. It also could punish your behavior since it could be seen as, you know, below your own value. And lots of people get raises. You could do a piece rate pay, so performance was paid by what you made. But this would be easy if it was, you know, we're making widgets in a factory. But it gets more complicated when you're measuring, you know, more complicated behaviors such as professoring and BCBAing. Right. So are you going to get paid for the number of treatment plans you create, but not the quality of treatment plans?
- [88:22]
B
Right.
- [88:23]
C
I hate that idea.
- [88:24]
D
Yeah. So, yeah. And so the annual bonus, you know, nobody ever knows how you're gonna get that. And I just think about Clark Griswold, I was just gonna say in Christmas Vacation, right? When he's like, people are counting on that bonus, counting on that bonus because he had gotten every year and he didn't get it.
- [88:43]
C
Sometimes, sometimes people have already put down the down payment on their pool that they're gonna pool. Yeah.
- [88:48]
A
Right.
- [88:48]
C
Then they end up getting a jelly of the month club. Thank you for that, Diana.
- [88:53]
D
So what they said, what to do instead is to figure out what you actually want your employee to do. And you could do a salary. Right. Because everyone would be real mad if you took away their salary. I would be. But you could also add in some performance pay. Right. And research from the 90s said that just 3% of performance bonus of salaries is effective than 100%. Right. So you don't even have to go higher. You could do 3%. And it's really about pinpointing the behaviors that you want the participant to engage in so that it increases the results that are relevant to your organization. So yeah, so they said that make sure this is a manager problem and not a person problem because the manager needs to pinpoint exactly what they want you to engage in and then pay you for those behaviors and not all the other stuff. Like I'm pretty sure I, I don't get paid for saying hey and hugging everyone when I get to work. It's collateral behavior. Right. But I do it. And so that might be an inopportune use of time for my. If my manager was like pinpointing all my behavior.
- [90:04]
B
Done.
- [90:06]
A
I like the example they give of the profit indexed performance pay and sort of looking at the idea of there's the level of compensation based on both how you scored in your meaningful pinpointed performance matrix and related to company profit. So you have a base salary and if the company makes a profit, well, that money should, some of it needs to go back to the workers who met the performance goals. Which sounds like a really great idea. But you know, I understand how some of these CEOs, when they make a billion dollars, I understand they need all of that billion dollars for themselves. I get it. Like, it's tough, tough. It's tough out there.
- [90:41]
C
That's the thing is we are like this chat. These chapters are assuming that your CEO is not here on the part of the administrators. Right.
- [90:50]
D
Never the case.
- [90:51]
C
Don't feel that we can assume that, that they're going to pass the savings on to you or that they're going to ensure that you have the appropriate amount of money to live on as part of your base salary. Because that just doesn't seem to be how capitalism is working right now. And I don't think that we can allow those types of, you know, base. I don't know what word I'm wanting to use. Sorry, Concessions. Yeah.
- [91:19]
E
Yeah. And just there's been research really heavily in the last five years. Friendly enough. Not in the US as much, but in Europe and in places like South Korea that do have capitalist market based economies that performance based pay seems to correlate to higher use by of antidepressants and anti anxiety medications once they're implemented after six months. And I think that does speak to that idea of like, well, maybe there's some, some administrative executive level misbehavior that is making those performance based payments schemes less effective. Even if they're implemented as designed, they're undercut by, you know, you got a 5% raise, but you're making 200 times or your, your, you know, CEO is making 200, 600 times what you are. It's like, well, 5%'s nothing.
- [92:20]
C
Yeah. All right, it's finally Alan's turn.
- [92:24]
E
It is.
- [92:24]
C
You get five minutes. You ready?
- [92:27]
E
Sure. I just want to say you guys did a good job, but I have some, you know, what about those moments where you didn't quite meet performance? Let's focus on those.
- [92:38]
D
I always met performance.
- [92:39]
A
I don't want a podcast anymore. I'm done.
- [92:43]
E
So yeah, this very short section, it's the classic you have starts with the anecdote of you have five A's and a B and the first question you get asked is, hey, what about this B? Yeah, that's the problem here. Probably going to really undercut the, all the effort and all of the payoff you hope to get for the five A's that you put in. Because there was a. Oh, we, you know, we expect the good stuff. It's that underperformance that we're going to zero in on. And they transitioned to how that's translated in business to the ol. You did okay, but you know, we're not where we need to be yet. It's like, well then don't tell me I did okay because I'm not doing okay.
- [93:29]
C
Yeah.
- [93:30]
A
Or I am doing okay and you wanted to tell me something. You just wanted me to do something new in the future.
- [93:35]
E
Like right, you need to give me two different pieces of feedback there.
- [93:40]
A
Pick a lane.
- [93:40]
E
Managers, the goal that we set for you is achieved and good job working on that. I would like to set a new goal for you to continue progress. Even that reframing that statement is so much better in terms of like the quality of reinforcement that you get. Because for reframing that I would like to set a new goal is almost like you've done well. And I think I would like to invest more time in you. And I would like to see you working here longer as opposed to you've got a long way to go. It's like, it doesn't feel as nice. So don't do that. Some of the alternatives they suggest are. Well, actually they go back to the idea of performance appraisal being a. Not probably not a great way to start. And really like, giving, like, distributing that feedback is kind of the big takeaway is like, hey, I like, good job on that report. I appreciate that. And then a few days later, hey, on that report, there were two items that I would like us to focus on so that when your next report is even better, so much more tolerable than being told that this product of your work is subpar, even though you just got told that it met requirements. It's that. And that's something that I, who manages trainees have to like, be really, like, careful about, like reviewing treatment plans. Like, hey, here's these. Like, this is just feedback on edits. I also, like, this is a good product. We need to make these edits. Let's keep working on like. And I can tell, like, one of my biggest points of feedback I always try to repeat is I can tell that you incorporated my fast P, my past feedback into this treatment plan. So excellent job on that. Let's make these revisions because I know that you'll be even more effective the next time. And that seems to go well because I recognize past effort, ongoing effort while still setting that goal of, hey, we will still keep moving along.
- [95:48]
C
I love the way they phrased it. Like, give the feedback first and then maybe a couple days be like, I was thinking about your report and I have some ideas how we can make it better. Right. So it's. There's space in there and it's. It really, I think, comes across as much different and much more constructive that second. The second one.
- [96:08]
A
Yeah.
- [96:08]
E
And even individual, like once you know an employee or your. Yeah. Your subordinate, make talk to them about how they would like to receive feedback. Maybe they want all of the corrective feedback. Right then so they can revise if it's something that they can't revise because they want to. And then they can be praised on the final product having all of the feedback.
- [96:36]
D
Right? Yeah. Because I could see also if they did, if you always did this way, like you said, yeah, you did a great job. And then two days later you gave them corrective feedback. People would be waiting for your corrective feedback to come. Like, two days later you'd Be like, I'm waiting for it. You're going to come. So every time you see, like, your.
- [96:52]
E
Boss, you're gonna be like, possibly.
- [96:54]
A
But I think in that context, and there's some, like, OBM literature looking at this, when you don't give people corrective feedback, they tend to look for corrective feedback or they ask for it, they want it. So a lot of employees, at least in situations where they do receive enough positive reinforcement, do look for feedback. So it may be that distance or how you're parsing how the feedback's done, which I'll talk about in just a second. That is the key to making feedback something that they appreciate rather than, oh, God, I'm dreading this.
- [97:25]
D
Right?
- [97:25]
A
Yeah.
- [97:26]
D
All right.
- [97:27]
C
Went over Alan's time, so.
- [97:29]
E
And then obviously that was just another. Another difference is that you can hear your feedback. Like, this is a. This is a revision that has to be made. Now. This is. This work product meets expectations. We don't need to revise it. However, you might consider the next report if you wanted to improve, incorporate this. Not required. Because I think in our field especially, it's like, okay, I would maybe like to work on this section more, but I don't have to worry about this work product anymore.
- [98:01]
C
So good job, Alan.
- [98:04]
E
Thank you.
- [98:04]
C
Next time. You get four minutes. Rob, back to you. Since you took over five last time, now you get sick.
- [98:11]
A
All right. Oh, great. Okay, so chapter eight is on the sandwich, the feedback sandwich. And we've talked about the feedback sandwich. We don't like the feedback sandwich. There's some idiosyncratic data's worth that. Some people may like the feedback sandwich, but unless they specifically say, I love it when you tell me something good and then something bad and then something good, probably don't use the feedback sandwich. Why? Well, because it tends to drown out the message. Are you. Again, similar to the chapter Alan just talked about. Are you trying to praise the person or are you trying to give them feedback? Because if you always pair praise with here's the feedback or here's what you need to do instead, and then try to throw praise at the end. Most likely your presence or your saying anything is creating this, like, cmor, where it's like, oh, God, they're going to say something to me. I know it's going to be awful. So then you're spending a lot of time. No, no, I swear I am trying to give you positive reinforcement. I'm so sorry. So then you got to go back and, like, rebuild a rapport. So if you're in the habit of doing this. You now spend a lot of time just having people not hate being in your presence because you're constantly associated with some sort of punishment paradigm or aversive paradigm. The goal. You know, there's a lot of reasons that Daniel says he's heard as to why you might use this. It's maybe you're protecting the ego of your employees or maybe you're trying to censure bad behavior but not censure the human inside. And there's no reason that you would do these things. That's not real any of those statements. So don't send a mixed message. Don't become a cmor. Instead, decide, are you giving corrective feedback or are you giving positive praise? If it's corrective feedback, well, state what the problem is. State what you desire that they do. Instead, state what will happen if they don't make those changes. Ask for any questions, do wrap up and then set up a system in which you can track their improvement in this behavior. That is start delivering positive reinforcement for the new behavior change so that it becomes something that the individual is learning from. And if you want to hear us talk of all about this last year's supervision book club, that's we talked all about that. We talked all about giving corrective feedback. We talked all about what to do with a poor performance.
- [100:16]
D
I really liked when he said that. It's. This is a, this is really for the manager to make them feel better about getting corrective feedback.
- [100:22]
A
Oh yeah, guess what, manager? No one cares about you. You need to think about your employees. All right, we're not here to meet make you feel better. We're here to make you help you do a good job.
- [100:32]
E
Also, this section ties us back to my very first book club episode, the Risley and Hart book, because exactly. Yeah referenced that. So brought a flutter to my heart to bring it full circle.
- [100:48]
A
Now if you are a manager who already does the feedback sandwich and wants to change that behavior, okay, we are here to help you. Some managers, don't worry, think about your 4 to 1 ratio. Like Alan said Hart and Risley, there's some other work in public schools around, you know, 4 to 1 positive to feedback statements. And if you're using this though, make sure it's not like you're not banking it. Like I said, four nice things over the past week. So now I'm going to be a jerk to this person. It's more about I'm giving feedback. I'm going to focus on four things you do well. And I'm going to tell you the one thing I'd like us to work on next time and why and how. Right that would be. That's fine. You can do that if you think you do the feedback sandwich or you think you don't follow that. Use some, maybe some behavior specific praise work. Do some self management. Sorry, self monitoring about that. Hey, how many nice things have I said related to the behaviors I want to see versus feedback statements? You'll be surprised. You're probably a jerk a lot of the time. Wow. And then you can use that information to change behavior. But don't worry, usually you track your own behavior. You start making the changes already. Certainly you could decide, I will only do one or only do the other. Sort of like in the previous chapter. I'm going to either just give positive feedback at this situation because that's what it calls for, and then I'll focus on the corrective feedback the next time I see this person or at a meeting or something like that. That would be another way to sort of dodge the feedback sandwich completely. And always remember, if you're starting to use the feedback sandwich, you're doing it because you want to feel better, not because you want your employee to do better. And your business doesn't run on how you feel. It runs on how well your employees are engaging in the relevant behaviors. And part of that is going to be they like receiving feedback from you so they can continue growing as professionals.
- [102:22]
C
If you try to mansplain to someone what they should be doing while you're giving the feedback sandwich. It's a man witch.
- [102:30]
D
Oh, I love it. Diana.
- [102:34]
C
You done?
- [102:35]
A
I have so much to say. So much to say. So much to say. Oh, so much to say.
- [102:39]
C
Oh, Jesus, no. Okay. All right. Good job, Rob. You are under time.
- [102:46]
A
Oh, then I will use the time to continue doing Dave Matthews lyrics.
- [102:50]
C
No, no, no. Next time you're down. Nice work. Proud of you.
- [102:54]
E
There's gotta be. We've got to, as a field, do more research better than. This is what happens in public school classrooms when it comes to ratios of like positive reinforcement statements to. I was like, wow.
- [103:09]
A
I really.
- [103:10]
E
I was like, yeah, there's not really a lot. I don't think so.
- [103:15]
A
It is odd. There was a period, I remember going to a bookstore, there was a book on managers don't yell at people. And it felt like there was a sea change of like, I think managers have figured it out. I think they're using all these great principles. And then it feels like in the past, what at Least five years. Every lesson that we learned about how to improve your business is just out the window. And it's just, what if none of these things? What if no value for our human employees? It's terrible.
- [103:42]
C
I think that, you know, contingent consequences for behavior is one important part of how one responds in a work setting. But there are also general non contingent reinforcers present. The overall rate of reinforcement that's available and how enriched the environment is. And that can have a lot of additional variables that are being contributed here. You know, the value of the work that one has, the social environment that's present there, the additional, you know, challenges or rewards that one finds in that setting, that also should be taken into consideration in this overall discussion regarding reinforcement. So it's a lot more complicated, I think, than perhaps we're thinking, but that's just me. And now I'm going to tell you about chapter nine. I only get no, I get six minutes, but it's not going to take me that long. It'll be quickie. This chapter is called Overvaluing Smart Talented People. So everyone wants to hire the best people out there, right? And there's sort of the understanding or the idea that if you can get those best people, that's how you're going to have your agency soar. And if you have people that aren't at that very top echelon, then the performance is going to suffer at your agency. This is, you know, really putting a lot of onus on the quote, unquote, you know, personality traits of the person or their intelligence versus what you can teach people how to do. And so Aubrey Daniels focus in this chapter is we can teach the behavior that we're looking to see. And we need to be focusing on that, investing in our employees and spending a lot of time and energy up front and training them. We also should think about what that training looks like and how we can ensure that it is the most effective and efficient version of training that it can be. So he gets into a little bit of the fluency literature here and talking about how one could really streamline training. You know, people are going to be more or less receptive, I think, to doing some type of like intensive discrete trial training. And depending on what the, the what, what, what one, sorry, depending on what one needs to be fluent at in your job is going to depend on what that training really needs to look like. So it really, I think, could vary a good bit. He brings up a very interesting point. I don't know if it's like based in one guy's opinion or fact. But he says you could become an expert in something, anything in 10,000 hours, which I thought was very interesting.
- [106:20]
A
Some research on like cigar wrappers back in the 70s or something. I, I believe that was the original, like, study that came from. I, I don't know if that is true.
- [106:30]
C
Right.
- [106:31]
A
Just vaguely remembering a college lecture.
- [106:32]
C
Okay, but what an interesting idea. 10,000 hours is a lot of hours. But it's, you know, we do spend. You guys spend your life doing something, right. So maybe you have something that you want to devote 10,000 hours to that may have limitations with it as well. But he says you can teach anyone to do anything if you are smart enough. And also, you don't teach someone to the limit of their ability. You teach them to the limit of your ability. Those are, those are good sentiments. Right. And so he's saying, don't. What you want to do is not. You don't have to seek out the top person. You have to create the top person by investing in them and ensuring that they know what they need to do. Now, my last point is on this idea about how many hours one can devote to something. Yes. In an absolute vacuum where people don't have additional responsibilities and pulls on their time, maybe you would have unlimited time in order to teach them the thing that they need to learn for their job. But in my experience, both as a supervisor and as a professor, people have a lot of additional constraints on their time that may be impacting how much time they have to devote to the thing that you want them to learn how to do. And so that, I think, should also be taken into consideration here as well. That's it. That's all I want to say.
- [107:56]
A
And someone should tell our friends in Silicon Valley, who I read in the paper today, are really working to bring back the eugenics movement by selecting for high IQ babies.
- [108:06]
C
Thanks for that, Rob.
- [108:07]
A
Oh, yeah. I'm gonna be Jay Leno soon if I keep up my rip from the headlines comedy.
- [108:11]
C
All right, Alan, you were under budget for your last chapter, and so now you get four minutes to tell us about the budget process.
- [108:21]
E
Yeah, it exists. This is definitely one of the chapters that doesn't feel quite as focused, but it's basically the idea is if you ask for, if you're obsessed with like finding fat and those kinds of issues, you will miss and like reducing expenses, you're going to miss quite a lot of meaningful input and you're going sort of what I was talking about with people are more than their, like, labor output. Right. Like, they have, like, social impact on the environment. And so who, you know, one of the big points is who benefits from like, reducing expenses? Probably not the employees who are impacting your bottom line. So really spending time on budgets and having managers like, focus on budgets can be, really, could really undermine the whole process of a positive reinforcement in the environment. And so they suggest sort of not throwing the whole budget process out the window, but giving managers more latitude to do things like spend lavishly on performance when the output exceeds expectations or when they seem excited about it. Demonstrate. People who demonstrate the ability to do more with less should be given more, not less, because if they're able to do more with less, if you give them more, they'll do more. So if it's like, oh, here's a thousand dollars, you only spent 500, you only need 500. It's like, well, no, you should probably give them 1500 and they'll do exceptional things. Budget from the bottom up was another big one, which I think we sort of touched on with the idea of executive pay should maybe be the last consideration and not the first consideration in terms of an organizational budget. Because if your lowest tier of employees is well supported and high performing, you as a supervisor will reap those rewards rather than justifying your high wages with lower departmental wages or that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's basically just budget is where an agency can really mess up positive reinforcement on a lot of levels by overemphasizing low costs.
- [111:03]
D
Yeah, emphasizing low cost and padding the budget right. To get what you need.
- [111:09]
A
Right.
- [111:10]
D
I've been, as someone who does budgets every year for multiple, multiple departments, there have been years where they're like, no, no, no, you need to pad it so that you actually have money that you need because they're going to cut it. Right. Or and then be like, no, no, no, I want to know what you actually need. And I'm hoping not to cut it. Right. Like, so it's, it's, it's hard as a budget person when there are games like, just put what you need and then approve that.
- [111:37]
A
That's how it should. Yeah. Budgets feel like one of those processes that anytime someone's asked me to write a budget, I'm like, I don't want to be a part of whatever this process is because if I put a bunch of crap, I feel guilty and I probably get a bunch of crap I don't need that I can't use. If I tell you exactly what I need, you'll be like, there's no way to do that, and I'm just stuck making it happen. And if I do, you know, the person who didn't give me any money or resources says, well, looks like I did a great job not giving you anything because you figured it out, which is, you know, never fun.
- [112:03]
E
Yeah. Well, and this kind of goes to, like, honesty. Honesty and communication, especially about finances in a company is probably the best practice. I did have the. I did like. One of the suggestions was if there's something like a piece of equipment that was previously not able to be approved, then if that is able to be brought in later in a meaningful way, then do that. Like spend your extra money to improve the circumstances of your staff, especially if they have identified tools that will make them more. That will improve their performance. So. Or make them more relevant.
- [112:50]
C
So great. Good job. Is it my turn?
- [112:58]
A
It is.
- [113:00]
D
I give.
- [113:00]
C
I think I get five minutes, but once again, I'm going to be. I think I'm going to be pretty quick. So this chapter is called Promoting People no One Likes. This is number 11 in the oopsies.
- [113:12]
A
And that's it. They just say, why would you do that? And then move on to the next chapter.
- [113:17]
C
No, I mean, it can easily happen. As evidence of virtually any agency that you go to, there is very often someone pretty high up in the ranks that you wonder, how did that person get there? No one enjoys working with them. And they make things generally pretty unpleasant. And that can happen due to the reinforcing properties of behavior. Right. Just like any other behavior. So someone can they say, like, maybe people think that they need to act this. This way in order to be a boss, that they need to be overly critical or yelling at people or treating other people harshly in order to demonstrate what they view as, you know, supervisory behavior. And then that. That gets reinforced because the employees then at least temporarily do what is being asked of them out of fear or more appropriately, negative reinforcement that reinforces that supervisor's behavior, and then it just sort of escalates and gets worse and worse and worse. I always have liked this, the metaphor of the seagull supervisor. Have I told y' all this before? The seagull supervisor is one who isn't always there, but. But then comes in, flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits all over everything and leaves. So I feel like that's. That could be applicable here as well.
- [114:40]
D
You said a swear word.
- [114:42]
C
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. They talk. They. He gives us some. Some different examples and quotes. One of them was from John Wooden, who's A, it says B ball. Is that basketball? Basketball, sorry, basketball coach. And the quote is, it's very hard to influence someone in a positive manner over the long haul when you antagonize and alienate that individual. In addition, once you've angered someone and created a feeling of animosity, then you're forced to waste additional time backing up and trying to smooth things over. So this is not best practice. And this can be avoided by not promoting people who are demonstrating that behavior or sort of that you see like the kernels of that behavior as. As behavior that may be further exacerbated as they move into more supervisory roles.
- [115:28]
D
So my dad was that kind of supervisor.
- [115:31]
C
Oh no, he was a jerk.
- [115:32]
D
And everyone that I meet now as like a grown up, they're like, your dad was horribly mean. I'm like, and outside of work, he's probably, he's an okay person.
- [115:40]
C
They make that point too as well, is that there are different contingencies in place in different settings. So someone might be perfectly pleasant in social situations outside of work, but then have this other Persona inside of work. Because that's what's been reinforced by the culture of that agency and the way in which their employees have responded to that. That. So they said what to do instead is when you're looking to promote someone, you should also examine are they well liked by their current peers or co workers. Is that you can be liked and be a bad manager, but you can't be a good manager unless you're well liked. So if they've already moved into some type of supervisory position and people like them, then that's a really good sign that as they move up the ladder, they're going to continue to be liked because they already have some of those people skills, interpersonal skills that are needed in order to motivate and supervise people in a positive way. They also say, do they know about the principles of behavior analysis? Because these really are critical to doing a good job as a supervisor. And if one already knows about the science and can apply it through a strategic format, then you're going to be that much more successful than if you are just kind of shooting in the dark and hoping that you're getting it right. And finally, do they describe past results in terms of using positive reinforcement? This could help, you know, if the person has that stronger understanding of how their behavior impacts others, and if they can name that to you, then that will indicate that they're going to be more likely effective at problem solving future strategies and working with various types of Future supervisees.
- [117:24]
A
All right, you did good. So less time now. More time. I can't remember. I'm all confused. All right, five minutes, number 12. I will not spend five minutes on the, on the topic of downsizing, not because it is not super important how, but it is one that I think the majority of our listeners do not have. Either are not employing people or do not have enough employees to do something that would be considered downsizing so much as they might like let a person go or let a therapist go. If you are in a position where you can fire enough people that they say, wow, your company is downsizing, like firing en masse. Congratulations to you for having such a big company, but shame on you for downsizing. Why do people downsize according to Daniels? Well, two reasons that are about money is if you downsize, your stock price will go up, maybe up to 7%. That's the average increase in shares. That's not going to stay forever though. So you're only making a few people who have nothing to do with the business, they're just shareholders, potentially a little bit of money for a short amount of time because there's usually an immediate increase in profits, though rarely does this actually result in long standing reductions in expenses or increase of profits. I think it's like in the 80s they did a study and 68% of companies that said we're downsizing to increase profits didn't actually meet that goal. So maybe sometimes it increases profits, but not the majority of the time, that's for sure. And then finally there is a time that you might want to downsize, which is, and I disagree with this one, because technology and innovation make it so that you can't be competitive without the removal of humans, because new technologies. I think there's a real big caveat that Dr. Daniels did not know of at the time of writing and that is the increases in AI taking human jobs these days. I'm not going to go into it as I'm not an expert in that field, but it does feel like we're not just talking about like, wow, this conveyor belt sure does make the guy we had carrying auto parts from station to station less useful. We'll find him another job. So much as we don't need humans anymore because AI. So I'm a little nervous about that. In any case, if your goal is, well, I'm going to improve my business by firing a bunch of people, there's a real cost there and any potentially short term benefit is going to be lost in everyone else working there. Spending the rest of their working hours saying, when am I going to get fired? Or now I have too much work to do, so I can't do a good job, so I can only do a bad job. And since you're probably downsizing because you're in a company that isn't, that is following a lot of these oops practices, it's not like you're going to be getting some more positive reinforcement, so you're probably just going to have your productivity go down or you're going to quit and find a better job, which is increasingly hard because a lot of companies have all kind of cartel like agreed to use many of these practices, it seems. So downsizing isn't actually useful. And if you're a manager saying but downsizing, you're probably wrong. But what could you do instead if you want to get some of the benefits out of, you know, some of some of the ideas around downsizing? Well, number one, talk to the people who are doing the work. Get their impact. If your company's in trouble and you need to make money quickly, talk to the people who actually are involved in generating the service or product about what is it that's making us not make as much money as we could be or not be the number one competitor. Because you'll have tons of smart people who can come up with tons of great answers, of which some of them will be very easy, easily actionable, and will likely result in increased profits or at least some sort of increase better quality of product perhaps, right? There's a quote here from Looks like Gilbert, which is a researcher in business. Cost cutting is simply a recognition that higher degrees of incompetence are acceptable in good times when the customer is able to bear the cost. So you should always be thinking about how do we reinforce lean spending. It's not just something you do when things are bad, it's something you're always doing. And it's not just about we need to do more with less, which I am so tired of hearing. It's about how can we do, how can we be efficient? How can we take what we're doing, make it just as good, if not better, and do it while thinking about cost savings. And if you are focusing your positive reinforcement on behaviors that lead to those savings and talking to your employees, you will probably be more efficient as a company. Worst case scenario, somebody downsize, maybe you're the new boss or something and you've come into the situation all right, you better be bumping up positive reinforcement and recognition as people are taking on extra jobs, which feels weird of like, we don't want to have a party. We just fired all these people. That really seems like a crappy time to be celebrating. But you need to be thinking about the employees that still work there in terms of what are they doing? How are you making it better so you'll never have to downsize again? And how are you delivering positive reinforcement for the actions they're taking to keep your business going? Because if you don't, they'll leave too.
- [121:51]
C
Good work. I just want to note that everyone is doing a great job of not interrupting. And so you all get five Diana bucks.
- [121:58]
A
Yay.
- [122:01]
C
All right, last chapter. Alan, you give four minutes.
- [122:06]
E
I don't think I'll need it. Mergers and Acquisitions and other forms of reorganizing. They point out that mergers and acquisitions in the research and historically mostly benefit the deal makers and not the people within organizations or the organizations themselves, whether that's the acquiring or acquired organization. Usually that's because the financial decisions are given priority when people considerations, I think is the phrase that they use should probably be essential to making sure that the merger and acquisition has the outcome that's desired. The big item they talk about is things like culture clash, that an acquired agency or an acquiring agency there can be a lot of like social fallout to a merger and acquisition. And we're talking about huge agencies here. I've never lived through one of these circumstances, but the idea is that if you're going to have a merger and acquisition, you should make the acquired organization welcomed into the new organization through like supported education, online culture, and making sure that people are comfortable, that unnecessary rules and policies are reduced. That might make circumstances better for everybody. There should be a lot of manager positive managerial presence. And then all of the targets that you set for at least the short term should be very achievable so that people have that higher schedule of reinforcement after like a significant change in context. There's lots more that they talk about. But really it sounds like mergers and acquisitions suck for most people. And they have some seemingly straightforward recommendations on how to minimize that if you're the kind of manager having to supervise a merger.
- [124:23]
A
So if you're merger, maybe the advice is you could call a place like Aubrey Daniels International to help you out with what that process should look like because we're probably not the experts on it just from having read a chapter data book.
- [124:36]
C
Yeah. And our focus is going to be on our individual employees slash supervisees as well.
- [124:43]
A
All right, that's our 13 oopses.
- [124:45]
C
How are you doing boss?
- [124:46]
A
Diana?
- [124:47]
C
You all did pretty good, but not everyone captured their time, so next time, you probably should try to do better. I'm going to make myself the performer of the month.
- [125:00]
A
Excellent. That's why you're.
- [125:01]
C
I don't know.
- [125:02]
E
I got performer of the month, the boss.
- [125:03]
C
Maybe you'll get it next month.
- [125:05]
A
How do we get it?
- [125:07]
C
Just do a good job.
- [125:09]
A
Okay, great.
- [125:10]
C
Yeah. Yeah.
- [125:11]
A
You learned a lot from this book, so.
- [125:14]
C
Yeah. So you guys can.
- [125:15]
A
Hooray.
- [125:16]
C
13 great management skills can discuss whether my strategies as a boss were good or bad. It's possible that they didn't. I didn't follow all the advice in this boss.
- [125:28]
A
Mm.
- [125:29]
E
It's almost as if you intentionally did the opposite of what they recommend to. To show a point, ironically.
- [125:38]
C
It's possible. All right.
- [125:42]
E
And yet somehow we probably stayed decently on time.
- [125:46]
A
We did. And I know Diana is. Is going to run as the boss. She's given herself some paid time off, so we'll do the wrap up without her because she's going to. On a. On a beach vacation to celebrate her great bossness.
- [125:56]
C
Yeah.
- [125:56]
A
All the profits are going to her.
- [125:58]
C
I'll leave my car in the parking lot, though, so you can still count it.
- [126:01]
A
Okay, great. So we can't leave until you come back.
- [126:03]
D
She's getting an Uber.
- [126:06]
A
Okay. Well, that kind of brings us to our wrap up of the rest of the book, and there's not much. There's one last section called Perfectly Motivated Employees, which I do think covers what I believe is just so. It. It's very meaningful. I think it's very sweet the way Dr. Daniels thinks of how we should be treating employees, how we should be thinking of work. To some extent, though, I worry that it is like a bygone era in which we think of going to work as something that we care about as much as a hobby, and not just because we have to or we'll die in the streets, but because there's, like, a goal and a meaning. And I think being a human service, there are a lot of things that point to our job is to help people, and when we help people, that is so rewarding. However, there's so much other garbage going on in every business that it makes it very, very hard to want to focus on your job versus anything that's not your job. And while I know his science and his heart is in the right place as to how businesses can do these things, I fear we're increasingly on a trajectory in which these 13 practices aren't even the biggest Oopsies. Like, there's new oopses coming out every day. Like, we need second edition. Oops. A hundred other stupid things you're doing as a manager. But guess what? You made all the money, so you control the book. And you won't let this be published because you don't want anyone to know that you're a bad manager. I just feel a little down these days about the state of business. And while I agree with every single one of these, I think most people in places of power don't care. So it's a little bit of a downer. My thought on the book, it's not on the book. That's just sort of like where we are as a late capitalist society.
- [127:53]
E
And I would just argue that even in 2009, the idea that negative reinforcement.
- [128:02]
A
Being.
- [128:05]
E
A significant part of people's reason to go to work work is, like, not explicitly considered because really, even at that point in time, there was like, underpay, and we were experiencing economic downturns and everything. So, you know, I obviously, I go to work because I enjoy the work that I do, and I. The money that I get allows me to, like, do things. But a big part of how I use the money is to not suffer. And so really, the job helps me avoid suffering. And I think even, I mean, unless you have a society in which most people can avoid that separate of work, that negative reinforcement component cannot be ignored or left out. Should always be a central part of designing your reinforcement scheme for a business.
- [129:20]
A
There's a good quote from him on page 155 that talks about the perfectly motivated employee. And I think the spirit of it, I believe the spirit of it is the idea of this is what. When you are the best manager in an organization that is dodging all these oopses and using positive reinforcement for pinpointed relevant behaviors, you will see this, not that if your employees aren't doing this, it means they're lazy layabouts and you should fire them. It's really, if you don't see this, you failed as a manager, you failed as a supervisor. And the quote is, for me, perfectly motivated employees are those who do more than they are paid to do. There are people who do what needs to be done to move the organization to fulfill its mission. They're excited about what they're doing, regardless of what it is. They don't give up easily. They're constantly seeking ways to do things better, cheaper, and faster. They're willing to work long hours and never complain. So again, if you are saying about your employees. If you're a manager, you're a supervisor and the people you're in charge of are not doing these things. Question number one is how am I failing that person? That this isn't their day to day. Now that doesn't mean that managers can control every aspect of everything going on in a human's life. Everyone's behavior will shift over time. But again, another follow up quote is rarely is the perfectly motivated person someone who's perfectly motivated in every situation. Rather, they are perfectly motivated in some situations, less so in others. Once we realize this, the questions before us shift from why are some people more motivated than others? To why are some situations more motivating than others? And so it's the constant work of the supervisor to think about those non motivating situations and decide are those relevant to the business, to the service, to whatever it is we are doing. If it's not, get it out of there, it's not helping anybody. If it is, how do I change those or shift those situations, avoiding these oopses to improve motivation for those reasons, it's not on the person, it's on the organization. And if everyone believed that, I think we would see more perfectly motivated employees. However, I fear that the lesson we are in and the pendulum swing we are in, we've been in for a long time is one of it's always the employee's fault. What if we didn't do any of these because we didn't need as many people as we had to? Let's downsize, downsize, downsize because there's new technologies that can do your job better. And the lesson we all hear is you are all expendable. I don't know if anyone else has looked at any news and for the past what year, every article feels like, oh, when is it going to be my turn to be a worthless waste of space that can't add anything to our capitalist society? And it's sad to think that a job like ours that felt like one of those, like, well, you need to have humans doing this job. I bet there's people who would beg to differ, that they don't need us, they get rid of us. Therefore why do any of these management techniques? So it's just very sad in that regard. I love a lot what's in this book. It just feels like it's written for a bygone era and that's just tragic. But day to day supervision, you can still use a lot of these 13 oopses. I don't want everyone to Leave here being sadder than they might already have been when they started listening. I've just depressed everyone now. I'm sorry. Dinah was a much better boss than I was. They shouldn't have promoted me. Sorry. Do you want to go to the last line? Wrap it up.
- [132:30]
D
Yeah, go to the last line, because I think the last line will boost our spirits.
- [132:35]
A
Okay. The last line of the book on page 163, because I love to do last line because you got to have a good last line is take the advice of Thomas Carlyle when he said, go as far as you can see, and then you will be able to see farther, which is fine as a last line. I think the penultimate line is a better last line, which is if you put in the time and effort to differentiate yourself behaviorally, the rewards will be positive and certain for you and your organization, and there will be no end to what you can accomplish.
- [133:02]
D
I like that one better.
- [133:03]
A
That's a better last line, I think. Switch it around in the next printer.
- [133:07]
D
Maybe he didn't feel. Maybe he didn't feel like he was hitting it home. He's like, I can't say it as well as other people, so I'll let someone else say it.
- [133:17]
E
Or he gave. That was a more behavior analytic statement. So then he translated it into more accessible language.
- [133:25]
D
Yeah, maybe.
- [133:26]
E
Anyway, they're both good, but one.
- [133:28]
A
One is better in. In my Hubble opinion.
- [133:31]
D
Good book. Good book. Yay.
- [133:33]
A
All right, so we love the book. We don't necessarily love the state of the world, but you know what? Day to day supervision. Here's things you can do. You know what? Let's do it that. Let's do that way. Hey, do you want the world to be a better place? Well, let's think about how you can implement these things because. And Alan, you'll get into this. It's all about our values, right? It's not about, are things getting better for us and what are our reinforcers? It's about, am I moving towards my values? And if your value is, I want to be a supervisor that trains behavior analysts to be great at being behavior analysts and improve the lives of others. Well, great. You can do that even if everything around us is burning down truth. So there we go.
- [134:10]
D
And we can end the book club in that way.
- [134:12]
A
And that's the end of our September book club. I hope everyone enjoyed listening to our discussion of oops. This was our supervision September. This is the end of supervision September. So you got all your supervision that you need. There's always time for Supervision. But at least on our show, this is mainly when we do it all in September. So we hope you enjoyed this month of Supervision episodes. We also hope you enjoyed this book club. And if you say, I love this format, give me more of it, please. Well, we do four of these every single year, and three of them are only available for our patrons. Patreon.com abainsidetrack where you can subscribe at any level, but at the $10 and up level, you're able to get all of our book clubs right as they come out, as well as two Cesar for no additional charge. And if you're a patron right now, guess what? The two supervision CES you get for listening to this episode, they're on us as a thank you for being a patron. And that's patreon.com abainsidetrack as well as chances to vote on our listener choice episodes, we got some of those coming up. All sorts of great bonuses. You get everything early. So you're hearing oops book club discussion before everybody else. Unless you already read and talked about this book, in which case you did it already. But maybe we had some great points that you didn't think about at the time, so. Or it's a good review, good refresher. Right? We also want to say, don't forget, you can get CES like I just said, for listening to this episode. Even if you don't want to be a patron, that's okay. Just go to our website, abainsidetrack.com to find the links to the book here. If you want to purchase the book yourself, as well as all of our other Supervision September content, you're going to need to know our secret code words, though, because you have to put in some key information. And the second and last code word is Eraser. E R A, S E R. I think Diana wrote that down. I don't know if she was referring to the rubber nub at the end of a pencil that you use to erase mistakes or the hit Arnold Schwarzenegger film Eraser. Remember that one? Alan's shaking his head. No, Jack, you didn't remember that one.
- [136:06]
E
She put it lowercase and so. She did not mean that.
- [136:09]
A
Oh, you're right. She might. It might have been a typo or an autocorrect. You know, Google's not thinking of the movie Eraser. We know that. All right, Eraser. All right, well, some final thanks thanks to our boss, Diana, who's enjoying a sunny vacation for all the hard work she did on this episode. I also want to say thanks to Alan and Jackie for being on this episode. If you don't feel appreciated by our.
- [136:30]
D
Podcast, thanks so much.
- [136:32]
A
You know what? Thank you. And I don't have any buts for y'. All. You're the best. Great job. I'm not being specific enough. I need to pinpoint our podcast performance. Also, some thanks to certainly the listeners. Thanks to Dr. Jim Carr for recording our intro outro music, thanks to Kyle Sturry for recording our interstitial music, and thanks to Dan Thabbitt of the podcast Doctors for his amazing editing work. We'll be back next week with the first of a non supervision topic, but it'll still be a fun filled episode. Until then, keep responding. Bye SA.