“The difference,” I spoke quietly, “the difference is the big three. Frequency, duration and proximity of the manager.” We had been talking about getting process changes to stick with the workforce.

“You have noticed that your training on these process changes seems to last for about a week before the new behavior is extinguished.”

“Extinguished?” Ryan asked.

“Extinguished, like a fire, put out. The behavior goes away. Let’s look at your management reinforcement to the new behavior. There are three possibilities. Positive reinforcement of the correct new behavior. Negative reinforcement of the old wrong behavior. No reinforcement regardless of the behavior.

“You described that your managers gave no reinforcement regardless of the behavior?”

Ryan nodded his head. “Well, yeah, we figured we had done our job in the training. Why should we have to go back to make sure they are doing it the new way?”

“Because, with no reinforcement, the new behavior is extinguished after one week. Not only does it happen, it is predictable. I will bet you a dollar that if you go back and re-train the new behavior, on the floor, that new behavior will be extinguished after one week.”

Ryan’s eyes were looking at me, but you could tell he was looking inward. “You would win your bet. It is predictable. So what do we do?”