“You tell me,” I said. “You see the new behavior extinguished after one week with no reinforcement. You only have two choices left. Positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement?”

Ryan was concerned that his training program wasn’t sticking. “Well, as long as they are doing it right, I shouldn’t have to say anything. So, I should probably watch them and correct the wrong behaviors.”

Ryan wasn’t lazy, but he really didn’t want to spend any more time than was necessary to make sure the training stuck.

“So, how are you going to monitor the behavior?” I continued.

Ryan was a touch frustrated as he was thinking this through. “I don’t know. I really don’t have the time to spend watching them all day, and by the way, we have 20 workstations in that unit. I would probably have to put three supervisors on just to do the watching. And if it’s the first week, they will mostly be doing it right, so catching them doing it wrong will be happen chance. But if I wait until after the first week to watch, it will be too late. I don’t know.”

“What if you considered positive reinforcement? Make positive comments when they do it right. Then, you could begin the reinforcement right away,” I suggested.

This had never occurred to Ryan in a million years. You could see a wave of relief come over his face. “You mean, I could hit each workstation, make a positive comment and leave?”

“Yep, make a positive comment, leave, go do some other stuff. Come back, make a positive comment, leave, go do some other stuff. You can bring some of the workstations together to watch one guy do it right. That’s one positive comment to five people at the same time. You could take a picture of someone doing it right, print it out, write good job across it with a marker and post it in his workstation. You can do lots of things quickly. Get the new behavior established and move on.” -TF

“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?”

“We trained them to do it. And when that didn’t work, we trained them again. They even passed the certification test,” complained Ryan. “But when they get back out on the floor, they go back to doing it the same old way. I just don’t understand.”

“So, you have focused all your attention on the time period prior to the behavior?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you train them, then they do it wrong?”

Ryan shook his head slowly. “Well, it’s not like they do it wrong immediately, but after a week or so, it’s like the training never happened.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“It’s like the training is wearing off.” Ryan had an exasperated look on his face.

“So, it takes about a week before the training wears off. What could you do differently during that week?”

This was painful. Ryan was hoping he could get away with a little classroom training and be done with it. “I suppose,” he paused. “I suppose we could watch them and see if they are doing it wrong and correct their behavior.”

“What if you watched them to see if they were doing it right and give them some appreciation?”

“What’s the difference?” Ryan asked. -TF

Last week, we talked about Stripping Away those behaviors which do not serve us well as leaders.

Sameer posted the following comment:

Leading from Front – Weird? OK so the reason I say that it doesn’t serve me well is that my nature wants me to be involved. Inquisitive is the right word. I want to be there for my colleagues, peers or anyone who is facing the problem. I am not an expert in that area, I have a habit to sit beside and pair with the developer to fix the issue. Not often, I stay late or work weekends with them.

I think this is causing a lot of dependency on me which probably is not allowing the growth of the person. I also think this imposes my thoughts and his power to think is chopped.

Sameer, you are on the right track. It is easy, fun and rewarding to work through the problem side by side. Sitting side by side, though, removes the struggle, removes the crucible for learning. Sure, the problem gets solved, but learning suffers. More important, as a manager, you lose your time leverage.

Tomorrow, I will share a secret formula to use instead. -TF

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January 22 kicks off our next management program. Visit www.workingleadership.com.
Our next Sales Program is slated for January 31. Visit www.workingsales.com.

Ernesto introduced himself to the class. “Hello, my name is Ernesto, and I have been in management for ten years. I have one person reporting to me. My biggest challenge is making sure they do the job right. I have so much experience that I seldom make mistakes and I think that is why I was promoted. It’s important we don’t make mistakes because mistakes cost the company.”

I smiled. Ernesto was everything his boss had described. True he had been a “manager” for the past ten years, but it was just last week that he was assigned his only direct report. His company had tried that several years ago, but three people quit on his team in one month.

Time had passed. Ernesto had grown. He had matured and his company was willing to risk it again. His company needed Ernesto to step up to the plate. In fact, it was necessary, if Ernesto was going to continue to contribute.

It was time for Ernesto to move to the next level. -TF

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Our next management program begins January 22. Visit www.workingleadership.com.
Our next sales program begins January 31. Visit www.workingsales.com.

Ernesto was going to be a fun student. He had fifteen years experience with his company. He was an expert. Starting last week, he now had one person reporting to him. He was now a manager. And there were already complaints.

“How could a person so valuable, with so much technical knowledge alienate his direct report so quickly?” asked Ernesto’s boss.

“How long did it take?” I followed up.

He shook his head. “A nanosecond.”

“How does it happen?”

“I think he is afraid. He is afraid that his direct report is going to do something wrong, it will be done incorrectly and it will come back on his shoulders.”

“Welcome to management. Of course those things will happen. People learn the most from their mistakes. In fact Ernesto will have to learn from his mistakes. Let’s just make sure they are not fatal.”

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Our next management program begins January 22. Visit www.workingleadership.com.
Our next sales program begins January 31. Visit www.workingsales.com.