Here's the thing. I pay for the internet access. It's my blog. I don't mind sharing with Tazzie, who is, in all fairness, a more entertaining writer than I am, but I insist on at least getting my turn.
Now, where were we...ah yes, reinforcements (aka rewards). I believe before someone's long, pointy nose butted in, I was talking about how the properly applied use of rewards had resulted in a radically cleaner room for my daughter. It turns out that at this point in her 11-year-old life she is strongly motivated by money. Mostly because it will purchase the kinds of food that I refuse to buy. Some other time I will go on about just how much Mattea and Taz are alike.
But not now, because what I was really trying to get down to was the question of what kinds of rewards get results. People like money. Dogs like food. We know that, and we tend to rely on it in getting both people and dogs to work. But those aren't the only things that people and dogs like. People like food. Dogs don't much like money, although Coretta once ate a paycheck when she was a puppy. (Try explaining that one to the treasurer!") The crucial thing about reinforcements is finding out what is rewarding to the particular being that you're trying to motivate.
People quite commonly train dogs by rewarding them with games, such as tugging on a tug toy. And, of course, petting and praise. But you can also reward a dog by giving it permission to sniff something interesting, letting it chase you, scratching that special spot, throwing a ball or doing whatever goofy thing your dog finds entertaining. Sue Ailsby, a well-known trainer, says that giant schnauzers think it's hysterical when you try to grab their front paws. I wouldn't know -- I've never had giant schnauzers. Coretta hates having her paws touched, and Taz would prefer that you scratch the tops of his feet. A reinforcer is only a reinforcer if the one on the receiving end likes it. For some people, the biggest reward you can give them would be public recognition. Other people would rather have their teeth drilled than stand in front of a room full of people applauding.
So given that dog trainers have figured out such a wide range of ways to reward dogs, why do we not get that creative with motivating people? Sure, people work for money -- we need money, and we like to get more of it. But there are other things we like as well. It seems to me that if I were managing a group of people in an office, that it would serve me very well to figure out what everyone liked. "Wow, Jordan, thanks for putting in all the extra time getting this report ready. It looks great -- why don't you take the rest of the afternoon off?" "Jesse, that's the best idea I've heard all meeting! (Tosses piece of chocolate to Jesse)" "Pat, thanks for listening to my long diatribe about upper management. I know you'll keep what I said confidential. Hey, I was wondering if you had any new pictures of your grandkids to show me."
The great thing about using a variety of rewards with kids is that the proper use of timing turns things that they were going to get anyway into reinforcements for behaviors that you wanted. "Just as soon as your homework is done you can go over to your friend's house." "Once you've finished your vegetables you can have dessert." "If you get the dishes put away by 9:00 you'll be able to watch Glee."
There is, in fact, no reason why you can't use rewards to modify your own behavior. I'm sure I'm not the only one who tells myself "Two more paragraphs and you can play a game of solitaire." "Answer this tricky email, and then you can look at Facebook." I once knew a guy in seminary who would reward himself for completing a paper by giving himself permission to go use the bathroom. I'm all in favor of the judicious use of life rewards, but that's just sick.
What do you find rewarding?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Taz Talks -- Teaching People to Come When Called
Mama says she wants her blog back, but my friend Calli specifically asked that I write more about training people. Calli is a very smart dog (she's a Belgian Shepherd like me, but not fluffy), and I think we should respect her wishes. After all, if Mama is gonna take requests from her sister, why shouldn't I get to respond to my friends?
So here it is. Taz on training people: The Recall
Every dog wants their person to come when called, but people have a really annoying habit of ignoring you because they're "busy" at the computer or watching television or helping with homework or reading a book or whatever boring thing it is that people do when they're not paying attention to dogs. However, teaching your person to come when called is really very simple: Make a lot of noise.
Honestly, that's all there is to it. People cannot resist responding to big, agitated noise. Run to the door barking like your head is going to explode. Keep barking. They'll come check it out, guaranteed. And no matter how many times they say "You silly animal, there's nothing out there," or "What, all that noise about a squirrel?" they will still come. People just have a thing about big, agitated noise.
Don't believe me? Just turn on the talking radio or that Snooze Channel on TV. There's people who have shows that tons and tons of people listen to because those guys are barking super loud and agitated, and so people figure it's important. And they keep barking, so people figure what they say has to be true. It's like this -- Glen Bark: "OMG! OMG! OMG! There's a cat on the lawn! There's a cat on the lawn and it's gonna eat your grandma. The cat on the lawn is dangerous and scary and has big teeth and claws and it's gonna eat your grandma! It's a black cat, which is the scariest, most dangerous kind, and it might be after all a panther arrived here from Florida and it's definitely gonna eat your grandma!"
Oh wait, maybe that was me this morning. But Mama came when I called her like that, and millions of people around the world can be counted on to show up and pay attention if you just make enough noise and get all bent out of shape. It doesn't matter whether anything's actually there or not. Although there was a cat. I think. Maybe that was yesterday.
Wags and kisses,
Taz
So here it is. Taz on training people: The Recall
Every dog wants their person to come when called, but people have a really annoying habit of ignoring you because they're "busy" at the computer or watching television or helping with homework or reading a book or whatever boring thing it is that people do when they're not paying attention to dogs. However, teaching your person to come when called is really very simple: Make a lot of noise.
Honestly, that's all there is to it. People cannot resist responding to big, agitated noise. Run to the door barking like your head is going to explode. Keep barking. They'll come check it out, guaranteed. And no matter how many times they say "You silly animal, there's nothing out there," or "What, all that noise about a squirrel?" they will still come. People just have a thing about big, agitated noise.
Don't believe me? Just turn on the talking radio or that Snooze Channel on TV. There's people who have shows that tons and tons of people listen to because those guys are barking super loud and agitated, and so people figure it's important. And they keep barking, so people figure what they say has to be true. It's like this -- Glen Bark: "OMG! OMG! OMG! There's a cat on the lawn! There's a cat on the lawn and it's gonna eat your grandma. The cat on the lawn is dangerous and scary and has big teeth and claws and it's gonna eat your grandma! It's a black cat, which is the scariest, most dangerous kind, and it might be after all a panther arrived here from Florida and it's definitely gonna eat your grandma!"
Oh wait, maybe that was me this morning. But Mama came when I called her like that, and millions of people around the world can be counted on to show up and pay attention if you just make enough noise and get all bent out of shape. It doesn't matter whether anything's actually there or not. Although there was a cat. I think. Maybe that was yesterday.
Wags and kisses,
Taz
Monday, May 10, 2010
Taz Talks
A-hem! It turns out that there has been a blog going on in my house for some little while -- a blog about training people, no less -- and I have not been invited to participate. Luckily, I'm not the kind of guy who stands on ceremony, and the Cheese Mom, who usually writes this blog, is otherwise engaged. (I am a lucky dog. I have both a Cheese Mom who is good at games with fabulous prizes and a Running Mom. Every dog should have this. Also an extra running partner called Peggy to take them on days when the Running Mom doesn't run. But I digress.)
What I was trying to say is that apparently this is a blog about training people, which is a subject that I know lots about. All dogs know plenty about training people -- starting tens of thousands of years ago when we started training you to feed us. I won't try to explain to you all of what I know about training people, as I expect I'll be able to get back to the computer at points future. For now, I thought I'd just pass on a few tips about a subject that people seem to be very interested in: food and exercise. Dogs are also very interested in food and exercise, but smarter, as indicated by the fact that you are the ones who have to go hunt down the food, while we get to eat it. Here are a few things I know that you should to:
- Anything I can see, I will eat. Can you tell me that you are any different? If you don't want it to get eaten, hide it.
- There are very few places you can hide food that I won't find them. You have opposable thumbs. Hiding it probably won't help. If you don't want to eat it, don't bring it in the house. (While there is plenty of stuff I can't get to, the cat can reach practically anything. And I make him share.)
- We all need to chew on stuff. Dogs know this. People pretend otherwise. But seriously, don't you want to munch on stuff even when you're not hungry? Smart people give us dogs chew toys and bully sticks and kongs and stuff so that we don't eat the furniture. Why are there not better chew toys for people? Mama chews on gum. Coretta, my dog-sister, tried a pack and said it wasn't bad.
- Exercise should be entertaining. For instance, running is best if you are chasing something, or something is chasing you. If you don't find chasing entertaining then find something else that's fun. People in my house like dancing. Also dogs in my house like dancing -- I'll put up video some time.
- I get treats when I do something clever. How come people can just open up boxes and bags of treats and chow down without doing nothing for it? No fair. You should do something clever or useful before you have a treat. That way you will not only eat fewer treats, you will also be more clever and useful.
Wags and kisses,
Taz
Friday, May 7, 2010
Rewards: The Clean Room
Since I've only gotten one question in the brief life of the blog, it seems only fair not to let too long go by before I answer. My sister Lauren, quite rightly, wants to hear the story of Mattea (my daughter) and how I got her to keep her room clean. Which is a good story about reinforcement.
Let's start there -- what's reinforcement? Basically, it's a technical term for a reward. Even more technically, but usefully, a reinforcement is something that causes a behavior to happen more often. You smile at me. I smile back, so you're more likely to smile at me again in the future. When you're training animals, reinforcements are often food. You do a trick, you get a treat. But reinforcements can be anything that the animal/person who is learning wants. More about types of reinforcement some other time.
So here's the thing about how rewards work. They're only effective is they're associated with the behavior that you're trying to encourage. Obviously, if you hand me a cookie at 6pm, that won't necessarily connect in my mind with the fact that I graciously made my bed this morning. In order to communicate with animals about what exactly is getting rewarded, trainers often use a little noisemaker called a clicker to "mark" behavior. You hear the click, you know that whatever you were doing when you heard the noise is what is getting the reward. OK, but we're people. You could just tell me that the cookie is a reward for making my bed. That works, right? Maybe.
I really suspect that for people, as well as for (other) animals, the closer the reward is to the action, the more likely it is to have an effect. Here's where we get to the story of Mattea and the Clean Room.
Let me preface this by saying that room cleaning has always been a huge issue for us. Tea's room has always been a disastrous mess, and telling her to clean it up induced total melt-down screaming fits. "I can't! It'll take all day! No!!!!" Ick. Then we'd get mad, and she'd get madder and either she'd convince us to "help," which meant us doing all the work while she got distracted by each item she picked up or she'd pick up a few things and then be mad when we said she wasn't done. So we said, "OK, you can have a messy room, but you have to clean it up each Sunday." See above for what happened each Sunday. So I said to myself "You have studied all this behavior stuff. You know about using rewards. Reward her for cleaning." So I told her that if she kept her room completely clean, I would triple her weekly allowance (from $3 to $9). That seemed like a pretty good deal, since weekly room cleaning was already expected as part of the $3 allowance. The room was really clean for about a day and a half, but pretty quickly stuff piled up, and so no extra $6, and no change in behavior.
Here are the two really important things that I forgot. 1) Learning happens a little bit at a time. You cannot teach large changes, only a series of small changes. Much more on this another day. 2) Rewards need to be connected as closely as possible to the event they're rewarding. With an animal, that means within a second or two. With people you get a little longer, but a week was clearly not going to cut it.
So...I helped Mattea get her room well and truly clean. (Yes, she actually did work on it this time.) Once it was as clean as I felt it should be, I said that I would check every evening at bedtime. If the room was still this clean, she would get a dollar. Each evening was a new try. If you miss the clean goal one day, you can always fix it by the next day. (But you never make up the dollar you miss -- one clean day, one dollar, pure and simple.) It's been a couple of weeks now -- not exactly a lifetime habit at this point. But her room is strikingly clean, and she's gotten a dollar for every night. Even the night that she got mad because she couldn't find something and started throwing things around. She picked everything up before she went to bed.
Here's the interesting part. I don't always have a supply of dollar bills on me. So I said that I would write down the date of each evening that her room was clean, and that I would actually give her the money at the end of the week. So the actual timing of the reward is not particularly different than the version that didn't work. You could interpret this two ways. One possibility is that, as with the clicker, if you use a marker (my writing down the date) as a promissory note, and that marker happens promptly, you then have considerably more time to deliver the actual reward. Or, on the other hand, you could figure that the difference wasn't really the closer connection between the action (clean the room) and the reward ($$), but rather that the reward was based on a smaller behavior. "Keep your room clean for a week" wasn't a behavior that Mattea could master right off the bat. "Pick everything up before you go to bed" was something she could manage. I expect that success was based on a combination of the two (and probably a whole bunch of other stuff which I can neither identify nor control).
Better still, "pick everything up before bed" seems to have transformed into "try to put things away so that it's easy to have everything clean by bedtime." Here's the really great part. I was forever harassing her to hang up her towel after she took a shower in the morning. The only thing worse than damp towels lying about on the floor is me getting out of the shower to discover that now both of the towels are lying on her bedroom floor. Multiple ick. But if you leave a towel on the floor then your room is not clean, and you don't get a dollar. So she's been hanging up her towel.
Training new behavior: $7/week. Being able to leave her bedroom door open and having a dry towel when I need it: Priceless.
Let's start there -- what's reinforcement? Basically, it's a technical term for a reward. Even more technically, but usefully, a reinforcement is something that causes a behavior to happen more often. You smile at me. I smile back, so you're more likely to smile at me again in the future. When you're training animals, reinforcements are often food. You do a trick, you get a treat. But reinforcements can be anything that the animal/person who is learning wants. More about types of reinforcement some other time.
So here's the thing about how rewards work. They're only effective is they're associated with the behavior that you're trying to encourage. Obviously, if you hand me a cookie at 6pm, that won't necessarily connect in my mind with the fact that I graciously made my bed this morning. In order to communicate with animals about what exactly is getting rewarded, trainers often use a little noisemaker called a clicker to "mark" behavior. You hear the click, you know that whatever you were doing when you heard the noise is what is getting the reward. OK, but we're people. You could just tell me that the cookie is a reward for making my bed. That works, right? Maybe.
I really suspect that for people, as well as for (other) animals, the closer the reward is to the action, the more likely it is to have an effect. Here's where we get to the story of Mattea and the Clean Room.
Let me preface this by saying that room cleaning has always been a huge issue for us. Tea's room has always been a disastrous mess, and telling her to clean it up induced total melt-down screaming fits. "I can't! It'll take all day! No!!!!" Ick. Then we'd get mad, and she'd get madder and either she'd convince us to "help," which meant us doing all the work while she got distracted by each item she picked up or she'd pick up a few things and then be mad when we said she wasn't done. So we said, "OK, you can have a messy room, but you have to clean it up each Sunday." See above for what happened each Sunday. So I said to myself "You have studied all this behavior stuff. You know about using rewards. Reward her for cleaning." So I told her that if she kept her room completely clean, I would triple her weekly allowance (from $3 to $9). That seemed like a pretty good deal, since weekly room cleaning was already expected as part of the $3 allowance. The room was really clean for about a day and a half, but pretty quickly stuff piled up, and so no extra $6, and no change in behavior.
Here are the two really important things that I forgot. 1) Learning happens a little bit at a time. You cannot teach large changes, only a series of small changes. Much more on this another day. 2) Rewards need to be connected as closely as possible to the event they're rewarding. With an animal, that means within a second or two. With people you get a little longer, but a week was clearly not going to cut it.
So...I helped Mattea get her room well and truly clean. (Yes, she actually did work on it this time.) Once it was as clean as I felt it should be, I said that I would check every evening at bedtime. If the room was still this clean, she would get a dollar. Each evening was a new try. If you miss the clean goal one day, you can always fix it by the next day. (But you never make up the dollar you miss -- one clean day, one dollar, pure and simple.) It's been a couple of weeks now -- not exactly a lifetime habit at this point. But her room is strikingly clean, and she's gotten a dollar for every night. Even the night that she got mad because she couldn't find something and started throwing things around. She picked everything up before she went to bed.
Here's the interesting part. I don't always have a supply of dollar bills on me. So I said that I would write down the date of each evening that her room was clean, and that I would actually give her the money at the end of the week. So the actual timing of the reward is not particularly different than the version that didn't work. You could interpret this two ways. One possibility is that, as with the clicker, if you use a marker (my writing down the date) as a promissory note, and that marker happens promptly, you then have considerably more time to deliver the actual reward. Or, on the other hand, you could figure that the difference wasn't really the closer connection between the action (clean the room) and the reward ($$), but rather that the reward was based on a smaller behavior. "Keep your room clean for a week" wasn't a behavior that Mattea could master right off the bat. "Pick everything up before you go to bed" was something she could manage. I expect that success was based on a combination of the two (and probably a whole bunch of other stuff which I can neither identify nor control).
Better still, "pick everything up before bed" seems to have transformed into "try to put things away so that it's easy to have everything clean by bedtime." Here's the really great part. I was forever harassing her to hang up her towel after she took a shower in the morning. The only thing worse than damp towels lying about on the floor is me getting out of the shower to discover that now both of the towels are lying on her bedroom floor. Multiple ick. But if you leave a towel on the floor then your room is not clean, and you don't get a dollar. So she's been hanging up her towel.
Training new behavior: $7/week. Being able to leave her bedroom door open and having a dry towel when I need it: Priceless.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Name the Task Pt. 2: The Tea Party
I'm not quite ready to move on from the subject of identifying the problem before you try to arrive at a solution. For one thing, I didn't mention in my last post the crucial bit that you are only likely to come up with a solution if you genuinely want to solve a problem. My dog jumps up on me. People who teach dog training classes aren't supposed to let their dogs jump on people. But hey, he just kind of gently rises up and puts his paws on my chest for a scritch and a snuggle, and I think it's kind of sweet. I haven't trained him not to do it because I get something out of this particular "problem."
I'm wondering if this might be the case with the Tea Party movement. Clearly this is a group of people who are upset, and demanding change. But it's very difficult to tell what change it is that they're demanding. The official website gives as their mission/motto: "A community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!" OK, two missions: 1) protect country and 2) protect Constitution. So in order to accomplish the missions we would clearly need to determine who is threatening our country (Iraq? Iran? Al Qaeda? Illegal immigrants? Liberals?) and what is threatening our Constitution (Gun limits? Don't Ask Don't Tell? Free speech for corporations? Health insurance mandates?).
If their mission is to protect the Constitution, does that mean that they will stand up to protect same-sex marriage if the court (as in California) declares it constitutional? If a court should find that Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law is an unconstitutional violation of civil rights, will they stand up to protect the Constitution and the right of people to not be racially profiled? Something tells me this is not at the top of the agenda.
In reality, what the group seems to have greatest unanimity about is that taxes are too high, which seems only tangentially related to the group's stated mission. And even then, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to frame a solution as far as which taxes are too high, and what we might do without in order to lower taxes.
Which leads me to wonder, is this really a group in search of a solution, or a variety of solutions for a variety of problems? Or is the mission of the group really to protest and be outraged? In that case solving "problems" would actually run counter to their mission of being outraged.
Of course, the Tea Party is just one example of a problem that doesn't seem to be in search of a solution. I suspect that most of us have problems that we really aren't looking to solve. Some people complain all the time about being overworked, but actually love the feeling of importance and being needed that their overwork creates. Many, perhaps most, people bitch about their weight without having the slightest intention of permanently changing their habits of eating or exercise.
Part one of Name the Problem: If you don't know what you want to change, you aren't very likely to change it. Part two of Name the Problem: If you aren't trying to work out a solution, maybe you aren't really convinced you have a problem. Time to have another look at part one. Or maybe what I should call part 1a: If you call the problem something different (Protect the Constitution!) than the problem you'd really like to solve (I don't have a job), you are unlikely to come up with a solution. In which case cynics like me might suggest that you aren't really trying to fix anything after all.
I'm wondering if this might be the case with the Tea Party movement. Clearly this is a group of people who are upset, and demanding change. But it's very difficult to tell what change it is that they're demanding. The official website gives as their mission/motto: "A community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!" OK, two missions: 1) protect country and 2) protect Constitution. So in order to accomplish the missions we would clearly need to determine who is threatening our country (Iraq? Iran? Al Qaeda? Illegal immigrants? Liberals?) and what is threatening our Constitution (Gun limits? Don't Ask Don't Tell? Free speech for corporations? Health insurance mandates?).
If their mission is to protect the Constitution, does that mean that they will stand up to protect same-sex marriage if the court (as in California) declares it constitutional? If a court should find that Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law is an unconstitutional violation of civil rights, will they stand up to protect the Constitution and the right of people to not be racially profiled? Something tells me this is not at the top of the agenda.
In reality, what the group seems to have greatest unanimity about is that taxes are too high, which seems only tangentially related to the group's stated mission. And even then, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to frame a solution as far as which taxes are too high, and what we might do without in order to lower taxes.
Which leads me to wonder, is this really a group in search of a solution, or a variety of solutions for a variety of problems? Or is the mission of the group really to protest and be outraged? In that case solving "problems" would actually run counter to their mission of being outraged.
Of course, the Tea Party is just one example of a problem that doesn't seem to be in search of a solution. I suspect that most of us have problems that we really aren't looking to solve. Some people complain all the time about being overworked, but actually love the feeling of importance and being needed that their overwork creates. Many, perhaps most, people bitch about their weight without having the slightest intention of permanently changing their habits of eating or exercise.
Part one of Name the Problem: If you don't know what you want to change, you aren't very likely to change it. Part two of Name the Problem: If you aren't trying to work out a solution, maybe you aren't really convinced you have a problem. Time to have another look at part one. Or maybe what I should call part 1a: If you call the problem something different (Protect the Constitution!) than the problem you'd really like to solve (I don't have a job), you are unlikely to come up with a solution. In which case cynics like me might suggest that you aren't really trying to fix anything after all.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Name the Task: A Dog Trainer's Take on Immigration Reform
So last post I wrote about how you get what you reward, not necessarily what you think you are rewarding. This brings me to what I believe is the most important step in changing/fixing anything. You have to figure out what it is that you want to change. It's just really awfully hard to teach something if you don't know what it is that you're trying to teach.
Say I have a cat who hangs out on the kitchen counters while I'm trying to cook. (This would be Finn McCool the Warrior Cat, who likes to snag broccoli out of the steamer, and tries to climb into pans. He's cute, but a pain in the butt.) I say to myself (and anyone within a two block radius) "The damn cat is in always in my food!" There. I've named a problem. The damn cat is always in my food. Now I can figure out how to solve the problem. I might toss the cat the into the gaping maw of the dog every time he got in my way (punishment), lock the cat in another room while I'm cooking (management) or teach the cat to sit on a chair while I'm cooking (training incompatible behavior). Pretty simple.
But most things in life are a little more complicated. All right, a lot more complicated. Take for instance The Immigration Problem. This is something that a whole lot of people are up in arms about these days. Depending on your perspective, the state of Arizona is currently either a courageous leader in tackling this crushing problem, or a brutal regime bent on racial profiling and civil rights violations. But here's the thing. What exactly is The Immigration Problem? Well, I guess we're probably talking about illegal immigrants, not legal ones. But still, what is the actual problem we're trying to solve? Is the problem that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from US citizens? Is the problem that illegal immigrants are using social services without paying taxes? Is the problem that dangerous drug lords and other criminals are getting in?
All of those possibilities are things that can be examined -- information can be gathered as to whether these are actual problems, or whether they are only perceptions of problems that don't really exist. And if they are, in fact, real problems, then the different problems would have different solutions. For instance, if the problem is that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that citizens want, it might make sense to crack down on employers who hire people who are here illegally. That solution, however, won't help at all with the problem of people using social services without paying taxes. (If, in fact, that is a problem that really exists.) You have to gather data to figure out the real problem(s) before you can do anything about finding solutions. Maybe it turns out that illegal immigrants, for the most part, are taking jobs that US citizens don't even want, and the solution is not to punish employers, but to give them a way to legally hire the workers they need.
The reality is that the world is full of incredibly complex problems. But the only way to start to solve them is to figure out what the problems really are. There is no such thing as The Immigration Problem. At least there's no possible way to solve The Immigration Problem. The Immigration Problem could be anything from "I was hit by an uninsured, unlicensed and undocumented driver" to "I'm terrified that my wife is going to be deported." The solution to "I'm uncomfortable being around people who speak a language I don't understand" is not the same as the solution to "If you're going to live in this country you should pay taxes." You can't solve a problem without clearly identifying a) what the problem is and b) whether your perception of the problem is born out by the facts.
Maybe the damn cat isn't always in my food. Maybe he's only in my food around the time that he expects to be fed, and I could easily get the cat out of the pan by feeding him his dinner before I make dinner for people. Maybe it's actually useful to have the cat in the kitchen cleaning up bits of things that I drop (which is, in reality, the dogs' job), and the problem is not that the damn cat is eating my food, but that the cat is getting on the stove, and I need to teach the cat to stay off the stove. The more I know about the problem, the better the chance I have of coming up with a solution.
You get what you reward, not what you think you're rewarding. You can only solve actual and particular problems, not generalized perceptions of problems.
Say I have a cat who hangs out on the kitchen counters while I'm trying to cook. (This would be Finn McCool the Warrior Cat, who likes to snag broccoli out of the steamer, and tries to climb into pans. He's cute, but a pain in the butt.) I say to myself (and anyone within a two block radius) "The damn cat is in always in my food!" There. I've named a problem. The damn cat is always in my food. Now I can figure out how to solve the problem. I might toss the cat the into the gaping maw of the dog every time he got in my way (punishment), lock the cat in another room while I'm cooking (management) or teach the cat to sit on a chair while I'm cooking (training incompatible behavior). Pretty simple.
But most things in life are a little more complicated. All right, a lot more complicated. Take for instance The Immigration Problem. This is something that a whole lot of people are up in arms about these days. Depending on your perspective, the state of Arizona is currently either a courageous leader in tackling this crushing problem, or a brutal regime bent on racial profiling and civil rights violations. But here's the thing. What exactly is The Immigration Problem? Well, I guess we're probably talking about illegal immigrants, not legal ones. But still, what is the actual problem we're trying to solve? Is the problem that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from US citizens? Is the problem that illegal immigrants are using social services without paying taxes? Is the problem that dangerous drug lords and other criminals are getting in?
All of those possibilities are things that can be examined -- information can be gathered as to whether these are actual problems, or whether they are only perceptions of problems that don't really exist. And if they are, in fact, real problems, then the different problems would have different solutions. For instance, if the problem is that illegal immigrants are taking jobs that citizens want, it might make sense to crack down on employers who hire people who are here illegally. That solution, however, won't help at all with the problem of people using social services without paying taxes. (If, in fact, that is a problem that really exists.) You have to gather data to figure out the real problem(s) before you can do anything about finding solutions. Maybe it turns out that illegal immigrants, for the most part, are taking jobs that US citizens don't even want, and the solution is not to punish employers, but to give them a way to legally hire the workers they need.
The reality is that the world is full of incredibly complex problems. But the only way to start to solve them is to figure out what the problems really are. There is no such thing as The Immigration Problem. At least there's no possible way to solve The Immigration Problem. The Immigration Problem could be anything from "I was hit by an uninsured, unlicensed and undocumented driver" to "I'm terrified that my wife is going to be deported." The solution to "I'm uncomfortable being around people who speak a language I don't understand" is not the same as the solution to "If you're going to live in this country you should pay taxes." You can't solve a problem without clearly identifying a) what the problem is and b) whether your perception of the problem is born out by the facts.
Maybe the damn cat isn't always in my food. Maybe he's only in my food around the time that he expects to be fed, and I could easily get the cat out of the pan by feeding him his dinner before I make dinner for people. Maybe it's actually useful to have the cat in the kitchen cleaning up bits of things that I drop (which is, in reality, the dogs' job), and the problem is not that the damn cat is eating my food, but that the cat is getting on the stove, and I need to teach the cat to stay off the stove. The more I know about the problem, the better the chance I have of coming up with a solution.
You get what you reward, not what you think you're rewarding. You can only solve actual and particular problems, not generalized perceptions of problems.
Monday, May 3, 2010
A Dog Trainer Explains the Financial Crisis
OK, so here goes...
As I mentioned last post, behavior scientists have pretty well figured out that you can encourage a particular behavior by rewarding it. Go figure. Dog sits, you give it a treat, and dog is likely to sit again. Big financial corporations, as far as I can tell, have figured out the same principle. Banker-type makes money for the company, and the company gives Banker-type extra money as a reward, to encourage making more money. All very sound. You can think of it as training Fat Cats, rather than dogs. (Oh, and by the way, these training principles work just as well with cats as with dogs. Don't believe me? Come over and I'll have my cat do tricks for you. Of course, they also apply to chimps, horses, llamas, dolphins, fish and people. That's the point.)
Sorry...where were we? Oh yes, Fat Cats getting money for making money. OK, so where's the problem? Goldman Sachs, say, rewards folks for making money by giving them money. Success is rewarded -- capitalism at its finest. But here's the thing. The law of behavior says that you get what you reward. What you reward, not your idea of what you're rewarding. Say you have a dog that barks in an annoying fashion. Every time that dog barks, you yell at it. Well, if the dog happens to enjoy the fact that now both of you are yelling together, then you have rewarded the dog for barking by joining in on its yapping. Then you get both more yapping and a sore throat.
But making money is a good thing, right? That's what financial institutions are for is making money. Where's the problem with that? Um...well...here's the thing. Legitimate businesses provide goods and/or services. Investment banks are supposed to make money for their investors. Business that just make money for themselves, without providing any goods or services in exchange, are known as things like Ponzi schemes, counterfeiters and bank heists. Bernie Madoff for sure had one these kinds of businesses. Financial institutions were rewarding people not for making money for the customers, but for making money for the bank. So Goldman Sachs (for instance), sold financial instruments to customers, knowing that they were likely to end up worthless, and then bet in the markets that those financial instruments would tank. So the bank made money, the bankers made money and the investors (and the rest of us who have been affected by this economic mess) lost out. The bankers were rewarded for making money, so they made money -- by essentially lying and cheating. Mortgage brokers were rewarded for selling mortgages. Not for helping people to get appropriate mortgages that would make it possible for them to own homes over time. Brokers were rewarded for selling mortgages, and the bigger the mortgages the bigger the reward. Until it turned out that people couldn't pay the mortgages that they'd taken out, and the whole company (say, Countrywide) collapsed, along with the housing market. Ultimately, making money by making money is not sustainable.
What if, instead, businesses had clearly and publicly articulated missions (which I presume they do), and they figured out a way to reward people for advancing the overall mission of the business? Better yet, what if bonuses were tied to particular innovations that led to measurably better performance in particular facets of the business's mission? (More on this distinction later.)
Here is my assertion #1: You get what you reward, so you should be pretty damn careful about what exactly it is that you are rewarding.
As I mentioned last post, behavior scientists have pretty well figured out that you can encourage a particular behavior by rewarding it. Go figure. Dog sits, you give it a treat, and dog is likely to sit again. Big financial corporations, as far as I can tell, have figured out the same principle. Banker-type makes money for the company, and the company gives Banker-type extra money as a reward, to encourage making more money. All very sound. You can think of it as training Fat Cats, rather than dogs. (Oh, and by the way, these training principles work just as well with cats as with dogs. Don't believe me? Come over and I'll have my cat do tricks for you. Of course, they also apply to chimps, horses, llamas, dolphins, fish and people. That's the point.)
Sorry...where were we? Oh yes, Fat Cats getting money for making money. OK, so where's the problem? Goldman Sachs, say, rewards folks for making money by giving them money. Success is rewarded -- capitalism at its finest. But here's the thing. The law of behavior says that you get what you reward. What you reward, not your idea of what you're rewarding. Say you have a dog that barks in an annoying fashion. Every time that dog barks, you yell at it. Well, if the dog happens to enjoy the fact that now both of you are yelling together, then you have rewarded the dog for barking by joining in on its yapping. Then you get both more yapping and a sore throat.
But making money is a good thing, right? That's what financial institutions are for is making money. Where's the problem with that? Um...well...here's the thing. Legitimate businesses provide goods and/or services. Investment banks are supposed to make money for their investors. Business that just make money for themselves, without providing any goods or services in exchange, are known as things like Ponzi schemes, counterfeiters and bank heists. Bernie Madoff for sure had one these kinds of businesses. Financial institutions were rewarding people not for making money for the customers, but for making money for the bank. So Goldman Sachs (for instance), sold financial instruments to customers, knowing that they were likely to end up worthless, and then bet in the markets that those financial instruments would tank. So the bank made money, the bankers made money and the investors (and the rest of us who have been affected by this economic mess) lost out. The bankers were rewarded for making money, so they made money -- by essentially lying and cheating. Mortgage brokers were rewarded for selling mortgages. Not for helping people to get appropriate mortgages that would make it possible for them to own homes over time. Brokers were rewarded for selling mortgages, and the bigger the mortgages the bigger the reward. Until it turned out that people couldn't pay the mortgages that they'd taken out, and the whole company (say, Countrywide) collapsed, along with the housing market. Ultimately, making money by making money is not sustainable.
What if, instead, businesses had clearly and publicly articulated missions (which I presume they do), and they figured out a way to reward people for advancing the overall mission of the business? Better yet, what if bonuses were tied to particular innovations that led to measurably better performance in particular facets of the business's mission? (More on this distinction later.)
Here is my assertion #1: You get what you reward, so you should be pretty damn careful about what exactly it is that you are rewarding.
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