http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s10e07-tsst

It’s all about behavioral modification. The most valuable leadership book I ever read was a little work by a woman named Karen Pryor, and was entitled Don’t Shoot the Dog. In it, she laid out her ideas about operant conditioning as applied to animal training, and it was an eye-opener to me.

Behavior, at all levels, is a conversation between the organism, the environment, and other organisms. If you want to modify the behavior, you have to analyze the environment in depth, examine the incentives and rewards you’ve set up, and then work from there. You can’t get from “Negative, irritating behavior ‘A’” to “Behavior I want ‘B’” by yelling at the target. You have to figure out specifically why that behavior exists, what purpose it serves, and then you can work to eliminate it via the appropriate techniques. Coercive brute-force punishment techniques or “corrections” have their place–Sometimes, you have no choice but to tackle and slap the shit out of some idiot who has ignored your instructions not to run towards the rear of the helicopter on landing and debarking. Other times, that sort of thing is totally inappropriate, and you have to step back and analyze “Why the f**k are they doing this…?”, and then implement changes to the environment that will result in your desired behavior. Sometimes, you don’t even need to talk to the training subject–Just change the environment to meet your needs. Dumbasses are leaving trash all over the quad? Why? Oh, no trash cans are out there, and nobody enforces clean-up… Hmmm. Get trash cans, make charge-of-quarters NCO check areas for cleanliness. Yelling at the idjits for making a mess is a waste of time, when you do it on an individual case-by-case basis–You want to fix the problem, you need to make systemic changes.

As with dogs, same with kids. And, young soldiers, employees, the general public, and about everyone else you’re going to encounter. Don’t like the results you see, in that conversation between individuals and the environment…? Change the ‘effing environment.