Redalyc.TRANSLATING THE SCIENCE OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

Revista Mexicana de Psicología

ISSN: 0185-6073

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Sociedad Mexicana de Psicología A.C.

México

LATTAL, DARNELL; PORRITT, MATT

TRANSLATING THE SCIENCE OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS TO THE WORKPLACE: ONE

COMPANY'S 30 YEAR EFFORT

Revista Mexicana de Psicología, vol. 25, núm. 1, junio, 2008, pp. 27-44

Sociedad Mexicana de Psicología A.C.

Distrito Federal, México

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27

Revista Mexicana de Psicología, Junio 2008Volumen 25, Número 1, 27-44

TRANSLATING THE SCIENCE OF BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS TO THE WORKPLACE:ONE COMPANY’S 30 YEAR EFFORT

TRADUCCIÓN DE LA CIENCIA DEL ANÁLISIS DE LA CONDUCTA AL LUGAR DE TRABAJO:LOS ESFUERZOS DE UNA COMPAÑÍA DURANTE 30 AÑOS

DARNELL LATTAL1, PH.D. & MATT PORRITT, PH.D.Aubrey Daniels International

Abstract: This article uses a case study to follow the effectivetranslation of the experimental analysis of behavior, an estab-lished multifaceted area of psychology that originated in thepsychology of learning, to the extensive use of derivative toolsand methods of applied behavior analysis in the workplace. Itprovides an historical review of how one clinical psychologist,Aubrey C. Daniels began, in 1966, as chief of psychology in apsychiatric hospital, to implement applied behavior analysiswith the total hospitalized population, producing results thatstill stand today. It traces how Daniels was subsequently drawnthrough a series of related events to the creation of the longeststanding organizational behavior management firm in theworld. A sample of tools and methods, as well as a few briefcase studies and results metrics across a diverse clientele arehighlighted to illustrate the application of this science of learn-ing to the workplace. This case study ends with an invitation toincrease the measurable impact of psychology, specifically ap-plied behavior analysis, on the important activities that occurin the workplace.Keywords: applied behavior analysis, behavior analysis, work-place, workplace psychology, organizational behavior manage-ment

Resumen: En este artículo se presenta un estudio de caso quesirve para mostrar la forma en la que se hizo una traducciónefectiva del análisis experimental de la conducta, un áreamultifacética de la psicología que se originó en la psicologíadel aprendizaje, al uso extensivo de las herramientas y losmétodos derivados del análisis conductual aplicado en el lugarde trabajo. Provee una revisión histórica de cómo un psicólo-go clínico, Aubrey C. Daniels en 1966, como jefe de psicologíade un hospital psiquiátrico, implementó la aplicación del aná-lisis conductual con todos los pacientes del hospital, produ-ciendo resultados que son válidos hasta hoy en día. El artículomuestra cómo Daniels, mediante una serie de eventos relacio-nados, posteriormente creó la organización de administraciónconductual más antigua del mundo, la cual sigue vigente. Seejemplifica el uso de técnicas y métodos y se presentan estu-dios de caso y resultados con una diversidad de clientes parailustrar la aplicación de esta ciencia del aprendizaje al lugar detrabajo. El artículo finaliza con una invitación a incrementar elimpacto cuantitativo de la psicología, especialmente del análi-sis conductual aplicado, en las importantes actividades queocurren en el ámbito de trabajo.Palabras clave: análisis conductual aplicado, análisis experimen-tal de la conducta, lugar de trabajo, psicología industrial, ad-ministración conductual

In the United States, psychology in the workplace is un-derstood as having something important to offer aboutthe behavior of those who work, from the shop floor tothe executive office suite. Psychology crosses multipleareas of workplace life, such as aptitude and personalitytesting, organizational motivational strategies, group dy-namics, selection, individual career planning, instructional

design, human factors and ergonomics, as well as one-on-one coaching at all levels of corporate America. Em-ployee Assistance Programs offer a built-in and insurancesubsidized way to access the benefits of clinical psychol-ogy. In the United States, there is one area of psychologythat has made significant inroads into business settings,but its work is too often little known in the larger arena

1 Our thanks to Aubrey C. Daniels for allowing the authors to tell his story and to use the copyrighted tools and materials of Aubrey DanielsInternational in this work. Our appreciation to Kennon A. Lattal who read the manuscript and offered us sound guidance. Finally, a word ofappreciation to all the clients working with organizational behavior managers everywhere who have used the methods of applied behavioranalysis. These clients have given generously of their talent to help improve the work.

28 Lattal & Porritt

VOL. 25, NÚM 1, JUNIO 2008

of psychology and may be all but invisible in many othercountries. That area is applied behavior analysis (ABA)and its specific application to the workplace is known asorganizational behavior management (OBM). The purposeof this paper is to highlight this area as a psychology-based approach to the workplace.

The work of translating applied and experimentalbehavioral research to work is challenging. Specificallybecause the translation of the science of behavior analy-sis must cross societal as well as cultural barriers regard-ing the meaning of the word “behavior.” Most people donot think they have a lot to learn about behavior; due, inpart, to how “behavior” is used in common, everydaylanguage. Behavior (of self and others) is either a privatematter, not appropriate to change unless out of controlin some manner, or assumed to be well understood byalmost everyone, and particularly by the corporate ex-ecutives or workplace managers who are the points ofentry for this translation. The idea that human behavioris governed by scientific principles allowing for the pre-diction and influence of workplace performance often ismet with skepticism by non-psychologists and many psy-chologists alike. Often, people are labeled as a personal-ity type because of a pattern of displayed behaviors. Thisis unfortunate as personality (nee behavior) is oftenviewed by these same individuals as static, certain, notsubject to change without enormous effort. The decadesof scientific work by psychology and specifically, behav-ior analysts, stands to contradict this notion. Once a traitis broken down into the discrete behaviors associated withthat trait, or the behaviors are pinpointed themselvesclearly in the conditions in which they occur, most work-place behaviors under review are readily subject tochange.

The final issue is that of top-down manipulation asbehavior analysis is often described popularly, rather thanthe “informed influence” that is ideally practiced. Sincechange is happening continually in behavior and the en-vironment that surrounds it, often without care and with-out knowing, Aubrey Daniels International (ADI) has setout to demonstrate the reciprocal nature of behavior —astream of deliberate and accidental influence that is hap-pening all the time. This technology is not applied to oth-ers as in ‘doing to them’ —it is applied first to ‘me’ andthen I learn how my behavior influences others. “As Iinteract with you, I am changed; as you interact with me,you are changed. How can we, together, be alert to the

power of consequences and use them for our mutualgood?”

Wherever work occurs, from the mundane to the in-novative, in universities or in drilling operations, in whitecollar or blue collar settings, from selling ideas to sellingcoffee, applied behavior analysis (ABA) has somethingvery immediate to offer for improving performance. ABA

is the applied use of the science embedded in behavioranalysis, the body of work that is known as operant con-ditioning or learning theory, originally generated fromthe research of B. F. Skinner and his intellectual heirs.The applications of ABA in the United States began withschools and institutionalized populations in hospital set-tings, particularly mental health settings (see the Journalof Applied Behavior Analysis for a sample). Those areascontinue to thrive and dominate the practice. How thepractice of organizational behavior management (OBM)evolved, the distinct application of ABA in workplace set-tings, is an important and growing part of the story oflearning theory impact. These practice methods offermuch to psychologists who wish to demonstrate suchimpact in behavioral systems of any sort (schools, hospi-tals, manufacturing, retail, governmental or other orga-nizational group settings), and the individuals within thosesystems.

Translation of applied and experimental behavioranalysis research involves the use of principles and tech-niques derived from and informed by basic laboratoryand applied research. Behavior analysis practitionersmaintain a rigorously scientific and parsimonious ap-proach to analysis and description. This rigor has allowedapplied behavior analysis research and application toproduce replicable successes across multiple settings,populations, and time periods.

The standards for qualifying psychological researchas ABA research were initially put forth by Bear, Wolf,and Risley in 1968 in the inaugural edition of the Journalof Applied Behavior Analysis

…an applied behavior analysis will make obvious theimportance of the behavior changed, its quantitativecharacteristics, the experimental manipulations whichanalyze with clarity what was responsible for the change,the technologically exact description of all procedurescontributing to that change, the effectiveness of thoseprocedures in making sufficient change for value, andthe generality of that change. (p. 97)

Translating the science of behavior analysis 29


Also included in their standards was the requirementfor the research to be socially relevant.

OBM practitioners are often keenly aware of the re-quirements and standards associated with ABA researchand strive to achieve these standards in their methodolo-gies and practice. Thus it is against each of these stan-dards that an OBM application must strive to achieve thehighest probability of replicable success. However, it hasbeen a challenge for OBM practitioners to balance thedemands of their specific applications with the demandsof the scientific community.

The process of moving from traditional psychologypractice to using this technology in commerce will bedescribed through the work of one of the longest stand-ing OBM companies in the United States, Aubrey DanielsInternational (ADI). This article focuses on ADI because itis well known to the authors, and because it and itsfounder have been formally recognized for professionaland lifetime contributions to the field of behavior analy-sis by the International Association of Behavior Analy-sis. Its impact is well documented through mainstreambooks, published research, and applied case studies. Itsimpact has been told through formal writings by its cli-ents across those years. There is evidence that what itdoes works. Finally, ADI is a company, as with a handfulof dedicated OBM companies, that has never waveredfrom its core mission to disseminate, as it sees it, the sci-ence of behavior analysis in the world of work.

THE EARLY DAYS: DAYS OF DISCOVERY

In the late 1950s and then more explosively in the 1960s,the beginnings of applied behavior analysis research oc-curred across institutions and individuals that still standas some of the field of psychology’s most monumentalwork and upon which the clear connection and ease ofentry to special needs populations was built. While thereare many classic examples, for purposes of this paper,Teodoro Ayllon and Nathan Azrin’s research at AnnaState Hospital in Anna, Illinois, had a profound influ-ence on the genesis for what has become ADI. They dem-onstrated in a compelling way the use of the tokeneconomy to change psychotic patterns of behavior andset the standard for moving beyond the pacifying effectsof medication alone and/or traditional therapies (e.g.,Ayllon, 1963; Ayllon & Azrin, 1964). Their work had well-

documented effect at the hospital and had immediateimpact on the funding of such work across other institu-tions. At this same time, Aubrey Daniels was beginning alarge-scale token economy at a state psychiatric hospitalin Georgia.

While well understood for its impact on the behaviorof institutionalized individuals, Ayllon and Azrin’s workwas also a field study in early OBM influence. Originallydemonstrated in his early work with Saskatchewan Hos-pital along with Jack Michael, Ayllon was first to publisha description of an OBM consulting relationship betweenbehavior analysts and work environment supervisors(nurses) (Ayllon & Michael, 1959).

FROM CLINICAL PRACTICE TOORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE

Aubrey C. Daniels was a clinical psychologist who de-cided that traditional clinical psychology had little to of-fer in his work as head of psychology at Georgia RegionalHospital. Previously, in his work at the Georgia MentalHealth Institute he had successfully applied behavioraltreatment to individual patients. In his work at GeorgiaRegional, he was asked to apply these treatment meth-ods to all 500 patients in the hospital. This led to the firstsystem-wide token economy within a state hospital. It wasmodeled on the work of Ayllon, but was applied to alldiagnostic groups from children to geriatrics and alcoholand drug addiction. He and his team were extremely suc-cessful with their work, reducing recidivism from 76% to11% and shortening the average length of stay by severalmonths.

The program that had the most direct influence onthe application of behavioral principles to the workplace,however, came from a Vocational Rehabilitation grantaimed at reducing truancy in high school in the late 1960’s.The program involved 30 juvenile delinquents who werereleased from a county detention center to attend an in-ner city high school. Students were on a token systemwhere they earned tokens for completing school assign-ments and maintaining good class conduct. In seekingway to measure student progress in reading and math-ematics, they were sent to Learning Foundations, a re-medial learning center in Atlanta.

Learning Foundations was one of the first centers touse teaching machines and this allowed progress mea-

30 Lattal & Porritt


sures to be reviewed daily. Progress was so dramatic thatthe center director asked if this could be done with alltheir students. Learning Foundations was one of severalcompanies owned by Fran Tarkenton, then the quarter-back for the New York Giants football team. One of thecompanies he owned was Industrial Educational Devel-opment Corporation (IED). Their business was under-written by grants from the Federal Government thatsubsidized businesses for hiring the “hardcore unem-ployed” by paying for training, medical treatment, trans-portation, etcetera.

The problem IED had was that they were able to re-cruit and train these employees but most of the newlyplaced employees were fired by supervisors within daysor weeks of being sent to the manufacturing floor. It wasclear the work environments were not set up to guide therecruits to develop the skills required for long-term em-ployment. The president of IED asked if Daniels couldteach supervisors to help their recruits to be successful atwork. IED had a large contract with Springs Mills, a SouthCarolina textile firm; it was there that Daniels first broughthis skills to a work environment. Supervisors were taughtin a four-hour training program to use graphic feedbackand social reinforcement for improvement in job perfor-mance. The program had impressive results and soonafter, Daniels and Tarkenton founded Behavioral SystemsConsultants. Their first private customer was CannonMills, a North Carolina textile manufacturer that wasexperiencing severe absenteeism and turnover problems.Annual company turnover rates were above 130% andmost of the turnover occurred in the first ninety days ofemployment.

The results of Daniels’ OBM training and interventionswere impressive as ninety day turnover rates were cut inhalf in ninety days. Word of this success spread fast withinthe textile industry as business was so good in the early1970’s that employee retention was a top priority. Behav-ioral Systems Consultants became Behavioral SystemsInc. (BSI) and eventually worked with every major textilefirm in the country, growing to over 100 employees.

In the mid-1970’s, the textile industry in the UnitedStates went into a major recession with many small com-panies going out of business. BSI’s business suffered sig-nificantly as 100% of the company’s business was in textiles.It was only at that time that the company began to seekbusiness outside of the textile industry. The company, al-though smaller, worked with a wide variety of businesses

throughout the country from steel manufacturing to healthcare while it continued to prove its methods through evi-dence based data collection and dissemination.

In 1977, while still at BSI, Daniels founded the Journalof Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) with threeobjectives. The Journal would:

1. stimulate good research on organizational problemsand the technology resulting from that research wouldbe useful in solving problems in organizations,

2. help to spread knowledge about using behavioralmethods to solve organizational problems and thuslead to a better world, and

3. provide clients of behavioral consulting companies aplace to read the papers published in the Journal toteach them the principles of behavior and how toapply the technology to common problems.

BSI consultants published heavily in the first volumeof JOBM (1977-1978) (e.g. Chandler, 1977; McCarty, 1978)but soon found that reporting results and methods in aresearch journal did not meet the stated objective of en-ticing clients to read the papers published to enhancelearning and application of behavioral technologies. In areview of the Journal in 1989 Daniels and others stated,

The Journal has arguably served the first two objectives.However, the Journal has not had any known impor-tant impact on clients who are interested in behavioraltechnology since its founding. Clients have not under-stood the research. The reporting format popular amongresearchers is not easily understood by people who arenot trained in research. The technology involved in theresearch reported in JOBM may have value for clients ofbehavioral methods. However, that technology will usu-ally have to be translated from the language of research-ers to the language of business people before that valueis apparent.

In addition to finding that business clients did notunderstand the papers being published in JOBM, a succes-sion of editors who were BSI employees found what hun-dreds of academics must have already known: editingresearch journals was terribly time consuming (Balcazar,Shupert, Daniels, Mawhinney, & Hopkins, 1989, p. 8).

In 1978 Daniels left BSI where he had served as presi-dent since 1972 to start Aubrey Daniels and Associates



(ADA). Shortly thereafter, JOBM was sold to Pergamon Pressby BSI. In 1980 editorship JOBM was passed from BSI con-sultants to Phil Duncan, the first in a line of Academiceditors that continues to the present day.

In 1982 ADA began publishing Performance ManagementMagazine (PMM). This time around, ADA wanted to presentmaterial in a format that was interesting and that had rel-evance to day to day management allowing the sharing ofbest practices in applying behavior analytic principles toworkplace issues. While the OBM community would findmuch to replicate in designing their own tools and inter-ventions, this was not a scientifically rigorous undertak-ing. The result was a magazine format filled with casestudies, editorials, and interesting tidbits, with much lessemphasis on scientific method and analysis. Reports in PMM

tended to be from ADA clients guided by ADA consultantswith the article produced very much a collaboration be-tween the two. Although reports in PMM received less sci-entific scrutiny than those in JOBM, the collaborative natureof the articles provided the distinct advantage of an inher-ent social validity not typically seen in JOBM articles.

ADA soon began accumulating clients, starting withBroyhill Furniture (furniture manufacturing and distribu-tion), then 3M (diversified technology company), BlueCross Blue Shield (insurance company), and PrestonTrucking (cross country transportation). ADA’s early cli-ent list demonstrated diverse application of behavioralmanagement principles beyond manufacturing produc-tivity in textile mills. That list has grown to multiple in-dustries across hundreds of client companies and manythousands of employees.

In 2001, ADA became Aubrey Daniels International(ADI) with activities in 22 countries and with formal alli-ance partnerships in Great Britain, Canada, Costa Rica,Spain, Iceland, Australia, Japan, Russian, South Africa,and Brazil. Its current headquarters is in the BuckheadBusiness District in the city of Atlanta.

GUIDING PHILOSOPHY: THE R+ COMPANY

One area of controversy that surrounds Daniels’ philo-sophical approach is his, and in turn, the company’s,emphasis on positive reinforcement —a values-based fo-cus above a science-based focus, some would say. WhileDaniels is a scientist and understands that the scientificdiscipline of behavior analysis is not about making value

statements about the consequences that change behav-ior, as in one is good and another bad. He fully under-stands that terms associated with the science, like positive,negative, or punishment are about trends, increasing, de-creasing or stopping behavior, not about the social valueof such terms, he set a stake in the ground. He saw thetendency of those in control of others: 1. to judge pat-terns of behavior as the absence of or presence of theindividual performer’s internal fortitude, not a productof environmental conditions and effects of consequences;2. to ignore good performers except when they deviatedfrom that standard; and 3. to use threat or fear to getwhat they wanted when not readily produced by theemployees. The ‘Do it or else’ school of thought, that is,unfortunately, found everywhere work occurs.

These coercive patterns are highly reinforced in theformal and informal chains of management command,whether in school settings, hospitals, or organizationalwork settings. Daniels, perhaps influenced by strong suc-cess with the use of positive shaping strategies imbeddedin his own early work, deliberately chose to make a pro-fessional lifetime statement about coercion. This sciencepromotes a better way for those in control to set the moralhigh road in using the power they have to change behav-ior. While there are specific situations where managersmust punish or threaten or create fear of failure for theimmediate and longer-term good, managers are not heldaccountable, in general, for each of their supervisee’simprovement. If results are met, no matter if achieved byone member or ten members of his or her team, the man-ager is judged to have done a good job. It is a carelessanalysis of workplace potential.

“Business is behavior” Daniels would say, and under-standing how to change behavior from current state tohigh and steady rates of successful performance lies inthe sophisticated use of positive reinforcement. Workersunderstand that positive, negative and punishing conse-quences occur all the time, with varying degrees of suc-cess. Benign neglect or deliberate extinction also occurs.When the person who is in control uses predominatelyaversive control, that person and the related culture cando better through the strategic and predominant use ofpositive reinforcement as the approach to worker andultimately business improvement.

Almost no business schools teach their graduates aboutthe science of behavior analysis, even in their manage-ment courses. They may get some cognitive psychology,

32 Lattal & Porritt


organizational development theory, and human factorstraining. Managers have few tools to objectively evalu-ate behavior patterns and they are almost never trainedin human performance when promoted on the job. Mostmanagers come up the ranks. Many are ‘naturally good’behavior analysts, without necessarily knowing a wordof the science. But that leaves a vast group who do notknow how to and do not think it is their job to managebehavior.

METHODS AND TOOLS

ADI consultants use a generally standard method of in-tervention. They analyze the business case for the work,observe and gather data on current culture and perfor-mance metrics, plan and design the implementation, workwith senior teams or direct site champions to roll out theplans, take individual and group baseline measures on avariety of conditions, train at each level of employee in-volvement, and work with senior leadership and stake-holders to set up strong accountability models. They coachand perform systems and process redesigns around abehavioral roadmap and align consequences for thelonger term. They evaluate that impact and continuouslywork to improve the model.

ADI consultants also have a variety of tools to help theclient connect to what behavior analysis has to offer. Manyof the tools are described in books Daniels has written,with multiple updated editions being published over theyears of his work, beginning in 1982 with the publicationof Performance Management. The latest editions of Daniels’books are listed in the references (Daniels, 2000, 2005,2007; Daniels & Daniels, 2006). In addition, these toolsare mentioned in magazine and professional articles writ-ten by ADI’s clients and consultants. They are simple, notsimplistic, and they have opened up the most complexof business issues to behavior analysis, cascaded acrosslarge corporate rollouts. They are replicated in almostthe exact form across many OBM consulting companiestoday. ADI continues to develop these tools to find newways of translating this science of psychology to the work-place in ways clients can apply. A few of these tools aredescribed below: The Five-Step Process, Behavior Ac-tion Plans, The ABC PIC/NIC Analysis, and DiscretionaryEffort (Shaping).

The Five-Step Process

The Five-Step Process is a method, heavily based on andcontaining the elements of the scientific method, for ana-lyzing and changing the work environment and thus be-havior. The five steps are:

1. Pinpoint: Specify both the results and behavior thatare required to achieve needed outcomes (processand results), to drive business objectives and indi-vidual performance.

2. Measure: Take data on the performer and have theperformer(s) track data as well. From improving sup-ply chain management to the individual efforts to im-prove error reduction in report writing —whatever itmight be— always set up a clear measurement systemtied to key results.

3. Feedback: Display progress and discuss measures invisible ways so that individuals learn that behaviorpatterns are predictive and trends are indicative ofwhat is happening at a behavioral level.

4. Reinforce: Celebrate by discussing progress and focus-ing on the steps toward the goal. Differentiate correc-tive statements from a true shaping strategy, definedfrom both the experimental analysis of behavior to thewords used to recognize and support progress. Make itvisible and frequent. Use good knowledge about sched-ules of reinforcement as fluency and generalization isbeing acquired. Whenever possible, build in reinforce-ment to the natural working environment. Know thatthis is a major challenge of managers when workingwith their employees —when to recognize progress.

5. Evaluate: keep an eye on performance at the indi-vidual and collective levels when looking at the ef-fectiveness of your work. Always be evidence based.Seek out how to make visible trends, speed, direc-tion, and alignment with other stated objectives,changes in the workplace conditions. Ask, “How canthis be better for the worker, the manager, the leaderand the overall culture?”

This method in its simplicity has transformed howbusiness leaders, managers, supervisors, and frontlineemployees look at behavior. It is a method of analysisthat allows for precision and objectivity to guide inter-ventions and it is easy for individuals to understand. It is



Behavior Action Plan

Manager:Supervisor

Date Plan Developed

Performer(s):Line Personnel

Business Objective: Productivity

Pinpoint

Result:

What measurable result(s), in support of the business objectivelisted above, will be your primary indicator of success?

Increase parts produced per hour from 100 to 150

Behavior:

What behavior(s), if exhibited consistently, will help to achieveyour results objective?

All line personnel will presort component parts 100% of thetime

Measurable Observable Reliable Specific Active

Measure

Result:

How will you measure the result(s) linked to the businessobjective above (i.e., how will you know if the result is improvingor not)?

Current report of parts produced per day

How will you collect the data?Existing report(s) Checklist/tally sheetNew report(s) Self monitoringObservation/countsOther

How often will you collect the results data above?Daily

Behavior:

How will you measure the behavior linked to business success(i.e., how will you know if the behavior is happening or not)?

Assembly personnel will report on daily checklist what percentof all parts were assembled from presorted component parts

How will you collect the data?Existing report(s) Checklist/tally sheetNew report(s) Self monitoringObservation/countsOther_____________

How often will you collect this behavior data?Daily from all 10 assembly personnel

not as easy for them to implement so, in addition, ADI

offers a Behavior Action Plan (Figure 1) (originally calleda Performance Improvement Plan) or a Coaching ActionPlan (Figure 2) and other project planning tools to helpthe client capture the important elements of achievingbehavior and results targets.

The ABC PIC/NIC analysis

The ABC PIC/NIC analysis, shown in Figure 3, is a deci-sion tool for evaluating what is occurring in the work

environment and deciding how to intervene. Using thistool allows the client to examine and categorize theknown environmental variables that act on the behaviorof interest. The ABC portion of the tool requires the cli-ent to categorize environmental stimuli and events as ei-ther happening before and triggering or prompting thebehavior (antecedents) or during or after the behaviorincreasing or decreasing its frequency in the future (con-sequences).

The PIC/NIC portion of the analysis allows the clientto categorize the consequences by two dimensions (im-mediate or future, certain or uncertain) that impact the

34 Lattal & Porritt


Use this area to sketch graphical RESULTS feedback(if known, include baseline and goal levels)

Use this area to sketch graphical BEHAVIOR feedback(if known, include baseline and goal levels)

Individual performance Group performanceIndividual performance Group performance

Feedback owner Update Fequency Location/Event Feedback owner Update Fequency Location/EventMe Weekly Post on break room wall Me Weekly Post on break room wall

Reinforce

Results Reward/Celebration Plan

Baseline performance: About 100 Parts per HourFinal goal: 150 Parts per Hour

Reinforcement Plan for Key Behaviors

Baseline performance: UnknownFinal goal: 100%

Results Subgoal How we will celebrate:

Subgoal 1 125 «Productivity Party»Subgoal 2Subgoal 3Subgoal 4Final Goal 150 «Productivity Party»

Behavior Subgoal How we will reinforce:

Subgoal 1 80% Pass out free sodaSubgoal 2 90% Pass out free sodaSubgoal 3Subgoal 4Final Goal 100% Pass out free soda and doughnuts

Figure 1. A sample Behavior Action Plan

Behavior Action Plan ContinuedFeedback

Result:

How will you communicate results performance to theperformer(s)?

I will post a graph of average parts per hour on the break roomwall weekly.

Behavior:

How will you communicate behavioral performance to theperformer(s) (i.e., how will they know if the behavior is happeningas planned)?

I will post a graph of percent parts assembled with presortedcomponents on the break room wall weekly.



Figure 2. A sample coaching action plan.

Coaching Action Plan

Manager: Performer(s):Manager Manager

Date Plan Developed: Business Objective:Increase Communication

Pinpoint

What specifically do you want to improve (results and behavior)?

Result: I want area supervisors to more often share best practices with me and I want to be able to provide them with positivefeedback more often.Behavior: If I can call area supervisors more often to review their improvement plans, I can also give them a venue for sharingsuccesses.

Measure

How will you know when that improvement happens?

Result: I will keep a weekly log of the improvement plans we talked about that are happening in their area and how many of the planshave produced some positive result.Behavior: I will also keep a weekly log of which area supervisor I talked to when. I will graph the number of calls I make to them andthey make to me to discuss improvement plans.

Feedback

How will the performers know how they are doing relative to past performance and the goals?

Result: I will share with the area supervisors a number of things I found that are going well in a weekly email. This weekly email willbe my permanent record of how well things are going.Behavior: I will keep a graph of the number of contacts and discussions about plans with each supervisor.

Reinforce

How will you create a «want-to-do» environment through positive reinforcement?

Result: I will send the weekly email with my boss. She has agreed to reply to the email with comments and CC HR with the email tobe put in my Performance Review folder.Behavior: If I talk to each of the area supervisors at least once each week, I will go out to lunch with one of them on Friday.

effectiveness of the consequence, and by a third dimen-sion which determines whether the consequence is likelyto increase or decrease the desired patterns of behavior.This allows the client to objectively look at how the envi-ronment and the conditions that control patterns of be-havior are arranged to increase or decrease the likelihoodof performer success. It provides in shorthand a method

for predicting future patterns of behavior based on moti-vational structures operating on current performance. It isa tool for planning and for stepping back and doing a pin-pointed analysis of the current vs. future state using guide-lines translated from the science of learning. It is one ofmany ADI tools directed at objectivity when looking atperformance trends and how to manage those trends.

36 Lattal & Porritt


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Discretionary effort

While discretionary effort (Figure 4) is not a formal toolin the form reported here, it is a compelling graphic ofwhat shaping does to accelerate high and steady rates offluency in performance and how that impacts the achieve-ment of the goal. It helps clients translate mastery andfluency of learning to high states of profitable habits (wor-thy work and sustained performance). Discretionary per-formance is motivated by ‘want to do’ versus minimalcompliance, motivated by either ‘cannot do’ (needingmore training or experience) or a ‘won’t do,’ meaningthe absence of well-targeted motivational systems acrosselements of culture and management practice. The com-pliance performance visible in many companies leads tojust enough behavior to get by —just over the baseline, asthe graph displays.

The client learns to arrange the conditions for desiredbehavior and to examine progress against baseline. Theyhave objective measures of what the worker does, and away of looking at behavior objectively as well. Teachingmanagers to look at behavior objectively is the biggesthurdle in this work. The use of positive behavior change

strategies allows for greater gains through effort by the sameemployees who were, prior to training in OBM, labeled aslazy or resistant or dumb by their managers and leaders. Ifthe worker —or the manager— is subjectively labeled inthis process, then all too quickly, the problem lies withthem, not in the motivational factors of the workplace en-vironment or the control that consequences have in main-taining what is judged to be good or bad patterns. Most ofADI’s interventions have demonstrated that the same work-ers who are labeled ineffective become ‘effective’ with smallchanges in the amount of solid antecedent and consequencemanagement that direct positive performance. Most man-agers become very effective shapers of future positive be-havior from their workers in such a system. Most businessrealize large financial and cultural gains, as evidenced bythe years of data ADI has collected, a small sample of whichis displayed in the next section.

A SAMPLE OF PAST AND RECENT WORK

Throughout its three decades, through training clients inOBM technologies and applying OBM to the workplace

Figure 4. An example discretionary effort chart.

Learning Curve

Habit Strength

R+R+

R+R+

R+R+ R+R+

R+ = externally providedR+ = naturally occurring

R+ R+

R+

R+R+ R+

R+R+

100%100% GOAL

R+R+

Weeks

Pin

poin

ted

Beh

avio

r

38 Lattal & Porritt


through direct intervention, ADI consistently demonstratesthe impact of OBM. Interventions have been specificallytargeted to narrow problems or broadly targeted to largescale organizational change across many elements of cul-ture and performance. The goal is technology transferand independence by clients. They come back for a vari-ety of reasons and become lasting colleagues in mostcases. Some interventions last a few months and manylast years. The longest running client engagement by ADI

is currently ongoing over the last 27 years, with the clientas masterful at this science as their ADI consultants. Abrief sample from Performance Management Magazine (PMM)and recent unpublished work with a few current clientsare described below to provide an introduction to thetypes of problems clients ask to have addressed. The 17volumes of PMM and additional articles are available onlineat www.aubreydaniels.com. All clients have granted ADI

permission to report these results, sometimes anony-mously for a variety of market or competitive reasons.

Ford Motor Company

Within a Ford Motor Company transmission assemblyplant in the State of Michigan, a plant manager used ADI’stechnology to improve the current employee improve-ment suggestion program. Before the intervention, thesuggestion program rewarded employees for submittingsuggestions, but the manager determined that the rewardcame too far away from the behavior of making a sug-gestion to effectively reinforce the behavior. An analysisof the behavior of interest revealed that suggestions wereusually written in private and required the employee tostop working or stay late to write.

The manager started holding weekly suggestionmeetings allowing employees to write suggestions oncompany time rather then taking away from theemployee’s free time. Additionally, suggestion meetingsallowed employees to talk about suggestions and sociallyreinforce each other for making suggestions. The man-ager also expedited the delivery of rewards after a sug-gestion was made and accepted and posted graphsdisplaying feedback about suggestions made and howmuch the plant had saved by implementing suggestions(Figure 5). The program saved the Ford plant over fivemillion dollars in the first five months it was imple-mented (Snyder, 1996).

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama (BCBSAL)

BCBSAL, a medical insurance company, has been a cus-tomer of ADI for over 27 years, using the principles ofapplied behavior analysis to run their business in all as-pects and continues to win recognition for their customerservice, quality and profitability from their colleaguesacross the USA and throughout the industry.

One specific sample of what one unit did was de-scribed in Performance Management Magazine (Dowis, 1983).A manager in the Medicare Claims Division began re-cording how many Medicare claims employees adjudi-cated each day. Initially, little was done to improve thesenumbers, but after a few months the manager began touse ADI technology to provide daily feedback to employ-ees on their performance. With the addition of feedbackthe number of claims adjudicated per employee per daybegan to increase at a fast pace. When the manager thenadded contingent reinforcement, the number of claimsadjudicated increased to three times that of the baselineperformance (Figure 6).

3M Distribution Warehouse

Comprehensive performance measurement systems al-ready in place at a 3M distribution warehouse allowedADI’s tools and techniques to easily modify the currentwork environment to maximize targeted behaviors. Thewarehouse in this example used OBM throughout thewarehouse to achieve performance enhancement on anumber of targets. The results are clearly seen in a graphof overall productivity from the warehouse (Figure 7) (3M,1987).

Rochester Gas and Electric

When ADI is employed to produce results in the area oforganizational safety, typically interventions involve thetargeting of specific skills or behaviors which if consis-tently practiced would reduce the occurrence of work-related injury. The intervention is then designed to allowworkers to practice these behaviors on the job and re-ceive feedback and reinforcement on their performanceuntil the behavior or skill is performed correctly everytime usually for six consecutive weeks, at which time the



Figure 5. Cumulative suggestions submitted and dollars saved from implemented suggestions for a Ford Motor plant.

behavior is considered “at habit strength” and a new be-havior is targeted for improvement.

Rochester Gas and Electric, over the course of oneyear, brought thirteen behavior targets to habit strengthacross five departments within the company. Lost-timeaccidents significantly dropped in all of the five depart-ments, while accidents in the rest of the company in-creased slightly. The overall incident rate for the companydecreased due to the safety intervention (Figure 8) (Snyder,1996).

A United Sates Financial Institution

This organization had a goal of increasing deposits on cer-tain identified client accounts. Using the Five Step Processas outlined above, they were able to pinpoint five key salesbehaviors as targets for a behavior action plan-based in-tervention. “Daily customer contacts” was identified fromthese five pinpoints as a key independent variable. Teamleaders tallied customer contacts and number of closedsales each day for involved sales personnel. The team lead-

40 Lattal & Porritt


Figure 6. Claims adjudicated per employee per day for the Medicare Claims department of Blue Cross Blue Shield Alabama.

Figure 7. Monthly overall productivity score for a 3M distribution warehouse.



ers arranged reinforcement for these behaviors daily. Ad-ditionally, weekly meetings with sales people and teamleaders were held at the beginning of each week to reviewthe prior week and prepare for the new week. All salespeople used a checklist of behaviors they needed to com-plete for their sales contacts. The implementation not onlyproduced increased deposits (Figure 9), but also the clientreported a large positive shift in corporate culture andemployee recognition and satisfaction.

A Retail Banking Institution

This organization has been engaged in training many ofits management and supervisory staff in ADI’s tools and

Figure 8. Rochester Gas and Electric Safety intervention summary. Graphs indicate number of lost-time accidents as defined by theUnited States Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

techniques for the past seven years. They have seen stronggrowth in metrics related to managerial and personnelrelationship skills. In addition, they have experiencedstunning increases in productivity and revenue measureswith a less than 1% increase in overall direct expenses(Figure 10).

Cascading Scorecards andPerformance Indexed Incentive Pay

Clients that elect to develop cascading scorecard mea-surement systems place themselves in the position of hav-ing a built-in system for aligning and measuring the impactof their OBM efforts. It is with these clients that ADI confi-

42 Lattal & Porritt


Figure 9. Retail deposits per month on key accounts for an undisclosed financial institution.

dently obtains aggregate measurement of improvementscores. The data in Figure 11 represent improvement in2,195 scorecard measures across eighteen organizations.The average performance gain with such a cascaded score-card system is 33% of one standard score for each scorecardmeasure or 2.76% each month with the scorecard systemimplemented (Abernathy, 2000).

CONCLUSIONS

The world of work has by no means fully grasped thescience of behavior analysis as one of the tenets of wellrun companies; however, companies like ADI are work-ing to make the case. Behavior analysts at ADI invite oth-

ers to work with us to extend this reach. We have toolsand methods that are packaged to help transfer the tech-nology through a cascading through others, making cli-ents fluent in the elements of managing behaviorsuccessfully. Well trained individuals in the science of be-havior are a great source for making this technology wellunderstood and driving past those translation points oflanguage and assumptions about the human condition todata-driven and more humane workplaces. The issue hasalways been, from the start, how much positive good cancome from a workplace built on the principles of behav-ior analysis. That good needs dissemination and effec-tive work from 1,000s of other practitioners if we are toreally, as Daniels said early on and continues to say to-day, “Change the way the world works.”



Figure 10. Organizational measures from an undisclosed financial institution.

Figure 11. Summary graph of scorecard interventions.

44 Lattal & Porritt


REFERENCES

3M’s mechanized warehouse UPS productivity with PM. (1988).Performance Management Magazine, 6(4), 7-9.

Abernathy, W. B. (1996). The sin of wages: Where the conventionalpay system has led us, and how to find a way out. Memphis,TN: PerfSys Press.

Abernathy, W. B. (2000). Managing without supervising: Creatingan organization-wide performance system. Memphis, TN:PerfSys Press.

Ayllon, T. (1963). Intensive treatment of psychotic behaviourby stimulus satiation and food reinforcement. Behaviour re-search and therapy 1(1), 53-61.

Ayllon, T., & Azrin, N. H. (1964). Reinforcement and instruc-tions with mental patients. Journal of the Experimental Analy-sis of Behavior, 7, 327-331.

Ayllon, T., & Michael, J. (1959). The psychiatric nurse as a be-havioral engineer. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Be-havior, 2, 323-334.

Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some currentdimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of AppliedBehavior Analysis, 1, 91-97.

Balcazar, F. E., Shupert, M. K., Daniels, A. C., Mawhinny, T. C.,& Hopkins, B. C. (1989). An objective review and analysisof ten years of publication in the Journal of OrganizationalBehavior Management. Journal of Organizational Behavior Man-agement, 10, 7-37.

Chandler, A. B. (1977). Decreasing negative comments andincreasing performance of a shift supervisor. Journal of Or-ganizational Behavior Management, 1, 99-103.

Dowis, R. (1983). Alabama “blues” don’t sing the blues any-more. Performance Management Magazine, 1, 3-5.

Daniels, A. C. (2000). Bringing out the best in people: How to applythe astonishing power of positive reinforcement. New York:McGraw-Hill.

Daniels, A. C. (2005). Measure of a leader: An actionable formulafor legendary leadership. Atlanta, GA: Performance Manage-ment Publications.

Daniels, A. C. (2007). Other people’s habits: How to use positivereinforcement to bring out the best in people around you. Atlanta,GA: Performance Management Publications.

Daniels, A. C., & Daniels, J. E. (2006). Performance management:Changing behavior that drives organizational effectiveness. At-lanta, GA: Performance Management Publications.

McCarthy, M. (1978). Decreasing the incidence of “high bob-bins” in a textile spinning department through a group feed-back procedure. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management,1, 150-154.

Snyder, G. (1996). The behavioral link to bottom-line results(An intervention at Ford Motor Company). PerformanceManagement Magazine, 14, 3-6.

Snyder, G. (1997). Rochester gas and electric: Empoweredsafety in a downsizing industry. Performance ManagementMagazine, 15, 16-24.

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