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This article was downloaded by: [Northeastern University]On: 04 November 2014, At: 15:58Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
Journal of OrganizationalBehavior ManagementPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/worg20
Should We Teach the ABC's?Terry McSween a & Grainne Matthews aa Quality Safety Edge , 4031 S. Sandy Court, MissouriCity, TX, 77459, USAPublished online: 08 Sep 2008.
To cite this article: Terry McSween & Grainne Matthews (2004) Should We Teachthe ABC's?, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 24:1-2, 135-143, DOI:10.1300/J075v24n01_08
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J075v24n01_08
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Should We Teach the ABC’s?(or, What OBM Needs Is Long-Term
Success Stories)
Terry McSweenGrainne Matthews
ABSTRACT. A great deal of discussion has taken place about thefield of Organizational Behavior Management and whether it shouldbroaden its content beyond the field of applied behavior analysis to in-clude fields such social psychology, positive psychology, and moretraditional I/O psychology. The current discussions stem from differ-ent views of OBM and our struggles in promoting greater use of behav-ioral technology. The authors discuss their views as practitioners fromthe field of OBM and suggest that our intervention model needs to bechanged to focus more on creating behavioral systems and less ontraining. Further, the challenge of promoting behavioral interventionsis viewed as a function of limited data and a lack of long-term successstories, rather than a function of current content or how we talk aboutour technology. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Docu-ment Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 byThe Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Organizational behavior management, behavioral engi-neering, social psychology, technology transfer
Terry McSween and Grainne Matthews are affiliated with Quality Safety Edge,4031 S. Sandy Court, Missouri City, TX 77459.
Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, Vol. 24(1/2) 2005Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JOBM
© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J075v24n01_08 135
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Engineering is the application of science to the common purpose of life.
–Count Rumford
The dialogue represented in the articles of Geller (2003a) and Malott(2003) raises a couple of very important questions:
• What is the appropriate field of study for students of organiza-tional behavior management (OBM)?
• How do we describe our approach when interacting with the public(i.e., when making public presentations, conducting sales meet-ings with prospects, and writing for nonbehavioral audiences)?
While these two questions are important because they are related topublic acceptance of our technology, they lead to a more importantquestion at the root of this discussion: “What services do we provide?”This is the question we must address in order to provide a foundation forresponding to the questions raised in the articles by Geller and Malott.Clearly, we cannot agree on what to teach our students until we agree onwhat we want them to do when they enter the workplace. Further, webelieve the differences between Geller and Malott reflect different be-liefs about the kind of services that define the field of OBM. Therefore,we would like to share a practitioner’s view of our services before ad-dressing some of the questions raised in the Geller and Malott articles.
THE FIELD OF OBM
For over thirty years, many of the leading practitioners in our fieldhave provided training and coaching on behavioral principles and theirapplication. Traditionally, three objectives are primary in such training.Participants should be able to:
• Interact more effectively with others (clearer instructions, morepinpointed feedback, better use of data, more use of recognition,etc.)
• Analyze performance problems• Design better performance systems
While these are worthy objectives, those who we teach go back into thesame workplace. Our experience suggests that such interventions sim-
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ply do not produce lasting changes in client organizations. Even whenwe distribute the training over several months and successfully arrangefor participants to design and implement performance improvementprojects, the changes they implement do not appear to be long lasting.
The paradigm that represents this approach might be represented bythe following diagram:
We have often broken the intervention into small steps and taught theconcepts imbedded in the improvement effort, but this was still an ex-tension of the same basic paradigm. The steps in this approach are quitefamiliar to those involved with the OBM field:
• Identify a profile of performance measures• Ensure a feedback system to provide these measures and collect
baseline data on each• Target a performance measure based on the potential for improve-
ment and the potential economic impact• Pinpoint the critical behaviors that impact the targeted measure(s)• Conduct an ABC and balance-of-consequences analysis for the
critical behaviors• Modify the environment to improve the feedback, consequences,
and antecedents supporting the target behavior (this step often pri-marily involves the managers changing how they respond to thetarget behaviors, which we frequently support by providing train-ing in feedback, goal-setting, and communication techniques)
The following diagram might more accurately describe the initial stepsof this paradigm:
Terry McSween and Grainne Matthews 137
First teach:Performance managementand behavioral concepts
Applying those skills toimprove performance
Then review and coach:
First teach how to:
1. Identify a profile ofperformance measures
2. Create a feedbacksystem and collectbaseline data
3. Target a performancemeasure based on thepotential for improvementand the potential economicimpact
Then review and coach on:
1. The completeness andadequacy of the outcomemeasures
2. The timeliness andpresentation of data
3. The opportunity forimprovement andits economic value
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Our field has many well-documented cases where this type of interven-tion has helped organizations improve performance with a significantpositive impact on profitability.
In our assessment, however, this approach has failed to produce last-ing change. Because the results have not been long lasting, these studieshave not been successful enough to establish the value of applied behav-ior analysis within the business community.
BEHAVIORAL ENGINEERING
Thomas Gilbert (1996) coined a term that we think is worth revisit-ing: Behavioral Engineering. While Tom used this term primarily todiscuss his “behavioral engineering model,” we think it implies a signif-icant change in strategy for OBM practitioners. We think our field isbetter served by adopting an engineering model rather than the currenttraining model. From this perspective, OBM consultants would take anapproach emphasizing the importance of designing effective perfor-mance management systems rather than providing training. This ap-proach would place OBM on a par with many other disciplines. Thesoftware engineer, for example, designs an application to assist clientsin accomplishing a specific objective, then trains personnel in the use ofthe software without trying to teach the intricacies of the computercode. The website designer develops a site to meet certain design andinformation criteria without trying to teach clients how to write code tosupport the website. A CPA helps clients install an accounting systemand teaches them to use it without teaching them accounting theory.
Support for this approach comes from the field of behavioral safety. Toimprove safety in heavy industrial organizations, we often design a newbehavioral observation process based on the work of Beth Sulzer-Azaroff and others (see the review by Sulzer-Azaroff and Austin, 2000).As part of implementation, we would teach managers and key employeesthe observation and feedback procedures, then teach the safety committeehow to use the observation data to manage the process. By providing(1) software that facilitates tracking observations and summarizing thedata, and (2) job-aids that support problem-solving, we have been moresuccessful at institutionalizing behavior-based safety. The result is thatBBS installations often last ten years and longer (cf. McSween, 2003),well beyond the typical “improvement project” style that has character-ized the OBM field.
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In many of the early studies on behavior-based safety, sustaining theimplementation beyond the end of the study as a significant problem(see for example, Sulzer-Azaroff, 1987). Even during the early work,the interventions that sustained were systems that were well integratedinto the existing organization. The classic example is the work reportedby Fox, Hopkins, and Anger (1986). These researchers designed asafety award process that sustained for over a decade. More recently,Krause, Seymore and Sloat (1999) have documented the effectivenessof their approach to implementing behavior-based safety with seventythree organizations over a five year period. In addition, we have re-ported implementing behavioral safety systems at a large refinery andanother at an ore processing plant that have both sustained for ten years(see the case studies reported in Chapter 24, McSween, 2003). Suchresults are uncommon in the field of OBM.
We should note that behavior-based safety did not gain acceptancefrom the publication of these long-lasting interventions. Rather, itgained acceptance once practitioners began documenting and promot-ing their ability to consistently implement interventions that demon-strated lasting results. In our view, the acceptance of behavior-basedsafety has been a function of the effectiveness of this approach com-bined with the promotional efforts of practitioners such as ThomasKrause, Scott Geller, and others.
The current strategy for implementing behavior-based safety is notthe only “systems” approach. Maria Malott’s strategy involves care-fully mapping and planning improvements to the work process (Malott,2003). Her approach also exemplifies an approach to engineering amore effective behavioral system that will have a lasting impact on boththe safety and performance of her client organizations.
Bill Abernathy (2000) is another practitioner who exemplifies the be-havioral engineering approach. He implements a scorecard-like systemthat provides feedback and incentive compensation for client organiza-tions. His approach requires very little training compared to the moretraditional “improvement project” approach. He reports data on twelveorganizations that adopted his system for at least fifteen months. Hiswork is significant because of the breadth of performance measures andthe wide variety of different kinds of organizations, as well as the dura-tion of implementation. His work is unique in the field of OBM.
All three of these approaches exemplify the application of behavioralconcepts to the design of a behavioral system targeting improved per-formance without providing extensive training in the concepts of be-havioral analysis. From this perspective, while the distinction between
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positive and negative reinforcement is important for behavior analysts,it is not an issue that must be well understood by our clients. WhileMalott (2003) postulates that guilt plays an important role in high per-formance, he operationally defines the structures necessary to generateand sustain such performance (i.e., regular deadlines and rules related todelayed outcomes). We can design effective interventions that ensureregular monitoring of deadlines and clear rules without discussing thetheoretical explanation for its effectiveness, or we may include the ra-tionale in non-technical terms. Only in rare cases, such as training somehigh-level internal consultants, would we consider it important to teachthe concepts of behavior analysis.
WHAT TRAINING SHOULD WE PROVIDETO OBM STUDENTS?
The ideal curriculum for OBM consultants should provide the skillsnecessary to take the behavioral engineering approach described above.This approach does not require the concepts typically included in tradi-tional psychology, nor the content included in the typical industrial-orga-nizational psychology program. The bulk of the content included in thoseprograms has no place in the OBM field of study because it does not helpus address performance in a significant way. When other psychologicalapproaches begin to produce performance improvements of a similarmagnitude, we should pay more attention to them. Thus far, they simplyhave not. In the field of safety, for example, employee selection strategieshave not yielded anything near the magnitude of safety improvementachieved through behavior-based safety (Guastello, 1993). We wouldmuch rather see OBM students broaden their studies with supplementalcourses in industrial engineering and computer science rather thancourses in employee selection and personality.
In short, we think most of the theoretical work discussed by Wiegandand Geller adds very little to our effectiveness as OBM consultants. Theresearch they review appears largely to address attitudes and personal-ity traits, and thus largely addresses what people say about themselvesand their motivation. Unfortunately, what people say (their verbal be-havior) and their actual behavior (whether at work or at school) is onlyloosely correlated. Such work adds little to our understanding of how todesign effective systems to ensure consistent performance.
While implementing effective behavioral systems should be the pri-mary focus of OBM, being able to provide our clients with effective
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leadership skills will always remain an important OBM service. Andhere, Malott is right. OBM does need more “Jewish mothers” in that weneed to know how to make managers more effective. The loving but un-compromising mother is not a bad analogy. The effective managerneeds to know the importance of being reinforcing enough to have astrong personal relationship with employees, yet be able create an envi-ronment that makes it likely employees will feel guilty when they do notmeet their performance target. Geller seems to have entirely missed thepoint, implicit in Malott’s analogy, that mothers are perhaps the ulti-mate source of reinforcement for their children. Without that history ofreinforcement, the threat of punishment would likely be ineffective increating the guilt that Malott suggests is critical to high performance.Malott knows how to apply behavioral concepts better than most. Bothhe and Geller (2003a) acknowledge the importance of considering theemotional responses of those who work in organizations and how theyfeel about our interventions.
In fact, Wiegand and Geller (2003) and Geller (2003b) are often talk-ing about different forms of negative reinforcement than Malott (2003).Malott talks about high performance being generated by the avoidanceof guilt in the context of a positive relationship, while Wiegand andGeller talk about problems with generating performance through thethreat punishment in a relationship that would likely be considered fear-ful. In Malott’s view, the performer is motivated by fear of letting downher leader or team, and often the loss of reinforcement, while Geller isdescribing the problems always associated with the use of punishment.
We agree with Malott that performance management contingenciesare more complex than a simple Skinner box analogy. However, weconsider it accurate to describe the environment with effective perfor-mance management contingencies as a more positive workplace thanthe more typical workplace where employees work primarily to avoidcriticism and disciplinary action.
Research in the field of social psychology has the potential to help usfurther refine our application of behavioral concepts by providing abetter understanding of how our interventions may impact the feelingsof people in the workplace. We suspect that exemplary leaders use guiltvery effectively in the context of their personal relationship with theiremployees–and defining the practices that impact on these social rela-tionships is one of the areas where research in social psychology has thepotential to help us improve the effectiveness of our interventions.
Judi Komaki (2000), for example, has observed in her research thatmanagers and supervisors often make their employees angry by asking
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rhetorical questions. This is an important observation that would not beeasily predicted from basic behavioral concepts, yet it has important im-plications for the training we provide to supervisors and managers.
In this respect we find merit in Geller’s suggestion that behavioranalysts broaden their field of study to include more of the empiricalwork in social psychology. Our interest is not in the social psychologists’traditional interpretation of their research but in behavior analysts acquir-ing knowledge of social psychology research findings and being able tointerpret and understand those findings from a behavioral perspective.The work of Daryl Bem (1970) stands out in exemplifying the applicationof behavioral concepts to social psychology research in the area of atti-tudes and beliefs. Bem takes a behavioral perspective in analyzing beliefsand attitudes. He suggests that our attitudes are simply our verbal descrip-tion of our behavior (including emotional responses) based on our obser-vations of how we felt and acted in similar situations in the past. He usesthis basic approach to analyze a variety of research findings from the fieldof social psychology and even extends those findings to better understandhow attitudes towards blacks changed as a result of changing desegrega-tion laws in the south during the 50s and 60s. We would like behavior an-alysts to be more familiar with such work and believe that our field wouldbe well served by more solid behavioral research addressing such topicstraditionally addressed by social psychologists.
HOW DO WE TALK ABOUT OUR TECHNOLOGYTO THE NON-BEHAVIORAL PUBLIC?
In selling our technology, we need to keep a balanced focus on boththe outcomes and process. Many consultants promise the same outcome(performance improvement). What makes OBM different is behavioraltechnology, and what makes OBM credible is the research that docu-ments the effectiveness of this technology. These are what we must findways to communicate to the public. Beyond that, we have no magic bul-let and continue to believe that our best tool is demonstrating successand communicating, as accurately as possible, what we do in terms theconsumer understands.
Some have suggested that documenting the success of our methodol-ogy is not sufficient, and they are probably right, but for the wrong rea-sons. They use education as an example. They point out that directinstruction is a clearly superior approach to education that has generallyfailed to have a significant impact on public education. Our analysis is
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that this result does not stem from a failure to communicate or sell theapproach, but rather from a failure to engineer a cost-effective way todeliver such instruction and re-engineer the entire performance system.
What OBM needs, beyond Jewish mothers, is more long-term suc-cess stories demonstrating successful interventions that last for years.Then we believe that OBM will begin to receive the attention it de-serves. Our field has demonstrated the effectiveness of applying behav-ioral concepts to the workplace, now we have to show that we knowhow to institutionalize those concepts within our clients’ organizationsto achieve lasting results. We have to build the credibility of our fieldthe old fashioned way. We have to earn it–one company at a time.
REFERENCES
Abernathy, W. B. (2000). Managing without supervising. Memphis, TN: PerfSys Press.Bem, D. J. (1970). Beliefs, Attitudes and Human Affairs. Belmont California, Brooks/
Cole Publishing Company.Fox, D.K., Hopkins, B.L., & Anger, W.K. (1987). The long-term effects of a token
economy on safety performance in open-pit mining. Journal of Applied BehaviorAnalysis, 20, 215-224.
Geller, E.S. (2003a). Should organizational behavior management expand its content?Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 22 (2), 13-30.
Geller, E.S. (2003b). Organizational behavior management and industrial/organiza-tional psychology: Achieving synergy by valuing differences. Journal of Organiza-tional Behavior Management, 22 (2), 111-130.
Gilbert, T.F. (1996). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance. Amherst,MA: HRD Press. (Original work published in 1978).
Guastello, S. J. (1993). Do we really know how well our occupational accident preven-tion programs work? Safety Science, 16, 445-463.
Komaki, J. (2000, October). Foster dialogue: The key to effective supervision. Paperpresented at the 5th Annual Behavior Safety NOW Conference, Reno, NV.
Malott, M.E. (2003) Paradox of organizational change. Reno, NV: Context Press.Malott, R.W. (2003). What OBM needs is more Jewish mothers. Journal of Organiza-
tional Behavior Management, 22 (2), 71-87.McSween, T.E. (2003). The values-based safety process: Improving your safety cul-
ture through behavior-based safety. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons.Sulzer-Azaroff, B., & Austin, J. (2000). Does BBS work? Professional Safety, July, 19-14.Sulzer-Azaroff, B. (2003) Lessons learned in enhancing safety performance in a paper
mill. In McSween (2003). The values-based safety process: Improving your safetyculture through behavior-based safety. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, pp. 256-259.
Wiegand, D. M., & Geller, E. S. (2004). Connecting positive psychology and organiza-tional behavior management: Achievement motivation and the power of positive re-inforcement. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 24(1/2), 3-25.
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