Chris Jenkins on Leadership, Learning, and Moving the Needle [Episode 247]

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show.
I'm your host, Ryan Carledge, and I'm passionate
about helping you master your animal training skills
using the most positive and least intrusive approaches.
Here at ATA, we understand that navigating the
vast challenges you encounter in training requires a

(00:27):
comprehensive base of knowledge and experience.
It's common to face obstacles and rough patches
on your journey that can leave you feeling
overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore, since 2015, we have been on a
mission to empower animal training geeks worldwide.
We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding

(00:51):
their knowledge, boosting their confidence, and maximizing their
positive impact on all the animal and human
learners they work with.
We are excited to do the same for
you.
Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant

(01:12):
community, and geek out with us.
And of course, in the meantime, enjoy this
free podcast episode as we explore new ways
to help you supercharge your training skills, grow
your knowledge, and build your confidence so that
you can craft a life that positively impacts

(01:32):
every learner you encounter.
We will start today's episode where I am
really excited to welcome back to the ATA
podcast show, the wonderful Chris Jenkins.
Chris's work with animals began with a high

(01:52):
school summer job at SeaWorld in San Diego.
After earning a degree in psychology from UC
Davis, Chris volunteered at the Sacramento Zoo before
deciding to pursue a full-time career with
animals.
In 2002, he was accepted into the Exotic
Animal Training and Management program at Moorpark College,

(02:13):
and after graduation worked as a wildlife educator
at Inner City Schools in Los Angeles.
Since 2005, Chris has worked for Natural Encounters
Incorporated, aka NEI, where he serves as Chief
Operating Officer.
He oversees two shows at a large theme
park in Orlando, Florida, and partners with facilities

(02:34):
worldwide on animal behavior, staff training, and guest
experience.
Chris is also a workshop instructor, online educator,
and host of NEI Tech webinars, as well
as the co-host of the Tech Talk
podcast.
He is a member of ABMA, AZA, and
IATA, an IATCB certified bird trainer, and serves

(02:57):
on both AZA and IATA's professional development committees.
So without further ado, it's my very great
pleasure to welcome Chris back to the show
today, who is patiently waiting.
Bye, Chris.
Thank you so much for taking the time
to come and hang out with us again
at Animal Training Academy.
Thank you very much, Ryan.
It is a pleasure to be here with
you and your community.
I like that word community.

(03:19):
Before recording today, I checked the date of
our last ATA podcast episode, Chris.
It was August 2016, episode number eight of
our show.
So it's great to have you back 239
episodes later.

(03:41):
And whilst we're talking about longevity of shows
and achievements, congratulations to you and the wonderful
Ari for reaching the 250 episode milestone.
It's huge.
Yeah, we have been doing our podcast, what
we call Tech Talk.
NEI Tech was something we formed right at

(04:03):
the beginning of the pandemic, which stood for
our training and education center, which was meant
to just sort of be a catch all
term for any and all of our online
learning opportunities that we created during that time.
And we were thinking of what can we
do?
What would be fun?
We should do webinars.
We should do online courses.
And I said, I want to do a
podcast.
And Steve said, great.

(04:24):
I don't know what that means.
Go ahead, do it.
And Ari said, I want to be your
co-host.
And I said, we're in.
And then we recorded the first episode the
next day.
So, yeah, we just we just hit that
250th mark.
Didn't miss a week ever since then.
And in a couple of weeks, we'll hit
the five year mark officially.
So it's been super fun.
Amazing.
You said that Steve and for those that

(04:46):
don't know, I know a lot of you
all, but you were referring to Steve Martin,
who is the founder of Natural Encounters.
Steve said, I don't know what that is.
And I feel like, you know, Chris, back
in pre-pandemic times, do you remember what
that was like?
I've heard stories about that.
Crazy, scary.

(05:06):
And I remember reaching out to people and
being like, yo, can you come on the
Animal Training Academy podcast show?
And back then people were like, what is
a podcast show?
And now people are like, what?
You don't have a podcast show?
Like what?
It's been a very busy time in the
podcast space over the last five years.

(05:28):
One of the, I would say, challenging things
for podcast creators and hosts is that longevity
piece.
It's shown up week after week, month after
month, year after year.
What do you think has been one of
the biggest lessons that you've learned over those
five years?
I think that what we benefited from early

(05:50):
on was an agreement that we wanted our
show to be a weekly offering that would
basically feel like a conversation between friends.
So, you know, I had had experience doing
totally non-animal related podcasts with my friends
back in 2012.
We had started doing that when people really

(06:11):
didn't know what podcasts were.
And it was never because of who we
thought the audience could be or what we
could get out of it.
It was just we were talking about silly
stuff anyway and might as well record it.
That was my wife's suggestion.
So I think our goal was, you know,
this is going to be a time when
we don't know what's going to happen.
We're guessing everybody feels like things are a

(06:33):
little weird and wouldn't be nice if every
week we got to just talk about animal
training stuff.
And, you know, we had built communities through
stuff we had done through some of those
organizations that you mentioned, the ABMA, IAATE, that
sort of stuff.
You know, through the workshops that we do
in person at our home base in Florida,
we meet people that way.

(06:53):
We do a lot of consulting work.
So we meet people in a lot of
different ways.
But I think the most satisfying thing for
the podcast was we took the pressure off
of ourselves for it to be highly produced.
We never had the goal of it being
perfect audio.
And to this day have continued with the
sort of ethos that it was going to
be a show that unless something egregiously technologically

(07:16):
went wrong, would largely have no editing either.
Where it would essentially be, you know, I'll
probably have some set up to cut off
the front, some outro junk to cut off
the back, throw some theme music on either
end of it.
And, you know, that was going to be
it.
So I think that we made it very
easy for ourselves by taking the pressure off

(07:36):
of it being nothing other than just a
conversation amongst friends.
And Ari and I have known each other
and worked together for over 15 years.
So that's not a hard ask for that,
even if it's just both of us.
But, you know, we wanted it to be
an opportunity for people to meet other people
on the NEI team.
So a lot of our early interviews were
just with our coworkers.
And then we started realizing, well, we know
a lot of people in this field.

(07:57):
We should just start reaching out to all
of them and see if anybody wants to
do this.
And I think because we said this is
going to be something that we would like
to listen to if we weren't the ones
making it.
And because we also accepted that, hey, things
are going to come up where one or
both of us might not be able to
do this.

(08:17):
Let's just do episodes on our own.
Let's do an episode with no guests.
Ari was the first one who did an
episode completely by herself.
I wasn't there, and she did not have
a guest.
And she didn't know what she was going
to talk about until she started recording.
And then since then, both of us have
done that.
We've had other people completely take over the
show for us, which has been fun.
And I think that's made it easy for

(08:37):
us to not miss the mark.
We've had to do a few things where
the episode that went up that week was
essentially an apology because a plan we had
didn't work out.
But I think that for us, that just
reinforced the idea that maybe we should all
be a little kinder to ourselves when life
doesn't exactly follow the plans that we make.
And since we all work in the professional
animal care field, that's the reality most of

(09:00):
us live with day to day, right?
Things just don't go to plan.
So let's just go with that.
And now it's just become this point of
stubborn pride that we haven't missed a week
yet.
So we're so deep into it.
I don't doubt it's going to happen at
some point, but it hasn't happened so far.
I think there's some really good lessons in
there.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday, Chris,

(09:21):
and they were talking about marketing.
And they were talking about – and love
him or hate him, and I've got no
opinion about this person.
But it was about Kanye West.
Okay.
And apparently, he did a Super Bowl commercial.
Oh, okay.
And all it was, was him being in
the back of his car on his phone

(09:43):
being like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, buy these shoes.
Again, it was like naughty detergent.
It was literally just him talking.
But the point was exactly to what you
were saying.
Like, you don't need all of that fancy
get up and gear.
And I think that's a barrier to a
lot of people.
There's probably lessons in that for other areas
of life as well.

(10:04):
There's so much to be said about taking
action.
And I get the sense from your story.
I was like, yo, Steve just started a
podcast.
I was like, cool.
And I was like, I'll join.
I was like, cool.
And then the next day, you just jumped
on.
Would you say that's who you are?
Would you say that's who NEI is?

(10:26):
Like, action taking, I think, and making decisions
is hard for a lot of people.
Yeah.
I think it's always been, I've always felt
like it was one of the superpowers of
our organization, that we are small enough that
when we get it in our minds that
we want to do something, there's relatively few
layers of decision making that has to happen

(10:48):
for it to go forward.
So, you know, there's probably, you know, we're
around, I would say somewhere 50, 55 employees
total.
I don't know what the current number is.
And when I started with the organization, which
was almost 20 years ago, I think when
I was added to the roster, I became
about the 23rd or 24th employee.

(11:08):
So we're about double the size of when
I started here.
And so that's bigger than some animal facilities,
but it's a heck of a lot smaller
than most of them.
And because we are sort of an independent
organization, as long as it's not done through
the filter of one of our other contracts
that we have, where we do like permanent
shows at the zoo facilities that we do,

(11:31):
you know, we can't just do whatever we
want there.
We have to sort of follow what the
client does and doesn't want us to do
or say.
But yeah, I think that whole experience of
coming up with a new branch of our
organization, this NEI Tech Initiative, that was the
best example of it that I could think
of.
So we were in a position where, like

(11:52):
many people, we were sort of, you know,
our normal operations were sort of shut down
and our shows were put on hold.
And we were sort of it was felt
like a furlough situation.
We didn't lose our jobs.
We didn't lose our contracts.
Everything just went on pause.
And we had no idea what the future
was going to hold.
And I think our organization and in particular,
our boss, Steve, is not comfortable just sitting

(12:16):
and doing nothing.
And I think he said over and over
again that, you know, problems are an opportunity.
So what can we do with this global
opportunity that got handed to us in March
and April of 2020?
And that was our way of sort of
making the best of it was was coming
up with something new.
And I think the thing that's kept it

(12:37):
going, in addition to those things I mentioned
before, was the fact that ostensibly the show
we do is meant to be about animal
training and behavior.
But I think what it's really turned into
has been a human behavior podcast.
It's become about teamwork, communication, self-care, mental
health, sort of all of the things that
have to go on behind the scenes and

(12:58):
work really well with the human animal caretakers
in order for the animal care stuff to
work out well.
And it's one of the things we've really
loved about your show, Ryan, is that you've
never been afraid to sort of forefront that
part of what we do and been able
to have really good conversations with people about
that part of what we do.
And it seems like that's a thing that

(13:20):
a lot of our field is not struggling
with right now, but they're looking to tackle
in their own way.
Some people just sort of wrapping their heads
around, you know, we want to do better
for our animals.
We want to do better for our visitors.
But what does that mean for us to
do that, but also do well by the
people who are the ones who really make
this happen?
And that's all the frontline animal caretakers that
are here.
And, you know, I have the benefit of

(13:41):
working for a relatively small organization where I
could walk, you know, 10 feet and I,
you know, have a complete access to the
CFO and our human resources department, who is
one person.
So it's a it's a very efficient organization.
The chief development officer is my podcast co
-host and her desk is five feet that
way.
So we have the ability to put plans

(14:03):
together very quickly and execute on them very
quickly.
And we've told Steve repeatedly and we did
again, even on this 250th episode, when he
was one of the people who joined us,
was the greatest gift he could have given
us for the show was that he just
left us alone.
And it wasn't because he didn't care or
had no interest.
But for us, it felt like a vote
of confidence.
It felt like a level of trust that

(14:23):
we weren't going to do anything that was
going to, you know, do any kind of
material harm to our organization or to him
or to ourselves.
And when we do get those notes that
he listened to one or more of our
episodes, it's tremendously gratifying.
So, you know, we've told our staff that
as long as they keep letting us know
that some of them are listening, we really

(14:45):
don't care about who else listens, because the
fact that people who get paid to listen
to us all day would also do it
voluntarily in their cars or during their commutes
or at home, that feels like we're doing
something right.
Problems are an opportunity.
I just want to highlight that part because,
I mean, that's one facet of what makes

(15:08):
NEI, I think, and Steve driving the ship,
such an impactful organization.
It's small things, I think, like that.
Just the ability to see that and think
like that.
So I wanted to make sure that I
highlighted that, because I think they can easily
be brushed over, but that's just like that.

(15:30):
Those four words are a small hinge, I
think, that swing a massive door.
Like if you can really embrace that in
your life, you can achieve things like the
NEI Tech Podcast.
And I love that you're focusing on all
of the things you talked about.
I got a beautiful message this morning, Chris,
from someone who'd seen me talk at our

(15:51):
Australasian Animal Training Conference in 2023 at SeaWorld
in Australia.
And apparently they'd come and talk to me
and I had disappeared unintentionally.
But what they wanted to tell me was
how impactful the contribution I gave in my
presentation about mental health and how that really
changed their life.

(16:12):
And I'm grateful that that person was brave
enough to reach out and tell me, because
I think what you do and what we
aim to do here, we're never going to
know all of the little ripples that it
creates out there in the world.
But little bits of reinforcement like that are
very motivating.

(16:32):
Can you share?
We're going to talk about community today, everyone.
I think everything that we're talking about now
fits so well under that umbrella topic.
But I do want to give a shout
out to you and your team.
And just for those listening who might not
know, because you do such great work.
Can you share a little bit about Natural
Encounters?

(16:52):
I mentioned it in your bio, obviously, but
expand on that and kind of your role
in that space.
Yeah.
So, you know, I need to find a
more elegant, brief way to explain what it
is that my organization does.
But the way I think about it is
we are an animal training and guest experience
creation engine.

(17:13):
I've never said those words before, but I
kind of like it.
I'm going to hang on to that.
And now it's going to be part of
this recording.
So that's going to help support that for
me.
Yeah.
So we we do a lot of things.
We have a home base in central Florida,
which is about 40 minutes south southwest of
Orlando, where we have the majority of our
animal collection, which is mostly birds, 400 some

(17:37):
odd now, probably.
That number may be way off because we
have so many locations where where people and
humans and birds are spread out.
But that's that's where our kind of home
base is.
That's where the bulk of the animals that
we have live.
And that's where we do all of our
in-person training experiences.
So we do a bird of prey workshop.

(17:59):
We do a animal professionals workshop, which is
sort of a catch all for anyone who
does anything animal related professionally.
And and then then we have our actual
physical tech center.
The training and education center is a is
a physical building that we created that Steve
designed and and our executive VP, Rob Buells,
helped design.
And we were very proud.

(18:20):
And because of the timing of how everything
worked out, I think the building was complete
and ready for visitors in about April of
2020.
So that thing sat unused by anyone but
our staff until somewhere in 2021 or maybe
early 2022, when we finally felt comfortable enough
about inviting people back to us to share
physical space.

(18:40):
But so there's that.
And then we have two permanent show facilities
that are at a big theme park in
central Florida.
Both bird themed.
One of them is a mixed species show
that has all kinds of different stuff.
Chickens, vultures, storks, eagles, owls, parrots, and lots

(19:00):
of things I'm not thinking of right now.
And then we have a free flight Macaw
experience where we have the number keeps growing
ever since we started.
It's the 10th year anniversary of that show.
Last year was the 10th year anniversary.
We opened it in 2014.
And there's around 100 parrots that we free
fly in the park.
They live in in four separate flocks.

(19:22):
So it's not 100 at a time.
But each of those flocks does a flight
or two during the day to go out
to this sort of, you know, unadvertised experience
in the park where just a bunch of
birds just show up and people kind of
have their socks knocked off.
That was always how it was designed.
So those are our permanent operations.
And then we also do a large amount
of animal training consulting at other zoos, aviaries,

(19:45):
aquariums, you know, wherever they would have us.
And my boss started doing versions of that.
I think as early as the 1980s was
the first time he started branching out of
just doing free flight bird shows and then
doing consulting.
Because as you and your listeners will know,
the principles of behavior change apply across species.
So the stuff that made Steve a very

(20:07):
good free flight bird trainer, turns out also
made him a pretty sensitive trainer of just
about any species you can think of.
The way we like to think about it
is when you work with animals, that the
consequences of making a poor decision might mean
you never see that animal again.
You you get to be pretty good at
reading body language, knowing when an animal is
comfortable, when an animal is uncomfortable, and then

(20:29):
changing your behavior and body language as a
result so that you can keep a strong
relationship, keep a high rate of reinforcement and
focus on what you want the animals to
do, not worry about what they could do
if they decided to do other things.
Which is funny because I just got off
stage doing the show here.
And that was the last thing I talked
to a guest about who just could not

(20:49):
understand for the life of them, how it
is these birds would choose to come back
when given the freedom to do whatever they
want.
So that consulting work is based on those
sensitivities that was built out of that.
And then we also help other facilities set
up new interactive animal experiences.
So sometimes that's full blown stage shows like
we do here.
Sometimes it's free flight bird experiences.

(21:10):
Sometimes it's intimate, you know, sort of small
animal encounters.
What we would sometimes call pop ups in
a park where, you know, you'll just turn
a corner and all of a sudden there's
a toucan there or there's a raven running
around or there's a beaver crawling on the
ground.
You know, whatever it is that that facility
might have that they want to focus on
training.
And we've done that in a number of

(21:31):
different facilities.
And I forget what the number is right
now.
A pretty accurate one is on our website.
But I mean, Steve and his team, we've
consulted it.
I think the number is somewhere around 140
zoos across the world.
And that's been really eye opening for me
ever since I started doing that.
And I've been with the organization since 2005.
And I've started doing the outside of NEI

(21:52):
stuff, I think, in around 2011.
And then pre-pandemic, that's when I was
doing the most traveling I've ever done of
just bouncing around a bunch of different zoos,
getting to meet those teams, getting to figure
out what their cultures were and figure out
how best that we could support them and
what their goals were.
So that's that's most of what we do.
The other thing I should definitely mention is

(22:13):
that we also, not us directly, but Steve
is a member of the board and then
other people operate a nonprofit called the National
Encounters Conservation Fund, where we support a large
number of species in their in-situ conservation
projects through money that we raise at things
like those bird shows that we mentioned.
So, for example, we did a show at

(22:35):
the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island
for two years and had a little money
box, which Ryan will remember because he saw
the money box when he came and helped
us out with our State Fair of Texas
show in Dallas years ago.
And all of that money that was collected
over the summer goes directly to those projects.

(22:55):
So it all gets collected through NECF and
then the board meets to decide how to
divvy all that up.
So that's pretty satisfying that we have that
opportunity to sort of directly contribute to conservation,
too.
And then Danny I Tech, like I said,
was just sort of a kind of catch
all that we named for anything we were
going to do, which was now virtual.
So I feel like our organization grew up

(23:15):
right alongside the meteoric rise of platforms like
Zoom and all of the technical challenges of
us figuring out what did we need to
pull this off?
How do you make these recordings work?
How do you monetize this?
How do we make this look good?
How do we make ourselves sound good?
And just all of the learnings that have

(23:38):
come from that.
So it's been a blast.
And so, yeah, we touch on all of
those different things, I guess.
Yeah, I think we, Animal Training Academy might
still contribute directly to the conservation fund via,
is the raffle at the IATA conference contributing
to that fund or is that a different
fund?

(23:58):
It's a good question.
I don't know if that goes directly to
NECF.
That might go that might go to other
places.
See, that's why you have to have Aerie
on the show, because as a longtime former
board member, she's the one who could give
you all the ins and outs of how
the IATA stuff works.
We give free or yearly memberships for the
raffle every year from Animal Training Academy.

(24:19):
So I know that money goes to some
good cause that Aerie would be able to
tell us more about.
That's right.
You said the word culture in there.
You travel around to these organisations, different zoos,
and the words you chose was something along
the lines of to kind of see what
cultures they have in those organisations.

(24:42):
And I want to talk about that word
today and the word community.
And you said earlier as well that it's
a nice compliment for you when Steve tells
you that he listened to one of your
episodes.
So I was really grateful to know that
to get the feedback from you as well
that you'd listened to a recent episode with

(25:03):
the wonderful Dr. Christy Alligood, where we talked
a little bit about if you're working in
an organisation where you want to contribute to
growth and progress in the specifically animal training,
behaviour management, enrichment space.

(25:24):
We talked about some ideas that you could
take away from the episode and go and
run with and hopefully be able to add
that to achieving that goal.
And basically, we ended up talking about culture.
Can you, before we go on, before I
ask any questions about this, can you just
define for everyone listening what those two words

(25:49):
mean to you, community and culture?
Oh, that's a really good one.
And that's a fun one, because I know
that, you know, there are probably specific objective
definitions for some of the stuff.
But but when I think about community, I
think about, oh, that's a tricky one.
I haven't really thought about that specifically.
I think I would say that it's an

(26:09):
organisation based around, you know, shared interests and
sometimes shared goals.
But I think, you know, it's anything that
somebody would want to put their time, effort
and energy into.
And when they find other people who want
to put their time, effort and energy into
those same things, oftentimes, you know, that relationship

(26:31):
that forms out of that, I guess I
would call a community.
Could you have a community of two people?
I suppose so.
And and I think one of the things
that can be really exciting about community is
it doesn't mean that everybody agrees about everything.
And it just means that everybody has an
interest in whatever the broad topic was.
Like, I don't know what professional sports would

(26:52):
look like if everyone agreed about everything.
There probably would be no industry built up
around it.
But people have strong feelings around things.
And, you know, whatever community, whatever group forms
around some of those things, that's a strong
feelings are about.
Maybe that's what community would be.
When I think about culture, I think it's

(27:14):
it's basically that's mostly about shared beliefs, shared
values and shared sort of expectations of behavior
that sort of show how people are or
how people should interact within an organization.
So, you know, a community will have a
culture.
Right.

(27:34):
And, you know, we can go into what
a good culture looks like versus a poor
culture or what some might call a toxic
culture, which probably doesn't even mean the same
thing as poor.
But that's roughly, I guess, how I would
think about those sort of things.
And the reason I think about both of
those things when I do the consulting work,
particularly maybe even more than I think about
it in other avenues of my life and

(27:56):
my work, is because I'm coming in as
an outsider and my job is to help
influence behavior.
Maybe I've been hired to influence the behavior
of animals, which I will not do directly.
I will do through the people who work
with those animals or influence the behavior of
the people themselves.
So we will be brought in to do
consulting work that really doesn't have much to

(28:16):
do with animals.
It's about getting teams to function better together,
to talk more to each other and to
help understand each other better.
So so I think that, you know, understanding
that every organization is different and therefore every
organizational culture is going to be different is
really important for somebody who wants to do
that kind of work.

(28:36):
Because even though you may have a goal,
either personally or because of who has brought
you in, you know, the client, the truth
of the matter is you can't affect change
until you have a good understanding of what
the current state of things is.
Which I believe I also got the same
advice from Sabrina Brando, who was also recently
on your show, saying that it's so important

(28:57):
to spend those early bits of time when
with another organization, just not trying to affect
any change at all.
Just trying to understand the makeup of the
organization.
Just trying to understand what people do.
Whose job is this?
What are the relationships with the animals?
What are the relationships with the people?
And when we've had to lay out for
other organizations who want to bring us on

(29:18):
to do that kind of work, well, what
is this going to look like if you're
here for three days or for 10 days
or for three months?
The start of it is always just I
just want to see how this works.
I just want to meet everybody.
I want everybody to tell me what their
days are like, what their teams are like.
And then we'll take all of that information
and then we'll discuss, okay, well, why are

(29:40):
we here?
What's the goal?
And we can kind of figure out, okay,
if there's a gap between those two things,
then how can we start bridging those things?
Awesome.
Just going back to, I had the liberty
of using a search engine whilst you were
talking to say define community.

(30:05):
Because up until you just answered my question
there, I'd kind of lumped community and culture.
I was kind of having a definition that
was interchangeable between those two words.
But there is a difference.
And I think there's potentially value in us
just teasing that out a little bit.
So the definition that Google offers is a

(30:28):
group of people living in the same place
or having a particular characteristic in common.
The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes
and interests in common.
So I was thinking of like where our
community.
So we've got online communities.
We've got natural encounters.
We've got animal training academy.
But then you'd also use the word community
to describe, as this definition stated, those living

(30:53):
in the same geographical area as you.
So you and your neighbours, for example, we've
got a little community.
And that community changes because people sell their
property and new people move in.
But that's different in culture because we talked
about agreeing about everything.
And I've definitely lived next to different neighbours.

(31:14):
There was a different culture, I would say.
Yeah, that's an appropriate way to describe it.
And disagreeing about things is something that's going
to happen between neighbours.
It's something that happens in teams.
And then as you were talking, it reminded
me of something Susan Friedman told me.
And that was that disagreements are good.
We want disagreements.
And it's not about disagreeing or not disagreeing.

(31:39):
It's about how we disagree.
When I say that, how does that land
you?
What force does that generate with regards to
everything you've shared so far?
Yeah, no, I think it's really important.
And, you know, if we had to try
to come up with an objective definition of
what a good and healthy culture community, you're

(32:00):
right.
I see how easy it is to kind
of put those things together.
Disagreeing well, I think, is an important part
of that.
And that, again, I think was a relatively
new learning for me.
Supported by people like Susan and other people
who are very smart about these things.
And have read many books and articles and
studies.
And understand that the benefit of disagreement is

(32:22):
that we get new perspectives.
And we help develop understandings outside of our
own personal sphere of experience.
So if we all have what I know
Susan and others will refer to as a
latent database of information based on all the
experiences you've had in your life.
Nobody's database is exactly the same as yours.
So their perspective is going to be shaped

(32:43):
by all those experiences.
So when somebody disagrees with me, I like
to have the perspective of saying, okay, that
doesn't necessarily mean, depending on what the conversation
is about, that one of us is objectively
right.
One of us is objectively wrong.
We've just had different experiences.
And those experiences have influenced our beliefs and

(33:03):
our opinions about things.
So I think we focus really heavily in
the last couple of years with some of
our staff that people like Arie and I
were directly responsible for of helping to encourage
disagreement when disagreement can be well.
And I think be done well.
And I think one of the ways we
would do that is feel more comfortable when

(33:25):
if we're in a team meeting for somebody
to question something openly.
Which I think has direct implications for things
like psychological safety, which I feel like is
a term that I still need to understand
better and I need to do more reading
on.
But I know one of the important qualities
of that is does the employee, if we're
talking about organizations, does the employee feel that

(33:47):
they have the ability to openly express their
opinions, even if they are different than those
of the organization, without fear for retribution.
And I think that one of the things
I've heard most consistently across a wide variety
of organizations in the time that I've been
a part of the animal field is that's
a thing that unfortunately for a lot of

(34:09):
people they feel is lacking in their organization.
And I specifically say they feel because I
don't know that it is true or not
that they can't or can raise their voice
and disagree with people.
But something has happened in their experience base
that has told them that if you do
that, that's probably not a good idea.

(34:31):
So exploring that I think is an interesting
thing to talk about, particularly with leadership.
Because I think there's this dichotomy that happens
where, you know, sometimes leaders think their teams
aren't doing enough and they aren't being creative
enough and they aren't, you know, moving the
needle, which is something you and I have
talked about.
Maybe we'll talk about some more.
But then also with the tendency for some

(34:55):
leaders to, in the minds of people being
led, to sometimes shoot down most new thoughts
and ideas that people might have within the
organization.
I think that when we talk about, you
know, the inertia that comes from, for some
people, years and years and years of working
either in the field or maybe at the
same organization or maybe even on the same

(35:17):
team with the same animals.
You know, you put decades of experience back
behind that.
And by experience, I mean practiced behaviors that
have resulted in consequences that have reinforced some
behaviors and punished others.
Then it's really hard to convince somebody that
doing things a different way is maybe what's

(35:38):
beneficial right now.
And I think that one of the more
interesting things I get to do when I
help people with that work of organizational change
is how do we parse out that ability
to suggest that we consider something new, that
we consider something different without creating for the
listener a sense of, I'm saying this because

(35:59):
I'm criticizing what you are doing.
So how do I say, what if we
considered this in a way that doesn't make
you hear, what you are doing now is
wrong.
So we need to do something different.
And I think one of the things that's
really, I try to keep in the back
of my head, and I think Kim Scott
who wrote Radical Candor, a good, you know,
resource for people to check out if they're

(36:21):
interested in human communication is that, you know,
communication is measured at the listener's ear, not
at the speaker's mouth.
So it doesn't matter what your intentions are
or what you meant to say or the
meaning behind what you said.
It matters how the person who heard it
took it.
And we don't have control over how people
perceive a lot of what we do.

(36:44):
So I think that's when we get into
these, we want to be in these feedback
loops, right?
I say a thing, I express an opinion,
I ask if everybody understands what I'm saying.
And then I think if I'm a good
communicator, I will then say, is there anything
I might be missing here?
Should we add some more, a different perspective

(37:07):
to what I'm saying?
I've had a sensitivity created for me in
the idea of saying, does that make sense
to everybody?
Because the implication is that if you don't
understand it, then somehow it's your fault for
not understanding as the listener.
I forget where I heard that.
It was on some podcast somewhere of someone

(37:28):
suggesting, be careful if your response is, does
that make sense?
Because if it doesn't to you, you may
not feel comfortable enough to say, no, actually,
despite your confident explanation, you just gave everyone,
I don't get it.
And how people can do that in a
way where they don't feel like they have
failed somehow by not understanding the communication.

(37:49):
Does that make sense, Ryan?
No, I'm too stupid to understand.
Well, you just proved my point.
Thank you for that role play that we
just did.
Here is something that I've just thought of
in the spot to aid you, the listener,

(38:10):
to do this.
When you have an idea and you think
your idea is solid and you think you're
confident about the idea and you're not.
And you want to proceed, open up technology
that is available to you today.
JetGPT, for example, put your idea in there
and say, can you tell me 20 things

(38:32):
that I might be missing?
And within the space of 10 seconds, you
will have a list of possible things that
I might be missing.
That's something that I've actually done with ideas
and it's completely changed.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's completely changed my approach to things.
So this is really interesting because you're the
first person I've talked to who I know

(38:54):
who has personally done that.
I've heard that recommended from some really pretty
influential people, like leaders of very large, very
influential organizations have said that.
And I'm like, oh, that's an interesting idea.
But I haven't spoken with anybody who's actually
done it themselves.
So what was there any particular kind of
insight or like an example of something specific

(39:17):
that you learned that made an impact from
doing that particular exercise?
Let me just have a look.
So this is how I rock and roll.
A lot of the time I will be
out with my dog walking and I'll have
my phone open and I'll just clear my
head.
I've got some muddled thoughts about some ideas

(39:39):
and I'll just open up the ChatGPT app
on my phone and I'll push the microphone
button and I'll just start rambling into this
device.
And then I will say at the end
of that, I'll say, these are muddled thoughts.
I'm trying to gain clarity on them.

(40:00):
Can you feed them back to me in
a clear and concise way?
And then 10, 20 seconds, boom, you've got
this mess from your head and this tangible
thing in front of you.
And then I'll kind of just flow from
there.
Oh, that was pretty interesting.
Brainstorm 10 ideas about this.
And I'm just looking around because I'm walking

(40:22):
my dog and I'm just using this microphone
function.
And then you can actually talk to it
if you want.
And then I'll just use that time as
a brainstorming session and get a whole bunch
of things out.
So, for example, lately, I've been having great
thoughts about what happens if I die?

(40:44):
Because I've got two kids, property, a wife,
and Animal Training Academy provides for my family.
And I thought, oh, crap, like what happens
if, you know, you and I were talking
about this a while ago.
And so I thought, OK, let me get
life insurance for myself.
So if the unthinkable happens, then my wife

(41:06):
and kids are taken care of.
So I just started to get all these
thoughts out and I was like, OK, cool.
This is my plan.
What am I missing?
And it's like, well, you might want to
think about this type of life insurance and
that type of life insurance.
And you might want to think about income
cover.
Like what happens if you don't die, but
you're seriously injured?
And I was like, cool.
And then I started to explore all these
avenues.
So this afternoon, I've got a call with
an insurance broker that a friend recommended.

(41:30):
And we're going to discuss those things.
So that's an example, non-animal training related.
Right.
But that's just one that's been really recent
in my mind.
Well, it makes sense to me.
And I think we've been talking about this
a little bit.
I'm going to do my best to not
go on too much of a tangent about
this.
But is thinking about where we want the

(41:51):
the function of A.I. to fit in
with our organization.
And I think I'm on the side of
people who are a little bit more resistant
to it.
Not because I'm overly concerned that it's going
to feed into some Terminator like machine that's
going to eventually kill us.
But more along the lines of and I
fully admit I told somebody the other day
they were asking why I don't use it
to correct my writing and proofread things like

(42:13):
that.
And I said, because my sense of self
-worth is too tied up in my ability
to do these kind of things for myself.
And that's something I've got to unpack for
myself.
But I think when I think about it
less in terms of I'm going to get
a machine to help me and more in
terms of I'm going to get something that's
aggregating the sum of all human knowledge and
experience in history.
To come up with some ideas that you

(42:34):
might want to consider as one little speck
across the timeline of all humanity.
Then maybe I can get a better sense
for that.
And yeah, somebody was telling me, hey, wouldn't
it be great if you knew you wanted
to use this quote you think you read
in this book, but you have no idea
where to found it.
What if something could just tell you where
that quote was?
I was like, okay, yeah, that's pretty helpful.

(42:55):
So, yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
there's validation.
Oh, sorry, I can't find a word right
now.
But I think your fears are real.
Like, I mean, it could go either way.
But I've found benefit in it and use
it for, for example, what I've just described.
You mentioned in there moving the needle.

(43:20):
And you and I were talking about this
before we jumped on this podcast today.
And you're going to present a webinar on
this soon for NEI Tech.
What do you mean when you go to
an organization and you move the needle?
What are you referring to?
And tell people about your upcoming webinar.
So, yeah, so one of the things we
started talking about when you and I were

(43:40):
kicking around ideas for what we would talk
about on the show was I mentioned that,
you know, we created this NEI Tech initiative.
And one of the big places we put
a lot of time and energy into right
at the beginning was putting together these informational
webinars.
And we started with a crazy frequency.

(44:00):
For a little while, we were doing three
of them a week, I think for multiple
weeks in a row.
And then we spaced that out to one
week a month, which was still three separate
presentations every month that we would put together.
And these were like 90-minute talks, each
of them with then Q&A time kind
of built in for whoever would appear to
join us, which at the outset was a

(44:22):
really large number of people, I think because
a lot of folks were stuck at home.
And if they were at work, they might
have had more time than they normally did
because there was no guest-facing work to
be done.
But a lot of people were spending at
least half of their time, in some cases
more, just sort of stuck at home, but
oftentimes with their employer encouraging them to do

(44:44):
something kind of work-related.
So these webinars worked out really well for
us.
And life just got so busy in the
sort of year-plus beyond when we started
that, that we just couldn't really keep up
with that schedule anymore.
So then we started going down to, well,
instead of three talks in this week, let's
just do one.
And then it's like, well, instead of every
month, let's do it every couple months.

(45:05):
And then it just kind of – we
didn't end it.
It just stopped.
And we did other things.
And we talked about for 2025, we'd really
like to bring it back.
And Steve did a presentation in January about
choice and control, how they're different, and what
their implications are for animal welfare.
And that was really fun.
And for February, I'm going to do –
I had to pull up the email, which

(45:26):
hasn't officially been sent out to the mailing
list yet.
But what it will say is that this
month's talk is going to be called Organizational
Progress Through Personal Behavior Change, colon, Advice for
Aspiring Needle Movers.
And the background of that is I wrote
an article for IAATEs, and that's the International
Association of Avian Trainers and Educators, if we

(45:48):
haven't said it.
They have a quarterly newsletter called The Flyer,
which is a really beautiful publication that the
board puts together.
And it's just a great group of resources.
I'm a part of the Professional Development Committee
with IAATE and have been for just over
10 years, I think.
And every issue, the committee submits some article
that goes along with the theme of professional

(46:09):
development.
And a couple years ago, I wrote an
article that was called Advice for Aspiring Needle
Movers.
And it was built out of – you
know, it's funny.
I'm going to tie this into chat, GPT,
because it was built out of an agreement
that I had made to be the author
for the upcoming newsletter.
I had a thought about what I wanted

(46:31):
to do and realized relatively late in the
game it was going to be impractical.
And I won't say what it is because
I might still be able to pull it
off one day.
But I was at the time doing a
lot of consulting work at an organization in
Arizona.
And so me and other employees with NEI
were taking turns rotating through this shared rental
house that we had.
And I was there either by myself or

(46:52):
with one other person at the time.
And it was one night.
Nothing else was going on.
And I realized I needed to figure out
what I was going to do for this
organization.
So what I did was I said, I
think I'm going to make this this week's
episode of our podcast.
Well, this is really tying everything we're talking
about today together.
Where I'm just literally going to hit record
and I'm going to start talking and I'm

(47:14):
going to say, OK, my challenge is that
I'm going to talk about this.
I kind of have this idea that I
want to talk about behavior change or whatever
it was.
And I just talked for 90 minutes or
two hours.
And by the end of it, I had
an outline for an article and that article
turned into this needle mover thing.
And the inspiration for it, I'll tell just

(47:35):
the backstory and then, you know, we can
chat some more, was that I had the
experience in 2015 of attending the AZA conference
in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And Steve and I attended a talk.
I don't remember even what the topic was
about, where, you know, there was a number

(47:55):
of different leaders from pretty well-known organizations
within North American zoos talking about some new
technologies they were using.
You know, timed microcomputers that were randomizing feeding
schedules and things like this.
Pretty cool.
They're talking about new ideas for stuff.
And one of the speakers kind of touched
on this idea of, you know, everyone in

(48:15):
the audience who was listening, who were largely
frontline animal care staff.
They were the ones who were going to
be responsible for the breakthrough ideas of the
future.
Sort of sounds like graduation speeches that you
hear somebody say.
Right.
Like you are the ones who are going
to make our future and you're going to
shape the future of the animal field.
So the idea was you're this person focused

(48:38):
on this phrase.
You are going to be the ones to
move the needle.
You need to move the needle.
Everything you do should move the needle.
And one person, as the talk was wrapping
up, they raised their hand when it was
time for Q&A.
And they essentially said, you know, I've heard
a lot of people this week, you included
you, the panel, use this phrase, you know,

(48:59):
move the needle, move the needle.
We have to move the needle.
But I want to share my perspective with
you.
My perspective has been I care about my
animals a lot.
I want to do the best I can
for them during the day.
And part of that is I sometimes have
ideas about ways that we could do things
different or that we could save time or
that we could do things better.

(49:19):
And my experience has been and it's the
experience I've seen a lot of people have
at my organization.
And I've heard stories from other organizations is
that when I bring up these ideas about
ways to, you know, move the needle, in
my opinion, what I get told is why
we don't have time, why we don't have
energy.
We don't have money.
We don't have resources.
So I just repeatedly get told no, no,

(49:41):
no, no by my leader.
So panel of people encouraging us to move
the needle.
What the heck am I supposed to do
about that?
And it was this really interesting moment because
Steve and I were sitting way in the
back of the class.
And as I could kind of tell that
this person's level of frustration was sort of
becoming evident in their voice and they were
getting a little bolder in their tone when

(50:03):
they were done talking.
I think there was sort of like this,
you know, little yelps and sort of smatterings
of applause from amongst the room.
And the panel kind of, you know, they
dealt with it however they did.
They kind of backpedaled a little bit.
Oh, well, what we actually meant was blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Didn't really answer the question, but it got
me thinking about, okay, what do we do

(50:24):
about this dichotomy where, you know, I think
all of us would agree there are things
we need to do better.
There are things we need to move forward
with.
But what do you do about that when
you're not the one who is the decision
maker in your organization?
How might you influence the behaviors of yourself
and others to help start changing things, to
start in your own little way moving that

(50:45):
needle?
So the idea is I'm going to take
that article and see if I can turn
it into a webinar.
And hopefully part of that will be giving
people the opportunity to share the successes and
the challenges that they've had in trying to
do that themselves.
I mean, I think one of the things
that I feel very, very lucky about is

(51:06):
that my organization, and by my organization, ultimately,
I mean, Steve, because he's the one who
makes most of the big decisions and in
consultation with the rest of the leadership team,
has always been very supportive of people taking
part in other animal organizations outside of our
company.
So you mentioned I'm a board member through
the ABMA, the Animal Behavior Management Alliance.

(51:29):
Arie Bailey, my podcast co-host, has been
a member of the board of IAATE and
has been the president and has had all
kinds of positions within that.
And we have a number of other staff
members who are pretty heavily involved in a
lot of those organizations.
So I think Steve feels that there is
an importance in having people be able to,

(51:49):
if they're so inspired, to be able to
not only do the best they can within
our organization, but also to somehow give back
through service in those organizations.
And so for me, that service is important.
And one of the things I want to
do is I want to help people deal
with those broad challenges of, you know, what
are the walls that we're putting up for

(52:10):
ourselves in these organizations that are getting in
the way of us doing the best we
can for our animals, particularly when, you know,
in the last five years or so, it
feels like some of those walls have been
bigger than maybe folks have dealt with in
a long time.
And when, you know, the expectations for what

(52:32):
people should be achieving in their organizations just
continues to get higher and higher and higher.
No one's relaxing standards for anything.
No one is saying, hey, remember how we
focused on animal enrichment really strongly for the
last 20 years?
We're going to back off on that.
We're going to, that was a good experiment,
but we don't need to do that anymore.

(52:52):
So I think for most people, the experience
feels like they're just continually being asked to
do more.
And in many people's experience, they're being asked
to do more with less because, you know,
the reality is for a lot of animal
organizations, the face of what that organization looked
like for many of us changed pretty significantly
around 2020.
And some organizations were able to completely bounce

(53:14):
back from that, keep all of their original
staff, keep all of their numbers up.
The vast majority of organizations did not.
And in some cases, those reduced numbers that
they went to never really went back to
normal after that.
So I think it's tempting, especially if you're
somebody who looks at a budget who says,
hey, we always had 25 people who did
it.

(53:34):
Y'all just showed me over the last
two years, you can do it with 17.
So tell me why I should give you
those eight people back because it doesn't look
like we need it.
So it's a really interesting challenge.
So and I don't I don't pretend to
have all the answers to that sort of
stuff.
But I think there is tremendous power in
exploring what an individual can do for themselves,

(53:56):
how they can change their behavior in order
to help change the behavior of others, because
that's all we do in animal training.
Right.
We control antecedent and consequence conditions so that
we can make some things more likely to
happen and other things less likely to happen
again.
And I think it's exciting to me when
I see organizations like yours or like Behavior
Works, Dr. Susan Friedman and her team or

(54:20):
our organization where we are really trying our
best to figure out how to really, you
know, walk the walk of what does it
look like when you apply these behavior change
principles well to the two legged animals that
you work with?
And it's a struggle.
It's not an easy thing.

(54:40):
But but I'm hoping that this topic, you
know, and the people who choose to show
up for it, get something out of it
and can share some of their insights.
I think one of the most exciting things
about being a teacher is how much you
get to learn.
You know that because you run a whole
organization that's based on that.
So I'm excited to learn what insights I
will have when this is over that I

(55:01):
don't have right now.
I'm excited too and wondering where you where
people can go to move the needle.
To move the needle.
If you want to hear about moving the
needle.
All of all NEI things live at naturalencounters
.com.
So there will eventually be an email blast

(55:21):
that gets sent out to anyone who's been
involved with us in any way.
Maybe today, maybe tomorrow.
We were working on it earlier today.
And that's as of time of recording.
So I think by the time this episode
goes up, it should definitely be available for
you to sign up for my talk, which
will be on February 27th, which is a
Thursday, 2 p.m. Eastern, which I think

(55:43):
is like the year 2027 for you guys
in New Zealand.
I'm not sure how that works.
But yeah, you can you can register there
and be able to come hang out with
us and be able to be part of
that recording.
I'm excited.
I think it's going to be interesting.
And yeah, we'd love to have folks show
up and be a part of it.
Just clarify, is it naturalencounters.com?

(56:06):
Naturalencounters.com.
That's correct.
Because people, if you search NEI, you might
find the Neuroscience Education Institute or the National
Eye Institute or the Nuclear Energy Institute or
any other Institute.
So head to naturalencounters.com and we will
link to all of that in the show

(56:28):
notes as well.
Chris, I could just keep going because I
feel like we didn't even really scratch the
surface of a lot of the things that
we could have talked about today.
But let's be grateful that people have, if
they're still here, decided to hang out with
us and listen to us for a solid
hour.
So thank you to you if you're still

(56:49):
listening.
We will wrap it up there, Chris.
This has been so much fun.
From myself and on behalf of everyone listening,
we really appreciate you taking the time to
come and hang out with us geeks over
at Animal Training Academy.
Thank you so much.
Keep doing what you're doing and you guys
continue to help support that community that you're
a part of.
I think everybody's very lucky who's found Ryan

(57:10):
and what he does.
So I am flattered to be able to
be some little part of it for the
week.
And thank you so much for listening as
well.
This is your host, Ryan Cartlidge, signing off
from this episode of the Animal Training Academy
podcast show.
We hope today's conversation inspired you and equipped

(57:34):
you with new tools for your trainer's toolbox.
Remember, every challenge in training is an opportunity
to learn and sharpen your animal training geekery.
Embrace the rough patches, learn from them and
keep improving.
And don't forget the path to growing your
skills and expanding your knowledge continues beyond this

(57:57):
episode.
Visit www.atamember.com to join our supportive
membership where you will find a community of
trainers just like you.
Together, we're making a huge positive difference in
the lives of animal and human learners worldwide.

(58:19):
Until next time, keep honing your skills, stay
awesome.
And remember, every interaction with an animal or
human learner is your opportunity to create ripples.
We're here cheering you on every step of
the way.
See you at the next episode.

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