November 2, 2024 • 46 mins
Ever wondered how a background in nutrition can lead to a flourishing career in Applied Behavior Analysis and Organizational Behavior Management? Behavior analyst Troy Burg shares his unique journey from direct support work to ABA expertise in this enlightening episode. Troy reveals how his early experiences fueled a passion for behavior analysis, merging interests in helping others and business. We discuss the emerging potential for ABA to become a mainstream career path, much like medicine or law, and how these principles extend beyond traditional business settings, influencing education and more.
Troy shares insights on integrity and shared values, emphasizing passion-driven work as a catalyst for meaningful change. Tune in to hear Troy's compelling story and discover how you can integrate these principles into your own life and work.
Troy has a Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis. Over the past couple of years, he has combined his education in the science of ABA with his marketing skills to create his online network. He specializes in disseminating information related to both ABA and OBM. Specifically, he enjoys showing people how behavioral science plays into marketing. He also likes designing experimental social media designs to demonstrate how behavioral science benefits the average marketer.
Troy enjoys golfing and watching sports with his friends in his free time. His favorite sports include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and golf.
You can learn more about Troy at the following links:
Website: https://www.troyburg.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@behavioralstories
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behavioralstories/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-burg-2999831ba/
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today
bestselling author Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Okay, welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants of a
Behavior Scientist podcast.
I'm your host, dr Pauly, andI'm here with Troy Berg, and
Troy is a behavior analyst and Imet him on Instagram.
I saw him pumping out contentand he does a lot of content
related to ABA and OBM.
I thought, oh, this is prettycool man, let me check out some
(00:33):
of his content.
And he's a disseminator of thescience and, man, he did me a
real solid.
He read my book, he made a poston it and I thought, man, this
is pretty frigging cool man.
Well, it turns out that, youknow, again, we have some things
that we are like-minded on,especially organizational
(00:53):
behavior management, and we said, well, let's get on here and
shoot the shit.
Talk about performance basedpay versus fixed pay, and you
know, just kind of go from there, man, see where it goes.
As I said even before you goton here, troy, this is very
organic.
I don't want anybody to thinkthis is ever scripted, so I'll
be learning new things from you,just as our listeners are.
(01:14):
So welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, brother.
So to start with, man, can youtalk a little bit about what got
you into the field and why?
Because I mean you'rerelatively new in terms of
getting your degree in it.
That does not mean you have notbe studying the science for a
long time have been learned, Imean.
The fact is you actually don'thave to, you know, have a, have
(01:36):
any degree to understand theprinciples and apply the
principles of science.
Of course we want people tohave degrees so we know that
they're well trained.
But when I, when I've read someof your content, I'm like man,
this guy is, this guy knows alot about the field, knows a lot
about the science.
But when I come on here and seethat you're relatively new in
terms of getting your degree,I'm like this is unusual.
(01:56):
It means you probably evenpoured yourself into it, you
know, since you've gotten yourdegree or you've been exposed to
it a long time ago you know,since you've gotten your degree
or you've been exposed to it along time ago.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, so during my bachelor's I was doing nutrition
, so that's unrelated tobehavior analysis at all.
However, when I started workingas a therapist, right when I
graduated, that's how I got intothe field.
So then I was told you know,you can get a master's and fun
fact is, I didn't get intoPepperdine when I was trying to
do it for my bachelor.
So when I saw the opportunityto get in for my master's in
(02:31):
applied behavior analysis and Iwas in that field, I was like,
hmm, this is redemption time.
So I applied, got in, I got mydegree from there.
So that's kind of how I fellinto the field.
However, the reason I like itso much is that I would say this
is the first time out of allthe fields I've ever studied, or
in school at all, where it kindof clicked a little bit Wait,
wait, wait, hold on.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You said this how you got in the field, but what
exposed you?
Where did you even hear aboutbehavior analysis?
Because we all like stumbleacross it.
You know, before you evenapplied, something must have
happened where you're like oh,this is, there's a science
behind this.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Right, right.
So during my bachelor's I alsoworked as a direct support
professional.
So I worked in home withindividuals with intellectual
disabilities and that's kind ofwhere I got introduced to that.
It wasn't ABA, don't get mewrong, it was not ABA, it was
more caregiving.
However, we did have behavioralgoals.
There was some behavioranalysts sometimes, but I wasn't
an RBT, I was more of acaregiver.
(03:18):
I would cook, I would helpindividuals cook, et cetera.
But when I graduated I tried tostay on that same line and
that's when an ABA therapistposition had opened up and I was
like, Hmm, let me see what thisis about.
So that's kind of how I fellinto it and then I did my grad
program from there.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, I have a dream that one day people, when
they're young kids, are going tobe like you know I want to be a
doctor, a lawyer, a fireman,teacher, a behavior analyst.
You know.
I think that the more folkslike us are disseminating the
science and putting it out therein the world, folks will maybe
deliberately choose a careerpath in it, because right now
it's like guys like you and Iand you know that's generalized
(03:57):
with anybody, not just guys, youknow but we stumble across it
right, instead of having it.
And because we want to helppeople, we're all in the usually
we're in the helping field.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I was a social worker , so yeah.
So I actually worked as anursing assistant to my
bachelor's before that job, soI've always been in line with
trying to help others.
However, the reason I say Ilike organizational behavior
management is because I do likebusiness a lot, so that brings
behavior analysis into businessa little bit.
Fun fact, my dad had an MBA, sohe was a big business minded
guy.
So that's kind of why I'mstraying towards that aspect of
(04:31):
behavior analysis.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Okay, all right, got that business mindset man and I
mean and also for anybody inhere, of course OBM should be
applying business.
But we can.
You know we can really applyOBM when we're working with
groups, people, anywhere.
I always talk about how we canapply it in schools and even the
classrooms.
How much.
The classroom is just very it'san organization.
The teacher is very much like aCEO and you got these little
(04:56):
students running around.
They're like employees tryingto produce the most important
business result we have in theworld.
Man, that is like learningstudent achievement, so I love
being able to use anybody.
It's shocking, by the way, thatmore of our when I say more
like all of our behavioranalytical organizations aren't
applying organizational behaviormanagement.
A lot of people don't know whatit is, or they don't understand
(05:17):
it, or they think it's outsideof their scope, and the fact is,
all the principles are the same.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Right All right?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, so you want to talk specifically about this
performance-based versus fixedpay, so unpack that a little bit
.
First of all, talk about,before we get into that, why we
need to have some sort of pay inthe first place, right?
What the problem is with fixedpay and how performance-based
(05:46):
pay can alleviate that.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So the reason I kind of thought about this was due to
the schedules of reinforcement.
Right, so you got the fixedinterval schedule and the fixed
ratio schedule.
So when kind of applying thatto the workplace and I think
about it, the fixed intervalwould be like your hourly pay
right, you work one hour, youget your pay for that hour,
right, and then there's abi-weekly paycheck.
That's also a fixed interval.
You get your paycheck everyother week.
(06:10):
However, if you think about it,you're paying an employee based
off their time, right there.
Right, so you're not givingthem money for their performance
.
So that's why I've always beenkind of interested in that,
because if you add, like, aratio requirement, such as you
know, I guess billable hourscould be a ratio right, you bill
30 hours, you get a bonus for aVCBA that is actually tied to
(06:33):
an employee's performance.
You know, it's not just payingsomeone for their time.
And it's a topic that reallyfascinates me, because almost
every company is going to payyou by your time and if you're
not supervised, you're justgoing to give them your time
most of the time, right, likesome people just don't perform
when the reinforcer is not tiedto performance, right, cause
(06:54):
you're not increasingperformance based behaviors.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
A hundred percent.
People are coming in andthey're clocking in and they're
doing their time, but what weneed to be paying them for is
for their valuableaccomplishments.
When you have some sort offixed interval, I mean you can
squash motivation but factors itreduces the accountability.
Now we want accountability, soit's positive accountability.
(07:19):
Where people want to beaccountable, it feels good
because you know you'reproducing these accomplishments
and it leads directly to somesort of performance pay.
And also, by nature, when youhave performance pay, there's
got to be some sort of feedbackloop, so it's letting you know
how well you're doing.
And a lot of organizations outthere people have no idea.
They're getting to the end ofthe week, the end of the month,
(07:40):
but it could be even the end ofthe day.
Did I do my job?
And you know, did I producewhat I'm supposed to do?
And a lot of people have noidea.
So they end up stagnating.
You know which is a huge issue.
And also I think with thatthere's no alignment with
organizational goals.
You know, if you don't knowwhat you're supposed to do and
what you're supposed to produceas a result of that and I don't
mean general, I mean veryspecific you need to have some
(08:02):
sort of feedback loop to do that.
You know, even if there's notpay involved in it.
I think that if you have valuesin an organization, just seeing
the impact that you're havingcan serve as that naturally
occurring reinforcer that'sgoing to sustain you.
Now, of course, we tie in thepay.
You've got multiple levels ofreinforcers, right.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Exactly.
Employees do need to feelvalued, and I think that's the
problem sometimes with the fixedinterval.
If they don't feel valued,that's when they're just going
to start giving you their time,because they know they only have
to give you their time in orderto get the pay.
And I know you asked me why isthis topic important?
Well, because we don't show upto work unless we get paid.
I'm sorry, as much as I havevolunteered in the past, I can't
(08:44):
do that for a living.
I need money.
I got to pay the bills, we gotto do this, we got to do that.
So people need money.
So it's a very important thingthat a business needs to think
about.
Something that's very common inthe United States is that
annual $1 raise.
I don't think that's reallygoing to cut it anymore with
this.
With the younger generationcoming up, you know, one dollar
(09:06):
raise every year just isn'tgoing to sustain them for a long
period of time, right?
You're not going to be able tomaintain their behavior through
time if you're just giving thema one dollar raise every year.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Uh there's no doubt about it, man.
I mean, we all need pay.
There's there again.
There's multiple reinforcersacting on our behavior.
You know, know we want to getthings, we want to get away from
the tax people.
You know, we don't want to loseour house, you know.
But also, when we're working,we we want to, we want to
accomplish things.
I think that's.
I don't know what you found,brother, you know, but I found
(09:39):
that in organizations I hearpeople what are we going to do
to positively reinforce?
You know, because we're talkingabout OBM and everybody's like
they're going back to whatthey're doing with the learners
right in the clinics and they'rethinking about tokens and
they're thinking about Skittlesand they're thinking about all
this stuff, which is great, I'mglad that they're thinking about
this, but people aren'tthinking about naturally
occurring reinforcers enough,and that's what's going to
(10:01):
maintain behavior and, of course, we want to shift them, so it's
more positive reinforcement forthem.
And so I think the best thingpeople can do leaders, managers,
supervisors, whatever your nounis, if you're responsible for
the performance of people is youneed to help them feel valued
(10:25):
and you need to help them toobserve that they're producing
valued outcomes, which alsomeans hiring people that share
the same values and, of course,you know the pay that comes out
of it again.
That just makes you feel morevalued as well.
Right, because I'm seeing this.
I feel good.
Look, the learner's gettingbetter, for example.
It could be in any organization, but most people again are in
our field because they want tohelp people.
So if you see the learnersgetting better as a result of
behavior, that feels wonderfuland it drives your behavior in
(10:48):
the moment.
And you also know, like man,you know what I'm getting paid
more because I'm having moresuccess.
But it can be demoralizing, asyou know, to know that you're
busting your ass making adifference.
You look over there and youknow the Joe next to you is
making the same amount andthey're not.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I like how you said the values part, because values
alignment is huge.
Right, you can pay someone allthe money in the world, but if
they're not valuing what they'redoing, they're probably not
going to still like what they'redoing, if that makes sense.
Here in the United States, wehave been programmed to value
ourselves based on how much wemake.
Unfortunately, that's how itworks, but, like you said,
(11:31):
values alignment is crucial.
Not that many people who makeall the money in the world, who
are working a job they don'tlike, are that happy.
The values alignment is stillso crucial because, like you
said, that's where themaintenance of behavior is
exhibited.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, so you've heard of the term emotional
intelligence, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I have yes.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, and it's got a lot of great stuff on it.
There's some kind of softresearch behind it.
But I'm writing a book withAdam Ventura called Behavioral
Intelligence.
I'm saying it's the evolutionof emotional intelligence and in
it I have something called.
We have something called theBehavioral Alignment Compass and
it's kind of like it's a playoff of the ACT Matrix and I love
the act matrix, I share iteverywhere.
(12:12):
I wrote an article with DrKevin Polk sweet guy, man, just
a great guy Love his work aboutthe he.
He, you know he developed theact matrix with some other folks
, I think.
And the thing is that I decidedto do something with the
behavioral alignment compass.
To your point right, havingvalues in alignment, because I'm
actually not an RFT guy, I'mnot an ACT guy, I don't know
(12:33):
that much about it and I see thematrix just as a way to
understand our values and I sayvalues are a preferred way of
being and doing.
You know, so we could Scottit's a preference assessment and
if we do as a group, we couldsay it's shared values, right,
and the bottom in the ACT matrix, the bottom left-hand corner,
is going to be your privateevents or your covert behaviors
(12:56):
and we all can have sharedthoughts and feelings that show
up, you know, and when we feelthis way, we behave a certain
way.
So it's an antecedent to thesebehaviors that we engage in to
allow us to escape behaviorsthat we don't feel very good
about, right.
So, if you know, that's finewhen they're in alignment with
their values.
But when they're in alignmentwith their values, but when
they're in misalignment, it'snot fine.
You know, we're winning thebattle but we're losing the war,
(13:16):
but we get stuck in this loopof negative reinforcement.
As you and I both know, peopletend to engage in behaviors that
are going to produce immediateand certain outcomes for
themselves, right, and that'sthe reinforcer.
And so, with the behavioralcompass, I say, like, I like the
idea of like thinking, of acompass, like where's your North
star, that's your values, right.
And so we need to, you know, beaware and use those thoughts
(13:38):
and feelings, be aware that whenyou think and feel this way,
behave that way, that's amisaligned with our shared
values, which in organization,what are our shared values in
here?
And we need to initiate areplacement behavior.
And so, you know, very similarto to act matrix, but I just use
all behavioral language with it.
Uh, but to both of our points.
(13:58):
We need to bring people in whodo have shared values, but we
need to make sure that thecompany is built from the ground
up on the value.
The systems are designed basedon those values, because the
values come back to behaviors.
So here are values, and theyneed to be more than just the
writing on the wall.
Right right, they can't just be.
You know, we value respect andcollaboration, all these things.
And then you see the leaderyelling at the manager, the
(14:21):
manager yelling at thesupervisor, supervisor yelling
at the direct.
You know that's not manifestingit that way.
And if you value something, youneed to measure it right.
You know, without if you're notmeasuring it, then you're not
really valuing it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, I like how you brought up like building the
business from the ground up.
It's almost like generality andmaintenance of your business
right, programming your businessfor generality and maintenance,
because that's the only way tocreate a sustainable
organization.
I have been fortunate enough tonot run into many leaders in my
life who have scolded me for, Iguess, undesired behaviors, I
(14:56):
guess, or things I didn't doright in the workplace.
I feel like I've always hadpretty supportive leadership,
but I've read some of yourarticles or blogs that you post
to LinkedIn and you always havethese stories of how, like a
leader will think they're doinga great job, but then you go
interview the employees, they'relike oh, he's coercive, he
controls us with punishing,contingencies and all this and
(15:17):
it's just like wow.
It's almost like a lack ofperspective taking sometimes in
a leader where they don'trealize the perspective of their
employees.
So they use coercion and stuffbecause they're really not
putting themselves in theiremployees' shoes.
And I think that's reallyimportant for a leader.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm glad that you're saying that, man, but the
perspective taking, becausethat's exactly when my colleague
and I, Anika, go.
We train a lot of leaders,right, and we say we start
introducing the ACT matrix,saying, well, what do you think
teachers value?
What do you think shows up forthem when they feel that way?
What do they do and what shouldthey do?
So we go around that matrix andwe say, okay, in the top
right-hand corner, these are thepinpointed behaviors that they
need to engage in, that aregoing to help them get in touch
(15:59):
with values.
Now let's zoom out and do itagain with you.
What are you going to do toincrease the likelihood that
they are going to engage inthose behaviors?
Which is a group that theydon't think about this stuff?
So, when you get them to goaround and go through their
whole thing, what shows up foryou, what barriers you engage in
?
What should you do?
A lot of times they're missingthis right.
But coming back to your pointabout awareness, I think a lot
(16:23):
are just unaware, right, and Ithink they're unaware and
they're misinformed about how toget improved behavior.
I don't think most of them arebad people.
I think in one of my articles,one of my articles, I have a
series of this.
I call them valued learners.
Right, I have ask clownquadrant, I have the dictator
quadrant.
Right, I have the valuelearners.
(16:43):
I think most people are valuedlearners.
Right, the dictator quadrant,those are dangerous people right
, Especially the further right.
They go and down in valuesbecause they can be really
skilled people right, butthey're highly manipulative
because they don't have thevalues be successful.
So I'm really glad to hear thatyou haven't been exposed to
that kind of thing.
I've consulted with a ton ofleaders and I've seen this.
(17:04):
But I've seen most people again.
I think they almost fall rightat the edge of the value
learners.
If they're coercive they'rereally, really an ass clown.
But they can be like moving inthe right direction there with
some knowledge and skills.
But I would hear in educationit's such an easy thing to say
or in behavior analyticorganizations, do it for the
(17:25):
learners, you have to do it forlearners.
But, Troy, as you and I know,you can't make it about the
learners without making it aboutthe employees.
You could bring out the best inthe learners.
You've got to bring out thebest in the employees.
So I think even thenarcissistic leaders and they're
out there, brother, Believe me,they're out there.
There's still a function totheir behavior.
They want to have the lightshine on them, right?
(17:48):
They want attention, et cetera,et cetera.
I think if they understoodbehavior principles they would
know they'll have more attention.
They'll get more light shine onthem, right.
So there could be a sharedvalues thing in here, Like maybe
it's not specifically, you knowthe same values, but it's a
win-win, because as they supporttheir employees more, the
employees are going to nowproduce better outcomes for them
(18:09):
.
They're also going to getbetter retention, you know their
organization's going to lookamazing, Even if they're not
doing it because they just lovepeople so much, like you and I.
That's why we're in this.
In the end, they're engaging inthe right behavior to produce
the right outcomes and they'regetting their needs met.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I like what you had to say because it does.
It starts at the top and thengoes down to the bottom, right?
You can't look at the bottomand be like how do we get the
results from the bottom withoutlooking at what's all in the
middle?
For example, let's just talkmoney because it's easy to talk
about it.
You want to increase sales,right?
So you're a manager.
How do we increase sales?
What do we got to do?
(18:58):
The behavioral principle would'tjust look at the sales
themselves, because those arejust numbers that are not even
possible without people engagingin the behavior to drive those
sales.
So, to go back to the point yousaid, teachers.
Teachers need to feel valued.
Teachers need to feel likethey're paid well and they need
to feel like the school treatsthem well so they can drive
those outcomes for theirlearners.
When you hear about a studentsaying oh, my teacher doesn't
like me, blah, blah, all this, Ilike how you said that they're
(19:20):
not bad people.
The teacher is not a badteacher.
Maybe there's something wrongwith that system not allowing
them to teach to the best oftheir ability, right, the
motivation is lacking.
So you have to look at thesystem as a whole instead of
just saying how do we drive this?
result, because it's notpossible without the behavior.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
No, it's not man, it's all connected.
When that frontline employee isnot performing well, a lot of
people are pointing the fingerat them, like they point the
finger at the teacher, the BCBApoints the finger at the RBT man
.
Blaming worked, brother.
Right, we wouldn't be here.
You know, blaming is like adime and dozen, everybody's
blaming everybody else.
And, like, one of my passionsis the, you know, really get
(20:01):
people to reflect on their ownbehavior and the impact of their
behavior on the environment,which of course means the people
in the environment.
And I think you know, if we get, if more people would be better
observers of their behavior andthe impact of the environment,
we would be.
And of course they valuecertain outcomes.
Right, you've got to valuepeople.
If you don't care about peopleand you just see stuff as
(20:22):
transactional, that becomes aproblem, right, but even again,
those people, if they do valuethe outcomes and they realize to
get those outcomes you have toget the people to perform at a
certain level, then you start tomaybe make a shift there.
But well, I guess you haven'thad this experience, right, but
it seems to me I've noticed,like a lot of people, a lot.
(20:44):
Let me reframe that, right.
I'm surprised at the number ofleaders who gain their position,
are not, are falling short ofleadership behaviors.
Right, when they get in thosepositions, they're using a lot
of coercion.
I started to think to myselfhow did they get to this
position?
But then I realized that, um,uh, troy, I I actually created a
(21:10):
leadership prep course foreducation.
Again, leadership doesn'tmatter.
The principles are all the same, right, when you see it through
a behavior analytic lens.
Organizational behaviormanagement is the greatest
toolbox for that.
But they're missing thefundamental principles of
behavior.
So I'm like they're not eventhey're not training our leaders
and they're giving them way toomuch theory and then they're
dropping them into, you know,into these environments, and
(21:33):
their history takes over.
So if you were brought up in ahousehold where coercion was the
name of the game when somebodywasn't doing what you need to do
, that's what you're going tofall back to, right, because
they don't know better 100%.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And if you think about it from a behavioral
perspective, looking at thatleader who's using coercion,
that behavior is probably goingto be maintained by negative
reinforcement, right?
Their employees causing sometype of aversive stimuli to them
.
So they just coerce them to getrid of it.
So they're more likely tocontinue doing that in the
future.
If it works because coercion isthe quick fix, it's maintained
(22:05):
by negative reinforcement, ifyou think about it right.
So you have an RBT who'spissing you off.
Let's just say that.
So you coerce them, you get ridof that aversive stimuli, you
get them doing what they'redoing, not saying that this is
the best strategy.
This should not be done.
However, the leader is going tocontinue doing that in the
future.
If it works becausereinforcement, if you get rid of
that aversive stimulus, you'regoing to keep doing it, and I
(22:27):
think that's why that book,coercion and Its Fallout, is
really important, because it'snot sustainable long term.
It works in the moment, sothat's why you keep doing it
over and over and over again,but if you look at it long term,
what is it doing Not?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
much Right, and I think that you know.
I'm glad you actually broughtthat book up.
Of course we all have in ourbookshelves.
I think you know it's a veryimportant point in here I wish
people would use that term morecoercion and less absence of an
environment that's not rich withpositive reinforcement for
value-added behavior.
And that's why systems need tobe built on values in the ground
(23:19):
up, because values unpack thebehavior and your systems should
be deliberately designed toincrease positive reinforcement
for those behaviors.
Right, If we're going to dothat, it means we have to have
some sort of measurement, andthis is why it ties back to
where we came from, that we havesome sort of, you know,
performance scorecard, right,and it could be a scale.
I love Aubrey Daniels has ascale of with a performance
scorecard, and it's eitherpinpointed behavior results, and
(23:42):
I think it's important.
Initially you might look atbehaviors, right, If it's a new
behavior somebody's engaging in,and then you might shift to
look to what you're measuring,to results, but some sort of
scale where people can know howwell they're doing.
The supervisor or manager knowshow well they're doing as well.
At the end of the week, youknow, this data gets pumped out.
You know how you're doing,through the month, the quarter,
(24:03):
you know what, in terms of thescale, what you're going to get
as a result of your behaviors.
There's so many positive thingsto it and it can be simple and
it should be simple.
Just a few key behaviors.
Do not make it sophisticated.
I don't have you ever read anyof Abernathy's work.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Oh my gosh.
I mean, first of all, he'sbrilliant.
I can't touch his stuff with a10 foot pole.
To me it's way toosophisticated for organizations,
right?
You know we have to.
You know, whenever something'ssophisticated, man, that's the
enemy of complexity's the enemyof execution, sustainability and
scalability.
You know, you gotta keep itsimple.
(24:42):
So if somebody can just look at,they have their behavior, they
have a goal they're working onright and they have some sort.
They have a goal, they'reworking on right and they have
some sort of measure to know ifthey're moving towards that goal
and there's a feedback loopthat lets them see it often
enough that itself is going toadjust their performance.
Now you tie it into some sortof pay scale, some sort of
performance pay, and then, likeyou know what, there's some
(25:05):
other good things that come outof this and it makes me want to
stay, it makes me want toperform better.
I can see how I'm doing.
I can see that I'm meeting myminimal goal for the day or for
the week or whatever.
I can see I went above it.
That's another benefit ofAubrey's performance matrix.
It has all that kind of builtin, right?
Let's find out where peopleshould be and then, like above,
let's recognize you for goingabove, and so many people are
(25:26):
not recognized for that right.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Not at all.
Some people go above and beyondevery day at work and never get
recognized, and that's simplybecause maybe a leader just
thinks they're doing a good job.
They don't need to do anythingright.
They're doing a good job.
Leave them be.
And the thing about coercion isthe employee doesn't even
contact the actual, naturallyoccurring punishment.
You're controlling theirbehavior through like a
(25:49):
punishing contingency.
You're just telling them oh, ifyou don't do this, this is
going to happen.
And then, if you think about itjust like we teach RBTs, you
got to tell the learner whatthey can do.
Coercion just tells someonewhat they shouldn't do.
So eventually your employeesare just going to stop engaging
in all behaviors.
If you keep coercing them andnot give them a alternative
behavior to engage in, whatshould they do?
(26:10):
So I like how you talked aboutthat a little bit, because
employees need to know what todo if they're going to be told
what not to do.
Because if you just tell themwhat not to do all the time,
they're just going to end up notbehaving at all well, that
that's it, man.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They're, and I mean, and there's so many gosh,
there's so many negativeoutcomes that are associated
with it, and I get, the falloutbook covers this stuff.
But I think, going back to whatyou said earlier, if you just
take perspective, how would youfeel if you were in that
position?
And I've been there, man, and Isaw the individual's car I just
(26:46):
felt sick to my stomach.
It's Sunday night and I'm likeI don't want to go into work the
next day because I mean, whenpeople are burned out, right,
when they feel anxiety aboutgoing to work, that just means
they're not contacting theirpositive reinforcers.
And I think that's the solepurpose of a leader is to create
right, remove obstacles andcreate an environment that are
positively reinforcing forvalue-added behaviors, right,
(27:07):
meaning those behaviors arealigned with important results.
And this is why I wrote theleadership book Position
Authority and Leadership.
I talk about the four hats andhow the leader needs to be
designing systems based on allthat stuff, man.
So you know, let's do a fullcircle on this, folks, and I
don't even know how to.
I actually don't have an answerfor this.
In education, there is some sortof scorecard they could put
(27:34):
together for this, right.
It could be.
One of the things might be it'snot just if we'd have to take a
look at and it would have to bethe thing is they'd have to
have good assessments right inplace.
You know, like standardacceleration charge, you know,
but something easy for theteachers, but you don't have a
standard.
What you do is you have justbased on criteria that the
student's own performance, right, is better tomorrow than it was
today.
So every student's performanceis based on where it was before
(27:59):
and I think we tied that intosome sort of pay and bonuses,
right, so there's like a basepay and teachers can access this
stuff.
There's a whole bunch of flawswith this stuff, right, because
there's like a base pay andteachers can access this stuff.
There's a whole bunch of flawswith this stuff because there's
kids coming in.
They're just not motivated.
But I think if they did it overtime, teachers would start
finding ways to motivate becausebehavior goes or reinforcement
(28:19):
flows, they'd feel good theresources that were provided.
They would seek out more.
In fact, they would demand themmore.
They would demand bettertrainings because they're not
being trained well and, what'smore important than our
educators, I mean this is thebackbone of our country.
They're our most importantemployee I believe that we have.
If we're going to reduceincarceration and reduce poverty
(28:42):
, improve quality of life, weneed to support our educators.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And I think the science yeah, they're working to
maintain behaviors in thecountry they are.
They're working to maintaineveryone's behavior, if you
really think about it.
They maintain our society as itis through time, as it adapts,
because we'll culturally selectbehaviors all the time right.
Times change, our behaviorchanges because of cultural
selection, and teachers are thereason we're able to sustain
(29:08):
that without having all thischaos that.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
That is well, yes, and we have chaos part of it
because teachers are not beingprepared well enough, right,
they're not.
They're getting way too muchtheory, way too little actual
practice, I think.
I think, then we need to embedsimulations, for example, into
higher education so they canactually experience the
consequence of their behaviorgood and bad, right, safely and
(29:31):
get feedback on it.
It's like in my in the fightgame Troy, that's sparring, you
know what I mean when you canlearn during sparring.
So when it comes to the realworld, right, the actual fight,
you've had this experience.
You can do things automatically.
You understand if I do this,this could happen, you know, but
you experience that relativelysafely.
They don't have that.
Also, on note, nika's actuallydoing research on this.
(29:54):
Our professors aren't beingtrained on how to teach.
Just because you're a subjectmatter expert does not mean you
understand how to instruct.
Instruction is very complex,man.
It's not enough to haveknowledge.
You need to be able to transferthat knowledge to somebody else
, create an environment wherethey can learn, support them in
learning.
You need to involve theirknowledge, right, you have to
shape it.
And all this is verysophisticated.
The lay person, thenon-educator, has no idea how
(30:17):
complex good teaching is and Iadmire good teachers so much and
good school leaders, troy, Ithink, in education.
I know we didn't come in totalk about education, man, but I
can't, it's just my passion, I,I, I think this is the most
challenging leadership positionin the country.
They're being dealt a verydifficult hand.
Right, coming back to Florencepay they can't give anybody any
(30:39):
financial incentives that dowell, right, there's nothing
there.
There's a shortage of teacher.
(31:01):
So all they can do is create anenvironment where people feel
valued, supported, where theyhave the knowledge and skills,
dissemination and some of thestuff that you've been doing,
man.
So I think it's pretty coolAgain, you put together like a
little video of my stuff, man.
I was so thankful and gratefulfor you to do that.
Man, help disseminating.
I know disseminating thescience of human behavior is
near and dear to my heart.
(31:21):
My vision is a better worldthrough behavior analysis.
My mission is to help peoplebetter help themselves and world
through behavior analysis.
My mission is to help peoplebetter help themselves and
others through behavior analysis.
So disseminating is a core allmy work.
I'm constantly disseminatingstuff.
I'm constantly in my passion,you know, constantly engaging in
my mission.
So when I saw you doing thisstuff, I'm like man, we've got
(31:43):
some like passion here.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right.
I like disseminatinginformation.
One of the biggest reasons whyis because that's how I learn
the best.
When I'm up there makingcontent, talking about the
content, that's when it soaksinto my body and I actually
really learn it.
This is no shot to my gradschool great grad school but I
learned more making content onmy own page and the feedback and
comments I get on my page thanI did with a 60 grand degree.
(32:07):
That's just the truth.
Whether it's a bad comment, anegative comment or they're
telling me I'm wrong, I'm stilllearning and then I don't make
that mistake again in the future.
I just have learned so muchfrom disseminating the science
rather than just kind of sittingthere listening to someone read
a definition that's beenwritten a while ago and that's
no shot to grad programs.
(32:28):
You know, read a definitionthat's been written a while ago
and that's no shot to grabprograms.
That's just a good way I learn.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So, because I'm learning, I'm disseminating more
and more because I really likeit.
I forget you'd put outsomething, man, and it was my
memory so bad, troy, butsomebody had made some comment
on your post, right?
I thought, man, this is realgood leadership.
I remember commenting on it,right?
I'm like this is how peopleneed to be more.
When people say something likethis and what was that, can you
(32:56):
remind me?
I think I remember.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
So I made a because I like to have different types of
content right.
I try to meet funny because Ido think I'm a funny guy.
I try to meet serious,professional.
I try to meet scientific,experimental.
I try to do all of it, I try tohit all aspects.
So when I was trying to befunny, I basically said on a
post and this wasn't the one youcommented on, it was about
Zodiac signs having nothing todo.
(33:21):
And the behavior analyticcommunity itself had blew me up
for that, and that'sunderstandable, right?
We all have different valuesand beliefs.
But I issued an apology rightafter I didn't take the post
down because one I learned thatpost is staying up because I had
to learn from that.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Wait, wait, but what were they bashing you about?
Tell me, because it'snon-scientific.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It.
No, no-transcript destroyingrelationships over right.
(34:16):
So I did issue an apology.
I don't need to issue anapology for every wrong thing I
post.
That is not going to happen.
However, with the circumstancesand the certain people that did
take it wrong, I felt like anapology had to be issued.
And that's what a leader does,right when they make a mistake
in the workplace for theiremployees.
When they go in and yell at anemployee for something and they
(34:38):
go overboard, they go too far.
They need to issue that apologybecause that's accountability.
You can say I'm sorry, whateverall this, but if you don't show
in your actions that you'retaking accountability, people
aren't going to care at all.
Sorry doesn't mean anything intoday's world.
You need to show someone whyyou're saying sorry through your
(35:02):
actions, and I like makingcontent, so I figured it was
okay.
I know I can make an apology, awell edited video, and then
talk about values, because atthe end of the day, that post
the original one was still myvalues.
Right, I don't believe inZodiac signs and I still don't.
However, other people do andthat's okay and that's what I
was trying to say.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Well, you know, I have two things about this right
.
Number one is that this iswhere I want to talk about this
behavior myopia, meaning we needto practice what we preach.
Right, we need to make surethat we are engaging in the
principles of behavior.
A lot of people say we shouldnever use punishment, right?
Well, then they come around andthe first thing they do is try
to punish your behavior.
Right, they're coercive and Isay that, all right, you know,
(35:41):
hey, you're wrong about that.
Sometimes we do need to correctbehavior.
Now, I believe there's a way todo it, though, right?
Coming back to the thing, ifsomebody, as opposed to
lambasting you on social media,went in your message like hey,
troy, I appreciate your contentis out there.
Hopefully they've been puttinglikes on your stuff, but I
noticed that people tend tocomment when they don't like
something as opposed to puttinglikes on something, yeah, which,
(36:04):
again, not using the sameprinciples that we're practicing
, right, and said you know, hey,I kind of felt a way about that
.
I'm wondering if, blah, blah,blah and just expose it to you,
I gave you some feedback in away that was not coercive To me.
That is how you strengthenrelationships right.
To me, that's engaging in goodleadership behavior.
And I find that the very peoplewho are so quick to say we need
(36:27):
to treat people better, we needto do a scent, and blah, blah,
blah, you know, and I believe inall this stuff, we really want
to involve people, right?
But also the people are sayingthat we should never use
punishment.
As soon as something doesn't gotheir way, they're jumping on
one another, and I just don'tbelieve in that.
That's not the way to do it.
So I want to make that.
There we can be better.
So if you're listening to thisand you were that person, hey,
we all make mistakes, we allhave our own history, right.
(36:50):
But be aware that you'reengaging in coercive behavior.
And if you're saying that weshould not do that, try a better
way, you'll get better outcomes.
That doesn't mean you shouldnever correct behavior.
We have to do it.
It's part of life, right,punishment being a stimulus that
decrease the future occurrenceof behavior.
I can use that with Troy andsay hey, troy, hey, when you
said that I kind of feltinsulted by it, man, I know you
(37:11):
didn't mean it.
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm wondering if you could dothis If Troy doesn't do it in
the future.
That just punishes behavior.
If he does something else,that's better.
Just reinforce one.
That's a much better and farless coercive way to do it right
.
So it's about how you do it.
There's that.
Now I got to make a comment.
I commented on your thing.
That is because I'd love.
I don't care for horoscopesthemselves, it's just not me,
(37:32):
right?
Somebody loves it Great, theylove it.
But in terms of the signs,right, I actually.
There's no science behind whatI'm about to say and I commented
on your post about this.
It's not directed at you.
I've noticed a number ofbehavioral patterns associated
with people with different signs.
Now we could say it's bias,confirmation or something like
that.
I don't know.
I look at like a cancer sign.
(37:52):
I'm like how can this be?
These behavioral patterns areso close to who I am right, my
own behavior and what I believeis this.
When I say believe it's myguesstimate.
I think that and it's verybehavioral in nature, right?
I'm guessing that somehow whenwe're in utero, that you think
about how powerful thegravitational pull is, right,
(38:15):
that somehow it impacts ourcentral nervous system or
something happens to us indevelopment.
In behavioral speaking, it justmakes some things more or less
reinforcing, right, which thenends up shaping our behavior.
And speaking, it just makessome things more or less
reinforcing, right, which thenends up shaping our behavior.
And this can explain why thereare some general behavioral
patterns across people who sharedifferent signs.
(38:35):
So of course you haveenvironment that plays all this
part.
But that would make sense if,since the environment shaping
behavior, this is morereinforcing than that.
So total guesstimate man.
Want to throw this out.
I'm not asking you to commenton it, man, I'm just like it's
just interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Well, I am glad that you actually commented that,
because it was a way to givethose people a benefit of the
doubt from a behavioralperspective, because in the
original post I had made I hadjust said those are made up
signs.
That was the exact words I use.
So I completely actuallydiscredited it and didn't give
it any benefit of the doubt,which is where you gave it
benefit of the doubt by lookingat it behaviorally.
(39:09):
Yeah, that's leadership.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And I think in general.
I think that there's a lot ofthings we need to put the
behavior analytic lens on.
So I don't want to discountthings that are working for
people.
Just because we can't explainit behaviorally doesn't mean it
doesn't exist.
It just means we can't explainit that way.
That's why I'm looking atemotional intelligence and a lot
of people are like, well, it'semotional intelligence.
(39:31):
Well, hold on, we can look atthis through a behavior-analytic
lens.
Let's bring it under in ourfield, zoom in on it.
They've got their own research.
Let's put our own research onit.
Let's describe this phenomenathrough this amazing lens that
we have and we can probablylearn some really great things
instead of, like, ostracizingother people in other fields and
doing this stuff.
You know, and we need morepeople like you that say, yeah,
(39:54):
screw that one up or whatever.
You know what I mean, or not?
Like the true point, like I'mnot going to apologize if
there's nothing to apologize foras well, because we don't want,
you know, to be just being asycophant or something like that
, or, you know, being yourbehavior being constantly
controlled by the masses.
That's also a terrible thing,which happens a lot, you know.
(40:14):
So tell me that we're kind ofgetting up to our time here,
brother.
But what is your main goal withdisseminating?
You know?
What do you, what do you hopeto do here with it all?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
What is your main goal with disseminating?
You know, what do you hope todo here with it all?
So glad you asked, because I'mstill getting my website set up,
but my goal is to basicallybecome a marketer within
behavior analysis.
That would be the absoluteperfect dream.
Now, everyone doesn't get tolive out their perfect dream
right, but I've already startedthat a little bit.
I don't know if I'll be able toever do it full time.
However, I want to marketpeople's services.
(40:46):
So if you have a privatepractice, I want you to hire me
as your client to market for you, and then I want to recruit
many clients to help them markettheir services.
Products such as you know,maybe Central Reach, ABA Engine,
whatever, something like that.
Motivity, Rethink Not sayingthat I'm going to do that, but
something like that.
I want to help people markettheir ABA products.
Now why?
(41:07):
Because there's valuesalignment.
I have experience withbehavioral science, but you can
go hire a generic marketer andthey're going to give you
generic marketing that isn'tgoing to align with what the
consumers in the field arelooking to see.
I do believe this is anuntapped market.
(41:27):
So, with all my marketingexperience and my background in
behavioral science, I want tocombine them to make an actual
career out of it.
So that's where I'm going withthat Well.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
So I want to support you with that, because what you
just said is what I do for PCMA,right?
So I'm the director at PCMA,but really I'm their ambassador,
and everything that you justsaid perfectly describes what I
do.
Now I came to PCMA with theProfessional Crisis Management
Association.
I have my own consultingbusiness, heart and Science
Consulting.
I do a lot of OBM work withorganizations and education.
(42:01):
You know, really really lovecreating environments that
brings out the best of peopleand I love that.
But I love disseminating and Ireally believed and have
conviction with what PCMAbrought to the table.
I believe in the science.
I've been trained in what theydo, right.
So I'm like this is thegreatest freaking crisis
management system in the world.
It's amazing.
We're building fluency.
So I wanted to go somewherewhere I had integrity and I came
(42:24):
in and I'm doing exactly whatyou want to do and I can tell
you for anybody listening andmaybe you want to reach out to
Troy they've had, they've hadmonths where they've had a 400%
increase in sales.
Now I don't make any money fromsales.
I'm not even like.
You know I don't.
I love doing what I do.
You know what I mean.
I want.
You know I love that this isdisseminating the science across
the world.
(42:45):
I'd love to support anorganization that has such
integrity.
You know it makes me happy, soit's a win-win.
There's a shared values thing inhere.
You know, of course I get asalary and everything like that.
That's wonderful and of courseI need to get paid.
But to your point, because Iunderstand the science and I can
talk about it in a nuanced waywhere I can make it practical to
people.
It is an important thing.
(43:05):
So if you guys are trying togrow your organization out there
, give Troy a look.
It's worked for what's going onin PCMA.
They've been together for along time and the change was the
phase change was me coming inand doing that stuff.
They did some other things, butjust shining a light on it,
that's what I think somebodylike Troy can do.
Brother, it was good having youknow, but just shining a light
(43:26):
on it, that's what I thinksomebody like Troy can do.
Brother, it was good having youon.
Man, I appreciate you, Iappreciate everything that
you're doing out here.
If somebody wanted to reach outto you and I'll make sure I put
this in the show notes as well,the description, but just what
would be the best place?
Speaker 1 (43:37):
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Obviously named Troy Berg, heintroduced me, and then my DMs
on Instagram are always open, soyou can always message me there
.
Linkedin is probably thepreferred method, but if you
want to email me, my email isalso located on my Instagram.
You go to the link tree andit'll show you the email at the
top.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Troy's got a passion for this.
Like me, you put out your stuffFor years.
I put out stuff wasn't making apenny on it.
Do it because I love it.
You know that's what you guyswant, man.
You want somebody who haspassion about something.
They're going to go above andbeyond for you.
So, troy, thanks a lot, brotherfor coming on.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today
bestselling author Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Okay, welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants of a
Behavior Scientist podcast.
I'm your host, dr Pauly, andI'm here with Troy Berg, and
Troy is a behavior analyst and Imet him on Instagram.
I saw him pumping out contentand he does a lot of content
related to ABA and OBM.
I thought, oh, this is prettycool man, let me check out some
(00:33):
of his content.
And he's a disseminator of thescience and, man, he did me a
real solid.
He read my book, he made a poston it and I thought, man, this
is pretty frigging cool man.
Well, it turns out that, youknow, again, we have some things
that we are like-minded on,especially organizational
(00:53):
behavior management, and we said, well, let's get on here and
shoot the shit.
Talk about performance basedpay versus fixed pay, and you
know, just kind of go from there, man, see where it goes.
As I said even before you goton here, troy, this is very
organic.
I don't want anybody to thinkthis is ever scripted, so I'll
be learning new things from you,just as our listeners are.
(01:14):
So welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, brother.
So to start with, man, can youtalk a little bit about what got
you into the field and why?
Because I mean you'rerelatively new in terms of
getting your degree in it.
That does not mean you have notbe studying the science for a
long time have been learned, Imean.
The fact is you actually don'thave to, you know, have a, have
(01:36):
any degree to understand theprinciples and apply the
principles of science.
Of course we want people tohave degrees so we know that
they're well trained.
But when I, when I've read someof your content, I'm like man,
this guy is, this guy knows alot about the field, knows a lot
about the science.
But when I come on here and seethat you're relatively new in
terms of getting your degree,I'm like this is unusual.
(01:56):
It means you probably evenpoured yourself into it, you
know, since you've gotten yourdegree or you've been exposed to
it a long time ago you know,since you've gotten your degree
or you've been exposed to it along time ago.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, so during my bachelor's I was doing nutrition
, so that's unrelated tobehavior analysis at all.
However, when I started workingas a therapist, right when I
graduated, that's how I got intothe field.
So then I was told you know,you can get a master's and fun
fact is, I didn't get intoPepperdine when I was trying to
do it for my bachelor.
So when I saw the opportunityto get in for my master's in
(02:31):
applied behavior analysis and Iwas in that field, I was like,
hmm, this is redemption time.
So I applied, got in, I got mydegree from there.
So that's kind of how I fellinto the field.
However, the reason I like itso much is that I would say this
is the first time out of allthe fields I've ever studied, or
in school at all, where it kindof clicked a little bit Wait,
wait, wait, hold on.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
You said this how you got in the field, but what
exposed you?
Where did you even hear aboutbehavior analysis?
Because we all like stumbleacross it.
You know, before you evenapplied, something must have
happened where you're like oh,this is, there's a science
behind this.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Right, right.
So during my bachelor's I alsoworked as a direct support
professional.
So I worked in home withindividuals with intellectual
disabilities and that's kind ofwhere I got introduced to that.
It wasn't ABA, don't get mewrong, it was not ABA, it was
more caregiving.
However, we did have behavioralgoals.
There was some behavioranalysts sometimes, but I wasn't
an RBT, I was more of acaregiver.
(03:18):
I would cook, I would helpindividuals cook, et cetera.
But when I graduated I tried tostay on that same line and
that's when an ABA therapistposition had opened up and I was
like, Hmm, let me see what thisis about.
So that's kind of how I fellinto it and then I did my grad
program from there.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, I have a dream that one day people, when
they're young kids, are going tobe like you know I want to be a
doctor, a lawyer, a fireman,teacher, a behavior analyst.
You know.
I think that the more folkslike us are disseminating the
science and putting it out therein the world, folks will maybe
deliberately choose a careerpath in it, because right now
it's like guys like you and Iand you know that's generalized
(03:57):
with anybody, not just guys, youknow but we stumble across it
right, instead of having it.
And because we want to helppeople, we're all in the usually
we're in the helping field.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I was a social worker , so yeah.
So I actually worked as anursing assistant to my
bachelor's before that job, soI've always been in line with
trying to help others.
However, the reason I say Ilike organizational behavior
management is because I do likebusiness a lot, so that brings
behavior analysis into businessa little bit.
Fun fact, my dad had an MBA, sohe was a big business minded
guy.
So that's kind of why I'mstraying towards that aspect of
(04:31):
behavior analysis.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Okay, all right, got that business mindset man and I
mean and also for anybody inhere, of course OBM should be
applying business.
But we can.
You know we can really applyOBM when we're working with
groups, people, anywhere.
I always talk about how we canapply it in schools and even the
classrooms.
How much.
The classroom is just very it'san organization.
The teacher is very much like aCEO and you got these little
(04:56):
students running around.
They're like employees tryingto produce the most important
business result we have in theworld.
Man, that is like learningstudent achievement, so I love
being able to use anybody.
It's shocking, by the way, thatmore of our when I say more
like all of our behavioranalytical organizations aren't
applying organizational behaviormanagement.
A lot of people don't know whatit is, or they don't understand
(05:17):
it, or they think it's outsideof their scope, and the fact is,
all the principles are the same.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Right All right?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, so you want to talk specifically about this
performance-based versus fixedpay, so unpack that a little bit
.
First of all, talk about,before we get into that, why we
need to have some sort of pay inthe first place, right?
What the problem is with fixedpay and how performance-based
(05:46):
pay can alleviate that.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So the reason I kind of thought about this was due to
the schedules of reinforcement.
Right, so you got the fixedinterval schedule and the fixed
ratio schedule.
So when kind of applying thatto the workplace and I think
about it, the fixed intervalwould be like your hourly pay
right, you work one hour, youget your pay for that hour,
right, and then there's abi-weekly paycheck.
That's also a fixed interval.
You get your paycheck everyother week.
(06:10):
However, if you think about it,you're paying an employee based
off their time, right there.
Right, so you're not givingthem money for their performance
.
So that's why I've always beenkind of interested in that,
because if you add, like, aratio requirement, such as you
know, I guess billable hourscould be a ratio right, you bill
30 hours, you get a bonus for aVCBA that is actually tied to
(06:33):
an employee's performance.
You know, it's not just payingsomeone for their time.
And it's a topic that reallyfascinates me, because almost
every company is going to payyou by your time and if you're
not supervised, you're justgoing to give them your time
most of the time, right, likesome people just don't perform
when the reinforcer is not tiedto performance, right, cause
(06:54):
you're not increasingperformance based behaviors.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
A hundred percent.
People are coming in andthey're clocking in and they're
doing their time, but what weneed to be paying them for is
for their valuableaccomplishments.
When you have some sort offixed interval, I mean you can
squash motivation but factors itreduces the accountability.
Now we want accountability, soit's positive accountability.
(07:19):
Where people want to beaccountable, it feels good
because you know you'reproducing these accomplishments
and it leads directly to somesort of performance pay.
And also, by nature, when youhave performance pay, there's
got to be some sort of feedbackloop, so it's letting you know
how well you're doing.
And a lot of organizations outthere people have no idea.
They're getting to the end ofthe week, the end of the month,
(07:40):
but it could be even the end ofthe day.
Did I do my job?
And you know, did I producewhat I'm supposed to do?
And a lot of people have noidea.
So they end up stagnating.
You know which is a huge issue.
And also I think with thatthere's no alignment with
organizational goals.
You know, if you don't knowwhat you're supposed to do and
what you're supposed to produceas a result of that and I don't
mean general, I mean veryspecific you need to have some
(08:02):
sort of feedback loop to do that.
You know, even if there's notpay involved in it.
I think that if you have valuesin an organization, just seeing
the impact that you're havingcan serve as that naturally
occurring reinforcer that'sgoing to sustain you.
Now, of course, we tie in thepay.
You've got multiple levels ofreinforcers, right.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Exactly.
Employees do need to feelvalued, and I think that's the
problem sometimes with the fixedinterval.
If they don't feel valued,that's when they're just going
to start giving you their time,because they know they only have
to give you their time in orderto get the pay.
And I know you asked me why isthis topic important?
Well, because we don't show upto work unless we get paid.
I'm sorry, as much as I havevolunteered in the past, I can't
(08:44):
do that for a living.
I need money.
I got to pay the bills, we gotto do this, we got to do that.
So people need money.
So it's a very important thingthat a business needs to think
about.
Something that's very common inthe United States is that
annual $1 raise.
I don't think that's reallygoing to cut it anymore with
this.
With the younger generationcoming up, you know, one dollar
(09:06):
raise every year just isn'tgoing to sustain them for a long
period of time, right?
You're not going to be able tomaintain their behavior through
time if you're just giving thema one dollar raise every year.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Uh there's no doubt about it, man.
I mean, we all need pay.
There's there again.
There's multiple reinforcersacting on our behavior.
You know, know we want to getthings, we want to get away from
the tax people.
You know, we don't want to loseour house, you know.
But also, when we're working,we we want to, we want to
accomplish things.
I think that's.
I don't know what you found,brother, you know, but I found
(09:39):
that in organizations I hearpeople what are we going to do
to positively reinforce?
You know, because we're talkingabout OBM and everybody's like
they're going back to whatthey're doing with the learners
right in the clinics and they'rethinking about tokens and
they're thinking about Skittlesand they're thinking about all
this stuff, which is great, I'mglad that they're thinking about
this, but people aren'tthinking about naturally
occurring reinforcers enough,and that's what's going to
(10:01):
maintain behavior and, of course, we want to shift them, so it's
more positive reinforcement forthem.
And so I think the best thingpeople can do leaders, managers,
supervisors, whatever your nounis, if you're responsible for
the performance of people is youneed to help them feel valued
(10:25):
and you need to help them toobserve that they're producing
valued outcomes, which alsomeans hiring people that share
the same values and, of course,you know the pay that comes out
of it again.
That just makes you feel morevalued as well.
Right, because I'm seeing this.
I feel good.
Look, the learner's gettingbetter, for example.
It could be in any organization, but most people again are in
our field because they want tohelp people.
So if you see the learnersgetting better as a result of
behavior, that feels wonderfuland it drives your behavior in
(10:48):
the moment.
And you also know, like man,you know what I'm getting paid
more because I'm having moresuccess.
But it can be demoralizing, asyou know, to know that you're
busting your ass making adifference.
You look over there and youknow the Joe next to you is
making the same amount andthey're not.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I like how you said the values part, because values
alignment is huge.
Right, you can pay someone allthe money in the world, but if
they're not valuing what they'redoing, they're probably not
going to still like what they'redoing, if that makes sense.
Here in the United States, wehave been programmed to value
ourselves based on how much wemake.
Unfortunately, that's how itworks, but, like you said,
(11:31):
values alignment is crucial.
Not that many people who makeall the money in the world, who
are working a job they don'tlike, are that happy.
The values alignment is stillso crucial because, like you
said, that's where themaintenance of behavior is
exhibited.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, so you've heard of the term emotional
intelligence, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I have yes.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, and it's got a lot of great stuff on it.
There's some kind of softresearch behind it.
But I'm writing a book withAdam Ventura called Behavioral
Intelligence.
I'm saying it's the evolutionof emotional intelligence and in
it I have something called.
We have something called theBehavioral Alignment Compass and
it's kind of like it's a playoff of the ACT Matrix and I love
the act matrix, I share iteverywhere.
(12:12):
I wrote an article with DrKevin Polk sweet guy, man, just
a great guy Love his work aboutthe he.
He, you know he developed theact matrix with some other folks
, I think.
And the thing is that I decidedto do something with the
behavioral alignment compass.
To your point right, havingvalues in alignment, because I'm
actually not an RFT guy, I'mnot an ACT guy, I don't know
(12:33):
that much about it and I see thematrix just as a way to
understand our values and I sayvalues are a preferred way of
being and doing.
You know, so we could Scottit's a preference assessment and
if we do as a group, we couldsay it's shared values, right,
and the bottom in the ACT matrix, the bottom left-hand corner,
is going to be your privateevents or your covert behaviors
(12:56):
and we all can have sharedthoughts and feelings that show
up, you know, and when we feelthis way, we behave a certain
way.
So it's an antecedent to thesebehaviors that we engage in to
allow us to escape behaviorsthat we don't feel very good
about, right.
So, if you know, that's finewhen they're in alignment with
their values.
But when they're in alignmentwith their values, but when
they're in misalignment, it'snot fine.
You know, we're winning thebattle but we're losing the war,
(13:16):
but we get stuck in this loopof negative reinforcement.
As you and I both know, peopletend to engage in behaviors that
are going to produce immediateand certain outcomes for
themselves, right, and that'sthe reinforcer.
And so, with the behavioralcompass, I say, like, I like the
idea of like thinking, of acompass, like where's your North
star, that's your values, right.
And so we need to, you know, beaware and use those thoughts
(13:38):
and feelings, be aware that whenyou think and feel this way,
behave that way, that's amisaligned with our shared
values, which in organization,what are our shared values in
here?
And we need to initiate areplacement behavior.
And so, you know, very similarto to act matrix, but I just use
all behavioral language with it.
Uh, but to both of our points.
(13:58):
We need to bring people in whodo have shared values, but we
need to make sure that thecompany is built from the ground
up on the value.
The systems are designed basedon those values, because the
values come back to behaviors.
So here are values, and theyneed to be more than just the
writing on the wall.
Right right, they can't just be.
You know, we value respect andcollaboration, all these things.
And then you see the leaderyelling at the manager, the
(14:21):
manager yelling at thesupervisor, supervisor yelling
at the direct.
You know that's not manifestingit that way.
And if you value something, youneed to measure it right.
You know, without if you're notmeasuring it, then you're not
really valuing it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, I like how you brought up like building the
business from the ground up.
It's almost like generality andmaintenance of your business
right, programming your businessfor generality and maintenance,
because that's the only way tocreate a sustainable
organization.
I have been fortunate enough tonot run into many leaders in my
life who have scolded me for, Iguess, undesired behaviors, I
(14:56):
guess, or things I didn't doright in the workplace.
I feel like I've always hadpretty supportive leadership,
but I've read some of yourarticles or blogs that you post
to LinkedIn and you always havethese stories of how, like a
leader will think they're doinga great job, but then you go
interview the employees, they'relike oh, he's coercive, he
controls us with punishing,contingencies and all this and
(15:17):
it's just like wow.
It's almost like a lack ofperspective taking sometimes in
a leader where they don'trealize the perspective of their
employees.
So they use coercion and stuffbecause they're really not
putting themselves in theiremployees' shoes.
And I think that's reallyimportant for a leader.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I'm glad that you're saying that, man, but the
perspective taking, becausethat's exactly when my colleague
and I, Anika, go.
We train a lot of leaders,right, and we say we start
introducing the ACT matrix,saying, well, what do you think
teachers value?
What do you think shows up forthem when they feel that way?
What do they do and what shouldthey do?
So we go around that matrix andwe say, okay, in the top
right-hand corner, these are thepinpointed behaviors that they
need to engage in, that aregoing to help them get in touch
(15:59):
with values.
Now let's zoom out and do itagain with you.
What are you going to do toincrease the likelihood that
they are going to engage inthose behaviors?
Which is a group that theydon't think about this stuff?
So, when you get them to goaround and go through their
whole thing, what shows up foryou, what barriers you engage in
?
What should you do?
A lot of times they're missingthis right.
But coming back to your pointabout awareness, I think a lot
(16:23):
are just unaware, right, and Ithink they're unaware and
they're misinformed about how toget improved behavior.
I don't think most of them arebad people.
I think in one of my articles,one of my articles, I have a
series of this.
I call them valued learners.
Right, I have ask clownquadrant, I have the dictator
quadrant.
Right, I have the valuelearners.
(16:43):
I think most people are valuedlearners.
Right, the dictator quadrant,those are dangerous people right
, Especially the further right.
They go and down in valuesbecause they can be really
skilled people right, butthey're highly manipulative
because they don't have thevalues be successful.
So I'm really glad to hear thatyou haven't been exposed to
that kind of thing.
I've consulted with a ton ofleaders and I've seen this.
(17:04):
But I've seen most people again.
I think they almost fall rightat the edge of the value
learners.
If they're coercive they'rereally, really an ass clown.
But they can be like moving inthe right direction there with
some knowledge and skills.
But I would hear in educationit's such an easy thing to say
or in behavior analyticorganizations, do it for the
(17:25):
learners, you have to do it forlearners.
But, Troy, as you and I know,you can't make it about the
learners without making it aboutthe employees.
You could bring out the best inthe learners.
You've got to bring out thebest in the employees.
So I think even thenarcissistic leaders and they're
out there, brother, Believe me,they're out there.
There's still a function totheir behavior.
They want to have the lightshine on them, right?
(17:48):
They want attention, et cetera,et cetera.
I think if they understoodbehavior principles they would
know they'll have more attention.
They'll get more light shine onthem, right.
So there could be a sharedvalues thing in here, Like maybe
it's not specifically, you knowthe same values, but it's a
win-win, because as they supporttheir employees more, the
employees are going to nowproduce better outcomes for them
(18:09):
.
They're also going to getbetter retention, you know their
organization's going to lookamazing, Even if they're not
doing it because they just lovepeople so much, like you and I.
That's why we're in this.
In the end, they're engaging inthe right behavior to produce
the right outcomes and they'regetting their needs met.
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I like what you had to say because it does.
It starts at the top and thengoes down to the bottom, right?
You can't look at the bottomand be like how do we get the
results from the bottom withoutlooking at what's all in the
middle?
For example, let's just talkmoney because it's easy to talk
about it.
You want to increase sales,right?
So you're a manager.
How do we increase sales?
What do we got to do?
(18:58):
The behavioral principle would'tjust look at the sales
themselves, because those arejust numbers that are not even
possible without people engagingin the behavior to drive those
sales.
So, to go back to the point yousaid, teachers.
Teachers need to feel valued.
Teachers need to feel likethey're paid well and they need
to feel like the school treatsthem well so they can drive
those outcomes for theirlearners.
When you hear about a studentsaying oh, my teacher doesn't
like me, blah, blah, all this, Ilike how you said that they're
(19:20):
not bad people.
The teacher is not a badteacher.
Maybe there's something wrongwith that system not allowing
them to teach to the best oftheir ability, right, the
motivation is lacking.
So you have to look at thesystem as a whole instead of
just saying how do we drive this?
result, because it's notpossible without the behavior.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
No, it's not man, it's all connected.
When that frontline employee isnot performing well, a lot of
people are pointing the fingerat them, like they point the
finger at the teacher, the BCBApoints the finger at the RBT man
.
Blaming worked, brother.
Right, we wouldn't be here.
You know, blaming is like adime and dozen, everybody's
blaming everybody else.
And, like, one of my passionsis the, you know, really get
(20:01):
people to reflect on their ownbehavior and the impact of their
behavior on the environment,which of course means the people
in the environment.
And I think you know, if we get, if more people would be better
observers of their behavior andthe impact of the environment,
we would be.
And of course they valuecertain outcomes.
Right, you've got to valuepeople.
If you don't care about peopleand you just see stuff as
(20:22):
transactional, that becomes aproblem, right, but even again,
those people, if they do valuethe outcomes and they realize to
get those outcomes you have toget the people to perform at a
certain level, then you start tomaybe make a shift there.
But well, I guess you haven'thad this experience, right, but
it seems to me I've noticed,like a lot of people, a lot.
(20:44):
Let me reframe that, right.
I'm surprised at the number ofleaders who gain their position,
are not, are falling short ofleadership behaviors.
Right, when they get in thosepositions, they're using a lot
of coercion.
I started to think to myselfhow did they get to this
position?
But then I realized that, um,uh, troy, I I actually created a
(21:10):
leadership prep course foreducation.
Again, leadership doesn'tmatter.
The principles are all the same, right, when you see it through
a behavior analytic lens.
Organizational behaviormanagement is the greatest
toolbox for that.
But they're missing thefundamental principles of
behavior.
So I'm like they're not eventhey're not training our leaders
and they're giving them way toomuch theory and then they're
dropping them into, you know,into these environments, and
(21:33):
their history takes over.
So if you were brought up in ahousehold where coercion was the
name of the game when somebodywasn't doing what you need to do
, that's what you're going tofall back to, right, because
they don't know better 100%.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And if you think about it from a behavioral
perspective, looking at thatleader who's using coercion,
that behavior is probably goingto be maintained by negative
reinforcement, right?
Their employees causing sometype of aversive stimuli to them
.
So they just coerce them to getrid of it.
So they're more likely tocontinue doing that in the
future.
If it works because coercion isthe quick fix, it's maintained
(22:05):
by negative reinforcement, ifyou think about it right.
So you have an RBT who'spissing you off.
Let's just say that.
So you coerce them, you get ridof that aversive stimuli, you
get them doing what they'redoing, not saying that this is
the best strategy.
This should not be done.
However, the leader is going tocontinue doing that in the
future.
If it works becausereinforcement, if you get rid of
that aversive stimulus, you'regoing to keep doing it, and I
(22:27):
think that's why that book,coercion and Its Fallout, is
really important, because it'snot sustainable long term.
It works in the moment, sothat's why you keep doing it
over and over and over again,but if you look at it long term,
what is it doing Not?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
much Right, and I think that you know.
I'm glad you actually broughtthat book up.
Of course we all have in ourbookshelves.
I think you know it's a veryimportant point in here I wish
people would use that term morecoercion and less absence of an
environment that's not rich withpositive reinforcement for
value-added behavior.
And that's why systems need tobe built on values in the ground
(23:19):
up, because values unpack thebehavior and your systems should
be deliberately designed toincrease positive reinforcement
for those behaviors.
Right, If we're going to dothat, it means we have to have
some sort of measurement, andthis is why it ties back to
where we came from, that we havesome sort of, you know,
performance scorecard, right,and it could be a scale.
I love Aubrey Daniels has ascale of with a performance
scorecard, and it's eitherpinpointed behavior results, and
(23:42):
I think it's important.
Initially you might look atbehaviors, right, If it's a new
behavior somebody's engaging in,and then you might shift to
look to what you're measuring,to results, but some sort of
scale where people can know howwell they're doing.
The supervisor or manager knowshow well they're doing as well.
At the end of the week, youknow, this data gets pumped out.
You know how you're doing,through the month, the quarter,
(24:03):
you know what, in terms of thescale, what you're going to get
as a result of your behaviors.
There's so many positive thingsto it and it can be simple and
it should be simple.
Just a few key behaviors.
Do not make it sophisticated.
I don't have you ever read anyof Abernathy's work.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Oh my gosh.
I mean, first of all, he'sbrilliant.
I can't touch his stuff with a10 foot pole.
To me it's way toosophisticated for organizations,
right?
You know we have to.
You know, whenever something'ssophisticated, man, that's the
enemy of complexity's the enemyof execution, sustainability and
scalability.
You know, you gotta keep itsimple.
(24:42):
So if somebody can just look at,they have their behavior, they
have a goal they're working onright and they have some sort.
They have a goal, they'reworking on right and they have
some sort of measure to know ifthey're moving towards that goal
and there's a feedback loopthat lets them see it often
enough that itself is going toadjust their performance.
Now you tie it into some sortof pay scale, some sort of
performance pay, and then, likeyou know what, there's some
(25:05):
other good things that come outof this and it makes me want to
stay, it makes me want toperform better.
I can see how I'm doing.
I can see that I'm meeting myminimal goal for the day or for
the week or whatever.
I can see I went above it.
That's another benefit ofAubrey's performance matrix.
It has all that kind of builtin, right?
Let's find out where peopleshould be and then, like above,
let's recognize you for goingabove, and so many people are
(25:26):
not recognized for that right.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Not at all.
Some people go above and beyondevery day at work and never get
recognized, and that's simplybecause maybe a leader just
thinks they're doing a good job.
They don't need to do anythingright.
They're doing a good job.
Leave them be.
And the thing about coercion isthe employee doesn't even
contact the actual, naturallyoccurring punishment.
You're controlling theirbehavior through like a
(25:49):
punishing contingency.
You're just telling them oh, ifyou don't do this, this is
going to happen.
And then, if you think about itjust like we teach RBTs, you
got to tell the learner whatthey can do.
Coercion just tells someonewhat they shouldn't do.
So eventually your employeesare just going to stop engaging
in all behaviors.
If you keep coercing them andnot give them a alternative
behavior to engage in, whatshould they do?
(26:10):
So I like how you talked aboutthat a little bit, because
employees need to know what todo if they're going to be told
what not to do.
Because if you just tell themwhat not to do all the time,
they're just going to end up notbehaving at all well, that
that's it, man.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They're, and I mean, and there's so many gosh,
there's so many negativeoutcomes that are associated
with it, and I get, the falloutbook covers this stuff.
But I think, going back to whatyou said earlier, if you just
take perspective, how would youfeel if you were in that
position?
And I've been there, man, and Isaw the individual's car I just
(26:46):
felt sick to my stomach.
It's Sunday night and I'm likeI don't want to go into work the
next day because I mean, whenpeople are burned out, right,
when they feel anxiety aboutgoing to work, that just means
they're not contacting theirpositive reinforcers.
And I think that's the solepurpose of a leader is to create
right, remove obstacles andcreate an environment that are
positively reinforcing forvalue-added behaviors, right,
(27:07):
meaning those behaviors arealigned with important results.
And this is why I wrote theleadership book Position
Authority and Leadership.
I talk about the four hats andhow the leader needs to be
designing systems based on allthat stuff, man.
So you know, let's do a fullcircle on this, folks, and I
don't even know how to.
I actually don't have an answerfor this.
In education, there is some sortof scorecard they could put
(27:34):
together for this, right.
It could be.
One of the things might be it'snot just if we'd have to take a
look at and it would have to bethe thing is they'd have to
have good assessments right inplace.
You know, like standardacceleration charge, you know,
but something easy for theteachers, but you don't have a
standard.
What you do is you have justbased on criteria that the
student's own performance, right, is better tomorrow than it was
today.
So every student's performanceis based on where it was before
(27:59):
and I think we tied that intosome sort of pay and bonuses,
right, so there's like a basepay and teachers can access this
stuff.
There's a whole bunch of flawswith this stuff, right, because
there's like a base pay andteachers can access this stuff.
There's a whole bunch of flawswith this stuff because there's
kids coming in.
They're just not motivated.
But I think if they did it overtime, teachers would start
finding ways to motivate becausebehavior goes or reinforcement
(28:19):
flows, they'd feel good theresources that were provided.
They would seek out more.
In fact, they would demand themmore.
They would demand bettertrainings because they're not
being trained well and, what'smore important than our
educators, I mean this is thebackbone of our country.
They're our most importantemployee I believe that we have.
If we're going to reduceincarceration and reduce poverty
(28:42):
, improve quality of life, weneed to support our educators.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
And I think the science yeah, they're working to
maintain behaviors in thecountry they are.
They're working to maintaineveryone's behavior, if you
really think about it.
They maintain our society as itis through time, as it adapts,
because we'll culturally selectbehaviors all the time right.
Times change, our behaviorchanges because of cultural
selection, and teachers are thereason we're able to sustain
(29:08):
that without having all thischaos that.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
That is well, yes, and we have chaos part of it
because teachers are not beingprepared well enough, right,
they're not.
They're getting way too muchtheory, way too little actual
practice, I think.
I think, then we need to embedsimulations, for example, into
higher education so they canactually experience the
consequence of their behaviorgood and bad, right, safely and
(29:31):
get feedback on it.
It's like in my in the fightgame Troy, that's sparring, you
know what I mean when you canlearn during sparring.
So when it comes to the realworld, right, the actual fight,
you've had this experience.
You can do things automatically.
You understand if I do this,this could happen, you know, but
you experience that relativelysafely.
They don't have that.
Also, on note, nika's actuallydoing research on this.
(29:54):
Our professors aren't beingtrained on how to teach.
Just because you're a subjectmatter expert does not mean you
understand how to instruct.
Instruction is very complex,man.
It's not enough to haveknowledge.
You need to be able to transferthat knowledge to somebody else
, create an environment wherethey can learn, support them in
learning.
You need to involve theirknowledge, right, you have to
shape it.
And all this is verysophisticated.
The lay person, thenon-educator, has no idea how
(30:17):
complex good teaching is and Iadmire good teachers so much and
good school leaders, troy, Ithink, in education.
I know we didn't come in totalk about education, man, but I
can't, it's just my passion, I,I, I think this is the most
challenging leadership positionin the country.
They're being dealt a verydifficult hand.
Right, coming back to Florencepay they can't give anybody any
(30:39):
financial incentives that dowell, right, there's nothing
there.
There's a shortage of teacher.
(31:01):
So all they can do is create anenvironment where people feel
valued, supported, where theyhave the knowledge and skills,
dissemination and some of thestuff that you've been doing,
man.
So I think it's pretty coolAgain, you put together like a
little video of my stuff, man.
I was so thankful and gratefulfor you to do that.
Man, help disseminating.
I know disseminating thescience of human behavior is
near and dear to my heart.
(31:21):
My vision is a better worldthrough behavior analysis.
My mission is to help peoplebetter help themselves and world
through behavior analysis.
My mission is to help peoplebetter help themselves and
others through behavior analysis.
So disseminating is a core allmy work.
I'm constantly disseminatingstuff.
I'm constantly in my passion,you know, constantly engaging in
my mission.
So when I saw you doing thisstuff, I'm like man, we've got
(31:43):
some like passion here.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right.
I like disseminatinginformation.
One of the biggest reasons whyis because that's how I learn
the best.
When I'm up there makingcontent, talking about the
content, that's when it soaksinto my body and I actually
really learn it.
This is no shot to my gradschool great grad school but I
learned more making content onmy own page and the feedback and
comments I get on my page thanI did with a 60 grand degree.
(32:07):
That's just the truth.
Whether it's a bad comment, anegative comment or they're
telling me I'm wrong, I'm stilllearning and then I don't make
that mistake again in the future.
I just have learned so muchfrom disseminating the science
rather than just kind of sittingthere listening to someone read
a definition that's beenwritten a while ago and that's
no shot to grad programs.
(32:28):
You know, read a definitionthat's been written a while ago
and that's no shot to grabprograms.
That's just a good way I learn.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
So, because I'm learning, I'm disseminating more
and more because I really likeit.
I forget you'd put outsomething, man, and it was my
memory so bad, troy, butsomebody had made some comment
on your post, right?
I thought, man, this is realgood leadership.
I remember commenting on it,right?
I'm like this is how peopleneed to be more.
When people say something likethis and what was that, can you
(32:56):
remind me?
I think I remember.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
So I made a because I like to have different types of
content right.
I try to meet funny because Ido think I'm a funny guy.
I try to meet serious,professional.
I try to meet scientific,experimental.
I try to do all of it, I try tohit all aspects.
So when I was trying to befunny, I basically said on a
post and this wasn't the one youcommented on, it was about
Zodiac signs having nothing todo.
(33:21):
And the behavior analyticcommunity itself had blew me up
for that, and that'sunderstandable, right?
We all have different valuesand beliefs.
But I issued an apology rightafter I didn't take the post
down because one I learned thatpost is staying up because I had
to learn from that.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Wait, wait, but what were they bashing you about?
Tell me, because it'snon-scientific.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
It.
No, no-transcript destroyingrelationships over right.
(34:16):
So I did issue an apology.
I don't need to issue anapology for every wrong thing I
post.
That is not going to happen.
However, with the circumstancesand the certain people that did
take it wrong, I felt like anapology had to be issued.
And that's what a leader does,right when they make a mistake
in the workplace for theiremployees.
When they go in and yell at anemployee for something and they
(34:38):
go overboard, they go too far.
They need to issue that apologybecause that's accountability.
You can say I'm sorry, whateverall this, but if you don't show
in your actions that you'retaking accountability, people
aren't going to care at all.
Sorry doesn't mean anything intoday's world.
You need to show someone whyyou're saying sorry through your
(35:02):
actions, and I like makingcontent, so I figured it was
okay.
I know I can make an apology, awell edited video, and then
talk about values, because atthe end of the day, that post
the original one was still myvalues.
Right, I don't believe inZodiac signs and I still don't.
However, other people do andthat's okay and that's what I
was trying to say.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Well, you know, I have two things about this right
.
Number one is that this iswhere I want to talk about this
behavior myopia, meaning we needto practice what we preach.
Right, we need to make surethat we are engaging in the
principles of behavior.
A lot of people say we shouldnever use punishment, right?
Well, then they come around andthe first thing they do is try
to punish your behavior.
Right, they're coercive and Isay that, all right, you know,
(35:41):
hey, you're wrong about that.
Sometimes we do need to correctbehavior.
Now, I believe there's a way todo it, though, right?
Coming back to the thing, ifsomebody, as opposed to
lambasting you on social media,went in your message like hey,
troy, I appreciate your contentis out there.
Hopefully they've been puttinglikes on your stuff, but I
noticed that people tend tocomment when they don't like
something as opposed to puttinglikes on something, yeah, which,
(36:04):
again, not using the sameprinciples that we're practicing
, right, and said you know, hey,I kind of felt a way about that
.
I'm wondering if, blah, blah,blah and just expose it to you,
I gave you some feedback in away that was not coercive To me.
That is how you strengthenrelationships right.
To me, that's engaging in goodleadership behavior.
And I find that the very peoplewho are so quick to say we need
(36:27):
to treat people better, we needto do a scent, and blah, blah,
blah, you know, and I believe inall this stuff, we really want
to involve people, right?
But also the people are sayingthat we should never use
punishment.
As soon as something doesn't gotheir way, they're jumping on
one another, and I just don'tbelieve in that.
That's not the way to do it.
So I want to make that.
There we can be better.
So if you're listening to thisand you were that person, hey,
we all make mistakes, we allhave our own history, right.
(36:50):
But be aware that you'reengaging in coercive behavior.
And if you're saying that weshould not do that, try a better
way, you'll get better outcomes.
That doesn't mean you shouldnever correct behavior.
We have to do it.
It's part of life, right,punishment being a stimulus that
decrease the future occurrenceof behavior.
I can use that with Troy andsay hey, troy, hey, when you
said that I kind of feltinsulted by it, man, I know you
(37:11):
didn't mean it.
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm wondering if you could dothis If Troy doesn't do it in
the future.
That just punishes behavior.
If he does something else,that's better.
Just reinforce one.
That's a much better and farless coercive way to do it right
.
So it's about how you do it.
There's that.
Now I got to make a comment.
I commented on your thing.
That is because I'd love.
I don't care for horoscopesthemselves, it's just not me,
(37:32):
right?
Somebody loves it Great, theylove it.
But in terms of the signs,right, I actually.
There's no science behind whatI'm about to say and I commented
on your post about this.
It's not directed at you.
I've noticed a number ofbehavioral patterns associated
with people with different signs.
Now we could say it's bias,confirmation or something like
that.
I don't know.
I look at like a cancer sign.
(37:52):
I'm like how can this be?
These behavioral patterns areso close to who I am right, my
own behavior and what I believeis this.
When I say believe it's myguesstimate.
I think that and it's verybehavioral in nature, right?
I'm guessing that somehow whenwe're in utero, that you think
about how powerful thegravitational pull is, right,
(38:15):
that somehow it impacts ourcentral nervous system or
something happens to us indevelopment.
In behavioral speaking, it justmakes some things more or less
reinforcing, right, which thenends up shaping our behavior.
And speaking, it just makessome things more or less
reinforcing, right, which thenends up shaping our behavior.
And this can explain why thereare some general behavioral
patterns across people who sharedifferent signs.
(38:35):
So of course you haveenvironment that plays all this
part.
But that would make sense if,since the environment shaping
behavior, this is morereinforcing than that.
So total guesstimate man.
Want to throw this out.
I'm not asking you to commenton it, man, I'm just like it's
just interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Well, I am glad that you actually commented that,
because it was a way to givethose people a benefit of the
doubt from a behavioralperspective, because in the
original post I had made I hadjust said those are made up
signs.
That was the exact words I use.
So I completely actuallydiscredited it and didn't give
it any benefit of the doubt,which is where you gave it
benefit of the doubt by lookingat it behaviorally.
(39:09):
Yeah, that's leadership.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
And I think in general.
I think that there's a lot ofthings we need to put the
behavior analytic lens on.
So I don't want to discountthings that are working for
people.
Just because we can't explainit behaviorally doesn't mean it
doesn't exist.
It just means we can't explainit that way.
That's why I'm looking atemotional intelligence and a lot
of people are like, well, it'semotional intelligence.
(39:31):
Well, hold on, we can look atthis through a behavior-analytic
lens.
Let's bring it under in ourfield, zoom in on it.
They've got their own research.
Let's put our own research onit.
Let's describe this phenomenathrough this amazing lens that
we have and we can probablylearn some really great things
instead of, like, ostracizingother people in other fields and
doing this stuff.
You know, and we need morepeople like you that say, yeah,
(39:54):
screw that one up or whatever.
You know what I mean, or not?
Like the true point, like I'mnot going to apologize if
there's nothing to apologize foras well, because we don't want,
you know, to be just being asycophant or something like that
, or, you know, being yourbehavior being constantly
controlled by the masses.
That's also a terrible thing,which happens a lot, you know.
(40:14):
So tell me that we're kind ofgetting up to our time here,
brother.
But what is your main goal withdisseminating?
You know?
What do you, what do you hopeto do here with it all?
Speaker 1 (40:24):
What is your main goal with disseminating?
You know, what do you hope todo here with it all?
So glad you asked, because I'mstill getting my website set up,
but my goal is to basicallybecome a marketer within
behavior analysis.
That would be the absoluteperfect dream.
Now, everyone doesn't get tolive out their perfect dream
right, but I've already startedthat a little bit.
I don't know if I'll be able toever do it full time.
However, I want to marketpeople's services.
(40:46):
So if you have a privatepractice, I want you to hire me
as your client to market for you, and then I want to recruit
many clients to help them markettheir services.
Products such as you know,maybe Central Reach, ABA Engine,
whatever, something like that.
Motivity, Rethink Not sayingthat I'm going to do that, but
something like that.
I want to help people markettheir ABA products.
Now why?
(41:07):
Because there's valuesalignment.
I have experience withbehavioral science, but you can
go hire a generic marketer andthey're going to give you
generic marketing that isn'tgoing to align with what the
consumers in the field arelooking to see.
I do believe this is anuntapped market.
(41:27):
So, with all my marketingexperience and my background in
behavioral science, I want tocombine them to make an actual
career out of it.
So that's where I'm going withthat Well.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
So I want to support you with that, because what you
just said is what I do for PCMA,right?
So I'm the director at PCMA,but really I'm their ambassador,
and everything that you justsaid perfectly describes what I
do.
Now I came to PCMA with theProfessional Crisis Management
Association.
I have my own consultingbusiness, heart and Science
Consulting.
I do a lot of OBM work withorganizations and education.
(42:01):
You know, really really lovecreating environments that
brings out the best of peopleand I love that.
But I love disseminating and Ireally believed and have
conviction with what PCMAbrought to the table.
I believe in the science.
I've been trained in what theydo, right.
So I'm like this is thegreatest freaking crisis
management system in the world.
It's amazing.
We're building fluency.
So I wanted to go somewherewhere I had integrity and I came
(42:24):
in and I'm doing exactly whatyou want to do and I can tell
you for anybody listening andmaybe you want to reach out to
Troy they've had, they've hadmonths where they've had a 400%
increase in sales.
Now I don't make any money fromsales.
I'm not even like.
You know I don't.
I love doing what I do.
You know what I mean.
I want.
You know I love that this isdisseminating the science across
the world.
(42:45):
I'd love to support anorganization that has such
integrity.
You know it makes me happy, soit's a win-win.
There's a shared values thing inhere.
You know, of course I get asalary and everything like that.
That's wonderful and of courseI need to get paid.
But to your point, because Iunderstand the science and I can
talk about it in a nuanced waywhere I can make it practical to
people.
It is an important thing.
(43:05):
So if you guys are trying togrow your organization out there
, give Troy a look.
It's worked for what's going onin PCMA.
They've been together for along time and the change was the
phase change was me coming inand doing that stuff.
They did some other things, butjust shining a light on it,
that's what I think somebodylike Troy can do.
Brother, it was good having youknow, but just shining a light
(43:26):
on it, that's what I thinksomebody like Troy can do.
Brother, it was good having youon.
Man, I appreciate you, Iappreciate everything that
you're doing out here.
If somebody wanted to reach outto you and I'll make sure I put
this in the show notes as well,the description, but just what
would be the best place?
Speaker 1 (43:37):
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Obviously named Troy Berg, heintroduced me, and then my DMs
on Instagram are always open, soyou can always message me there
.
Linkedin is probably thepreferred method, but if you
want to email me, my email isalso located on my Instagram.
You go to the link tree andit'll show you the email at the
top.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Troy's got a passion for this.
Like me, you put out your stuffFor years.
I put out stuff wasn't making apenny on it.
Do it because I love it.
You know that's what you guyswant, man.
You want somebody who haspassion about something.
They're going to go above andbeyond for you.
So, troy, thanks a lot, brotherfor coming on.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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