What agile organizations can learn from animals?

Shaping is a modern method used in training animals. It is based on the fact that an animal doesn’t do anything if it is not motivating to it. To me shaping has surprisingly lot in common with managing agile organizations, teams and individuals. Couple of months ago, I demonstrated my fellow coaches at Houston how this method can be applied to humans as well.

The author training his dog.

“The animal achieves the goals on its own.”

Let’s go back to this shaping technique. The principle is pretty simple: The animal gets a reward when it performs the correct action. Then little by little you change the requirements to get closer to your ultimate goal. Most importantly: You don’t deny actions from the animal, you stay passive and reward it from the correct actions. The animal achieves the goals on its own.

“I would guide the first candidate only with positive words like: ‘good, yes and excellent’”

I demonstrated this technique by taking two persons in a separate room and telling the rest of the group that the objective for both persons will be the same: I need to get them to sit down into a chair in one corner of the room. I’m not allowed to use any aids like touching, guiding or telling. I would guide the first candidate only with positive words like: “good, yes and excellent”. The second one would be guided with positive words but also with negative words like “no” and “don’t” where necessary.

“Now he was very motivated to find the solution.”

"Yes, good, excellent!"

I took the first person in and said nothing. He stood there and looked completely lost. After a couple of seconds I saw that he was looking towards the corner I wished him to go. I immediately encouraged him:  ”Good!” He didn’t get the idea right away, but after a couple of tries he took his first step towards the corner and I got the reward timing right. He started to get the idea. He was ready to try out many different actions. At one point he thought he was supposed to follow my movements. I had to ignore this unwanted behavior and not reward any actions where he followed me. Now he was very motivated to find the solution. He actively tried different things, different directions and different moves. Suddenly he realized the chair in the corner. Now I only had to reward him for focusing on the chair…and… there it was! He ran towards the chair and sat on it laughing. Mission accomplished!

“The end result was a huge MMA fighter just standing by the curtain, refusing to do any actions and thinking: ‘This game is dull.’”

"No, no, no"

It was time to take the second candidate in. His objective was the same, but this time I was going to to use negative words as well. The person came in and like the first one, he looked like a question mark. I began by rewarding for looks towards the corner. He started to move but when he took his first step towards the wrong direction, I said firmly: “No.” He stalled and looked insecure. After a while he got some of his confidence back and slowly started moving again. I gave rewards for correct movements and here and there used positive punishments by saying “no”. For demonstration purposes, I suddenly stopped rewarding him at all and started to use only positive punishments – in other words I just kept repeating “no”. The end result was a huge MMA fighter just standing by the curtain, refusing to take any actions and thinking: “This game is dull.”

“Loosen your control and let people go.”

What’s the point here? To me this experiment demonstrates the essential principle on how to get people encouraged to try new things by themselves. Well made encouraging creates a fertile ground for innovation.

Let people surprise you with their achievements. Give them a chance. Reward them, let them fail and build a culture where failing is safe and trying new things is rewarded. Give them new challenges all the time. Loosen your control and let people go. Instead of telling how and what to do focus on motivating people. Motivate the journey – not the goal!

Have you tried similar experiments?

Pasi Honkanen