Mossy's Musings

Thorndike formulated the Law of Effect, which postulated that a given behaviour is likely to be repeated if it produces a pleasant effect or consequence. (Positive reinforcement.)

B.F. Skinner (1938), took this further suggesting that a negative consequence is likely to reduce the repetition of a behaviour that led to it. (Negative reinforcement.) Skinner argued in 1972 that punishment is a bad technique for controlling behaviour because all it does is suppress what the person or animal is doing. (Behaviour.) It does not strengthen the right or desired behaviour: all it can do is suppress the wrong one for a while. So
punishing a child for doing something wrong does not stop that child from going
off and doing something else equally wrong or perhaps even worse.

But, rewarding a child for doing something right encourages that child to continue to do it, or to do it again.

To a child, any attention (even negative) is better than no attention at all. So if a child receives no attention for a positive behaviour, that behaviour is not reinforced and leads the child to gain attention by negative behaviour. Therefore every opportunity to reinforce positive behaviour should be taken.

These concepts can be applied to adults in the workplace. Overly focusing on negatives or ‘failures’ effectively gives an individual a poor reputation to live down to as this level of performance becomes accepted as the ‘norm’ he/she believes about themselves. One failure is followed by another with the comments ‘that’s typical of him, what did you
expect?’

Drawing attention to negatives or ‘failures’ as departures from the usual ‘norm’ of excellence corrects negatives whilst enhancing the reputation (and self-esteem) of the individual, leading to comments like ‘that’s not like you, you’re better than that.’ By extension, this affects teams and organisations in the same way. Positive culture change requires leaders to focus in a balanced way on the positives and ‘successes’ of their people and to share and celebrate them giving an organisation an excellent reputation to live
up to.

Tony

If we accept that coaching can be defined as a process of eliciting or evoking a solution or
a purposeful direction from the person being coached, then it follows that the
coach must show a form of detached integrity during that process. The solution
or direction of new activity must consist of the person’s own thoughts and not
those of the coach. Care must be taken to eliminate contaminating questions and
conversations that may lead the person to an idea or thought process not wholly
his / her own.

A great deal of research has been completed in this field and it is clear that people’s
views, thoughts and resultant actions can be very easily influenced by the
style, content and context of the coach / interviewer. Furthermore, it has been
shown that even deeply seated memories held around actual events can be altered
by the use of emotive, suggestive or psycho-linguistically powerful words
during interviews or conversations.

It is now widely held that the emergence of a ‘repressed’ memory in subjects is, in fact,
nothing of the kind and is a new ‘implanted’ memory either consciously or
sub-consciously created by the coach, therapist or interviewer.

In an experiment, 500 subjects were shown a film of a simulated car crash. After
watching the film, 50% of the test subjects (Group A) were asked this question:

‘How fast do you estimate the cars were travelling when they hit each other?’

The average response was 31.5 M.P.H.

The other 50% (Group B), who had seen the same film at the same time, were asked this question:

‘How fast do you estimate the cars were travelling when they smashed into each other?’

The average response was 57.5 M.P.H.

It is clear that the emotive and psychologically powerful addition of the word ‘smashed’
rather than merely ‘hit’, triggered a much higher estimation of the speed
involved across the subjects. This has major implications in the collection of
witness statements to accidents or incidents.

One week after the screening of the ‘accident’, Group A and Group B were asked:

‘In the film, do you remember seeing any broken glass on the floor?’

Group A (hit) responded:                    YES  5%         NO 95%

Group B (smashed) responded:         YES 70%        NO 30%

It is clear that memory can be influenced by the use of emotive words. In reality, the film
did not show any broken glass on the floor.

This experiment led Greater Manchester Police to review their process of obtaining
witness statements. Clearly, it is important that witness statements are as
reliable as possible and free from contaminating questions. They found that
they had been using questions like:

‘How angry did the man look?’

‘How fast was he driving when he sped out of control?’

Obviously, questions like this are likely to ‘colour’ the interviewee’s memories and
responses at best, and at worst may change them completely.

G.M.P. have, in consultation with U.M.I.S.T., developed an interview process called
Cognitive Witness Statements which they believe will produce more reliable and
unbiased information. The process is simple but effective and they have called
it O.T.E.D.

O Open questions (who, what, why, when, where and how.)

T ‘Tell me…’

E ‘Explain…’

D ‘Describe…’

This process minimises contaminating questions and helps to release uncontaminated memories.

In a coaching process, it is just as important to allow the person being coached to create
their own well-formed (desired) outcomes and not to have them contaminated or
influenced by the coach.

Tony Moss.

When I was a kid I was always being told to concentrate. Concentrate on this, concentrate on that, Why aren’t you concentrating Moss?

I guess it’s about focus. But here’s the question. How come I seem able to pilot my big silver bus (nearly two tonnes) at 70 mph all the way (75 miles) home each evening without someone yelling CONCENTRATE at me incessantly? In fact, mentally, I spend this time walking and shooting on Anglezark Moor!

I seem (touch wood) to do it safely as well. I wonder if there is such a thing as subconscious focus? There’s a paradox for you. I think my autopilot is a better driver than me. I’ll stay on the Moor and pop a couple of pheasants whilst he takes me safely home.

Where does your head go when you’re driving?

Tony.