What The Dog Knows

 In the early 1900s, a dog in France became a local hero. A child playing on the river bank fell into the water and was in imminent danger of being drowned. The dog, hearing the cries and the splashing, leaped over a hedge, ran down the bank, and plunged into the stream just in time to rescue the little victim."

  To reward the pup’s great action, they gave him  “a succulent beefsteak." The dog had learned a great lesson -- save a child, earn a steak dinner -- and that turned out to be immediately important, for not two days later, "another child fell into the water and was rescued by the dog,". And again, the dog was rewarded, this time with "some caresses and another beefsteak."

 Then it happened again.

 And again.   

 Almost every day, a child would mysteriously fall into the river near and, coincidentally, the heroic dog would be there to pull the child out of the water and to safety. And invariably, the dog would be heralded again as a hero and given a nice meal for his great work.  

 Now the town became suspicious. Was some ne’er-do-well trying to drown its children? So, they set up a neighborhood watch to keep an eye on the river's edge. And after a few days, their suspicions proved correct: They saw someone knocking a young child into the water. 

It was the dog.

 The dog had been taught that dragging a child out of the river would net him a juicy steak. To earn the reward, though, there needed to be a child to rescue, and those were few and far between. So, the dog created his own rescue opportunities As was reported "whenever he saw a child playing on the edge of the steam, he promptly jumped into the rescue."

 If a dog can figure it out, why can’t we. Behavior rewarded is behavior requested. If we don’t want complaining, quit responding to the complaints. If we need workers, don’t work them to death. If we need leaders, don’t second-guess them at every turn. If we don’t want people to quit, stop making them feel like it is better if they are gone. If we want people to come, make it worthwhile.

  As Charles Schwab put it, “I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism”.

 Are we rewarding the behaviors we want or the ones that we don’t?