What Gets Rewarded Gets Done

The walk

I have always thought sheep dogs were intelligent. I didn’t realise, until recently, that they are smarter than me.

I was walking with Kate — a friend of mine. Her sheep dog, a Border Collie called Harvey, was with us. After 10 miles or so Harvey seemed to be flagging. He stopped at a gate and refused to go any further. I decided to offer him a biscuit from my bag and that did the trick. At the next gate Harvey started running out of steam again, so out came another biscuit. We didn’t even make it to the next gate before he stopped and refused to budge until I fed him.

The lesson

I commented to Kate that Harvey seemed tired. Kate looked at me with an “Are you stupid?” expression on her face and said

“No, Harvey has trained you to give him a biscuit every time he stops!”

It sounds obvious, looking back, but it proves the old phrase  — What gets rewarded gets done.

Do you understand the behaviours that you are rewarding in your business?

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Image by Beat Tschanz

This post was first published on madetomeasurekpis.com