Immediate Feedback

I was driving along the other day and recognized that I had changed my behavior. I’m a guy so this is indeed a significant moment of self awareness. I don’t think anyone else noticed this change in my behavior but me, but it was a change none the less. I have one of those cars that have a little indicator on the dashboard that tells me when I am being economical in my driving habits. Some cars have very cool indicators such as leaves. The more leaves that are visible, the more economical you are being. Mine doesn’t do that. It says “ECO” or it doesn’t say anything. On or off. That’s all you get. But it is immediate, and that is what I wanted to talk about.

In the past I never got the sort of immediate feedback from my car that encouraged me to be economical. The only feedback that I got was a delayed, periodical feedback when I needed to refill my car with gas. I would stand there filling up (because full service gas stations like the one I used to work for when I was a kid are things of the past) and watch the price wheels whirl around gyroscopically fast due to the immense centripetal forces acting on them. I would try to think back to how long ago that it was that I previously filled up, and wonder what else I could be doing to lengthen the interval and hence become more economical and save some money.

What my car told me was that most of the time I was being pretty economical. I sort of got in the habit of checking both my speed and my economy rating as I drove. I found that when I became frustrated with slow movers who insisted on remaining in the left lane while traffic whizzed by them on the right, people who were obviously lost and needed to get off the road, find a parking lot and call someone to get directions, or anybody who was ignorant enough to be texting while driving, and did all I could to rapidly get around and away from them, my little “ECO” light went off.

This is not the change in behavior that I was talking about.

I still want to be nowhere near these moving road hazards as they navigate through their commutes, and will expend a little extra gasoline in order to achieve this goal.

What I do want to talk about is all the other less apparent and visible times that the “ECO” light went off and gave me the immediate feedback that I might not be driving as economically as I could be. I have smoothed out my accelerations and anticipated my stops. I have become more aware when my car is being operated in an economical mode. I have changed my behavior.

Now I have been driving for a long time. I started driving when some cars that are now considered “classics” were then considered “junkers”. I have filled the tanks in the various cars that I have owned for years. Thinking back, this was the only time that I got any feedback regarding the relative economy of my driving habits, other than my mother and later in life my wife telling me to slow down. This feedback was delayed. It was feedback that was given well after the behavior had been exhibited. In fact I think most of the time that I actually got this feedback the car was off and I was standing outside of it trying to fill it up.

I can’t really think of a single instance where I would call the feedback associated with the expense of paying for yet another tank of gasoline constructive or supportive. It was usually more of the negative feeling associated with giving away some of your hard earned money for something that you were just going to burn.

Yet for years I had gone on with this post behavior, periodic feedback without really materially changing the behavior that was driving what could at best be described as negative feedback. It took something as simple and small as immediate positive behavioral reinforcement feedback in the form of a little light on my dashboard that came on when I was doing the right thing. It worked.

Now let’s metaphorically switch gears (there have been several of these automotive metaphors sprinkled in so far) and apply what I have learned to business, which is usually the subject for any of these articles.

Most people who work report to someone. If you report to someone, chances are that periodically you are either going to have a review in which you are provided feedback, or have a review in which you will provide feedback. The parallel here is that this review will be the opportunity for someone to refill your tank, or for you to refill someone else’s tank. As I pointed out above, filling the tank is not usually synonymous with having a good time or a positive event.

As trite as it may sound, I think the idea of utilizing an immediate positive behavioral dash light, the first successful driving behavior altering event (for me anyway) may be a new and better way of positively modifying or reinforcing positive employee behavior, which if I am not mistaken is one of the primary goals of employee reviews.

I have tried to maintain a closer view and review with my team since recognizing this behavioral modification key in myself. I have taken to reinforcing the desired behaviors and events with my team on a much more regular basis. Instead of dwelling on or going into greater depth on those issues that are not performing in the desired manner, I ask that they look at the opportunities where we are getting good results and pattern their actions and activities in a similar manner.

One of the keys here is not to confuse immediate feedback with micro-management. Telling people what to do, or providing infinite feedback on everything that they do will probably not assist in achieve either the desired goals or the desired behavior. It will probably just annoy everyone, yourself included.

Pick the specific desired goal. In my car’s case it was fuel economy. It didn’t try to tell me how to steer, drive, maintain or clean my car. It just told me when I was operating it in a relatively economical manner. Each business and probably each group within the business will have a primary goal, to which behaviors should be pointing.

Pick the feedback methodology. My car told me when I was doing the right thing. It rapidly became apparent to me when I was not doing the right thing because my car was no longer telling me I was doing the right thing. That fact alone made me want to change my behavior so that I continued to get the positive feedback and reinforcement. I like positive reinforcement and feedback. I think most people do. Reinforce the positive and ask how they can move that which is not positive now into the positive in the future.

Stick with it. I have had my car for a while. Thinking back I am pretty sure it has had this economy metric since it was manufactured. I am not entirely sure I recognized when I was paying attention to it, but I do know now that looking back my behavior and driving habits have changed for the better (more economical)…
…except when I find myself behind a slow-poke in the left lane, a lost soul in the city, or a texting idiot.

Some behaviors take longer than others to change, but I am still hopeful.

There will continue to be those periodic reviews where there is a prescribed format for the review. They can be annual, semi-annual, or just about as often as you want, or can stand. They will also invariably be of the “you did this right, you need more work here” type of review. The big issue for me will be that they are appreciably separated from the actual behavior that is the subject of the review.

Sort of like the filling up of the gas tank as the metric of how economically you have driven over the last period.

If you really want to make progress with the team regarding goals and behavior, you need a dashboard light that provides immediate feedback.