[tarkin2]

Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation? Perhaps the answer is yes when we also compare a worker's motivation to a dog's motivation seemingly without irony.

[catlifeonmars]

> When you train a dog, you have to give a reward very soon after the desired behavior, otherwise the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior. Likewise, a manager is not going to associate a slight towards an employee with an increase in absenteeism or lower productivity that happens days and weeks later.

Note that GP is comparing the _managers_ motivation to a dog’s motivation, not the worker. It’s about a delayed feedback loop to the manager, who won’t connect the punishment (lower productivity) with the bad behavior (slighting the employee).

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

>It’s about a delayed feedback loop to the manager, who won’t connect the punishment (lower productivity) with the bad behavior (slighting the employee).

It's delayed because the employee fears further retribution still. You need some distance between yourself and the bloodthirsty dog before you can even hope to reduce your productivity, or you'll be mauled quite enthusiastically. By delaying it for days or weeks, by being out of sight when it happens, there is plausible deniability that can let them survive the attacks.

Managers do this to themselves, they punish people who would give them the quick feedback loop.

[fuzzfactor]

So it's the manager who is in need of further training more so than the nominally-producing worker, if the overall productivity is to increase most directly.

[catlifeonmars]

Maybe maxing productivity should not always be the goal

[tarkin2]

The point is that /anyone/ is being compared to a dog, that the whole relationship is being compared as such. It's demeaning and is pretty much a slight, ironically enough (albeit directed towards the manager in this occasion)

[csallen]

The entire point of comparison is to be able to point out similarities between two different things.

If you ignore the specific similarities being pointed out (learning and training work similar in different mammals), and you instead focus on the most offensive differences you can think of (dogs are lesser intelligent creatures than man), then of course you can find a way to be offended.

But doing so is optional, FYI. And counterproductive to an interesting conversation as well.

[catlifeonmars]

You don’t find Pavlov’s manager the least bit humorous?

[some_furry]

Do you reckon Pavlov associated a ringing bell with feeding his dog?

(Also as a furry this whole thread is funny.)

[fuzzfactor]

Well, when the situation requires working like a dog, some people can do it and some cant :)

[t-3]

Leadership, authority, command, etc. have many forms that don't necessarily match up with what is effective or how people would like to be treated as a subordinate. Assuming that managers know better than to be assholes to their employees (or vice-versa) is a huge and very wrong assumption. Social skills also benefit from training and practice like anything else. Many people have never seen or experienced professional and competent management, so they have no example to follow or model to emulate.

[pinnochio]

Having a documented effect and effect size puts this in terms that can change manager behavior, even a somewhat callous one, because they can see how it affects their own professional goals.

Btw, the comparison was between the dog and manager, and about the association of cause and effect. Maybe you should try to read more carefully and charitably in the future.

[tarkin2]

Well, to many it seemed that an obvious cause-and-effect fact that should have come from empathy and introspection--that workers are just like you and I don't like being slighted--and didn't need to be written about.

Yet when of the top comments used dog training to explain manager-worker relations--something that empathy and introspection could tell you was a bit off (would you feel slighted if I make our interactions analogous to an owner and dog?)--it may show, yes, such does need to be spelt out these days.

I recall the University of Manchester was teaching university students empathy.

[pinnochio]

Again, the comparison was between a dog and a manager. There's zero insinuation that a manager is like an owner and an employee like a dog. It does feel like you're looking for a pretext to feel slighted here.

That aside, I completely agree with you that managers should engage in empathy and introspection. I still think it's helpful, even for those that do, to have some empirical confirmation of how strongly employees can be affected by what might seem a simple oversight to an otherwise empathetic and introspective manager. But unfortunately, callous people tend to be chosen for management, and this research is also potentially helpful in aligning their own self-interest with their employees.

[hackable_sand]

I'm with tarkin. It was a thoughtless and cruel comparison.

There are a million other ways to illustrate the point without being a creep.

[shimman]

Teaching the rich/elites that we are all human is probably the best chance at self preservation they have.

[sudonem]

Given that many organizations literally refer to their employees as “Resource Units” literally abstracting away their humanity I’m going to say… yes. We are at that point (and have been for quite some time).

[SkyeCA]

There are few things that make me irrationally seethe like being called a resource. I understand why they do it, I even accept that I'm nothing more than a resource to them, but it really isn't a big ask for them to refer to us as humans when speaking directly to us.

[4er_transform]

People are animals like any other. That’s not a slight. Managers respond to incentives much like dogs do too, and so do execs, and board members, and every human.

[kibwen]

> Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation?

Never met a manager in your life, I take it?

[yunwal]

The top-level comment was being ironic. To explain the joke, the employees are withholding the reward of hard work from the employer because the employer behaved badly (by slighting them in some way).

[randycupertino]

I have an example of this that happened to me:

I received a referral bonus and where the company payroll made an error and accidentally gave me a higher bonus per the level of employee my referral reward was (they set it to the bonus level for a VP and she was a Sr. Director). So unbeknownst to me they gave me $5000 extra in my bonus that should have been only $3000, not $8k. Accounting figured this out next tax season, so then they informed me the would be clawing their error overpayment back had, which apparently is legal. Thus the $5k was taken out of my next paycheck. Their error was not my fault!

I was really annoyed and basically stopped going above and beyond for that company the rest of the year. :-/

It just seemed very petty and reactionary of them for something that was their error originally. This messed up my budget and suddenly having $5k less 9 months later that I hadn't anticipated was a bit of an unforeseen financial hardship. Also she had been my 5th referral to date that they'd hired!!

The whole thing was very demoralizing.

[hnaccount_rng]

I love that example. It’s a basic exercise in “for how little money can you break any amount of trust”. Not sure how they could avoid that (besides being competent in the first place..)

[randycupertino]

I felt like they should have just written off the error and let me keep it, as by the time they realized it, it was almost a year later, and I was a high-performer who had gotten promoted twice. I left the following year for a better opportunity, but this was sort of one thing that turned me 180* from being an all-in, kool-aid drinking culture-carrier to feeling kind of bitter and shafted by them.

[hnaccount_rng]

Depends on the future expected value that they assign to you. But.. yes

[AceyMan]

It's surprising how dumb management has gotten in the Almighty Chase for A Quarterly¹ Profit.

Remember, "it is very difficult to get a man to understand a thing when his job depends on his not understanding it." [editor:and that goes doubly for MBAs] —Upton Sinclair

¹—added adjective

[anonymars]

Indeed, they're not animals--we don't want them demanding hay https://dilbert-viewer.herokuapp.com/2002-08-05

[mejutoco]

I think you responded to the wrong post. I did not suggest or made any of these comparisons or comments. I simply recommended a book about training dogs or other animals, and the clicker method.

[benj111]

Technically I believe the dog is the manager in this metaphor.

The length of time between behaviour and reward/punishment is too great. So to train your manager you need to go home straight away.

[melagonster]

If you’ve read some Carnegie, you'll find that he just discusses a lot of well-worn idoms: such as that sincere praise is better and the importance of treating people kindly... His work built the foundations of management. I guess from the moment middle managers existed, humans have generally been poor at managing others.

[9rx]

I thought it was interesting. Going through something like this myself right now, I learned that I don't lose motivation to do the work. I gain a motivation to cut the person out of the picture.

[grayhatter]

> Have we got to the point where we need an article telling us that slighting people doesn't help their motivation?

American culture is unfortunately permeated with examples, and habits, and expectations around punishing the behaviors you'd want to see. I see subtle things like that all the time. So while I doubt anyone who stopped to actually think about the concrete implications of their behavior, more specifically their unconscious habits; wouldn't be able to describe how insulting people, or really, how discouraging people is likely to have a negative outcome. The catch being, most people don't stop to consider anything. Thoes who do, are exceptionally rare.

As an example, someone posted a comment providing context, and encouraging people to be curious and grow their skill set with techniques that will help them with dogs, (and yes, these do translate to humans as well.)

Which invited a negative comment from you attacking people who aren't perfect every single moment of every single day, who might benefit from a reminder that how they treat others matters. Also indirectly attacking the person you replied to.

(See what I mean about the culture of punishing the behavior, you want to see? Or did you intend to discourage curiosity?)

> Perhaps the answer is yes when we also compare a worker's motivation to a dog's motivation seemingly without irony.

You can train a human using the exact same skills you use to train a dog. Just because humans are also, in addition to those able to do a lot more, and learn in an astronomically larger set of ways, doesn't exclude the techniques that work best with dogs. You forget this at your own peril. I.e. if the way you behave wouldn't encourage the behavior you want from a dog well, it sure as hell wont encourage the behavior from a human. All humans, including you, are not that special, get over yourself. rhetorically speaking

[gorgabal]

> You can train a human using the exact same skills you use to train a dog.

Depending on the context, this can traumatize a human though. This idea has been the basis for both gay conversion therapy and applied behavior analysis. The latter I have had the misfortune to directly experience myself.

[grayhatter]

You don't think those same things traumatize the dog too? There's a reason why all reputable dog trainers advocate exclusively positive training methods. It's because training with exclusively positive feedback is not only most likely to get the behavior you want. It critically avoids destabilizing the dog. Negative reinforcement learning does works, but it also leads to anxiety, and "reactionary outbursts". i.e. the dog learns to become afraid, and is more likely to bite you. Only abused dogs bite their pack in fear. Just like only abused humans attack their community.

[gorgabal]

Agreed. I didn’t intend to specifically exclude dogs. My wording could have been better.

[nandomrumber]

> Just like only abused humans attack their community.

Gonna have to pull you up here.

It’s estimated that approximately 1% of the general population is estimated to have high levels of psychopathy.

These people don’t need an excuse, and have no reason, to be dangerous.

[grayhatter]

> It’s estimated that approximately 1% of the general population is estimated to have high levels of psychopathy.

> These people don’t need an excuse, and have no reason, to be dangerous.

Psycohpathy is defined as behaviors that conflict with pro-moral and pro-social norms. Are you trying to say that antisocial behavior is exclusively genetic, and isn't influenced by the environment? And if it is influenced by the environment, how does that conflict with what I said.

Or, more directly do you think that someone abandoned and abused by their caregivers as a child wouldn't test high on a psychopathy evaluation?

Also IIRC that 1.2% is just any clinically significant symptoms. Non-violent, pro-social, low empathy. Would still test high on that test.

[realo]

I thought this was more about training your manager...

[alemanek]

Probably, which is unfortunate. I have personally seen a VP be shocked that morale tanked after a large layoff. I think he said “you would think they would be happy they still have jobs”. Lots of sociopaths in the C-Suite.

[patrickk]

This comment comes across as written by someone who hasn't seen a toxic work environment.

Sociopaths often make up an unusually large percentage of the upper layers of management. They won't hesitate to step on people to get ahead, and use the typical conflict aversion of regular people to their advantage- causing drama and fights, wearing others down, and eventually getting their way because most people just want their pay cheque, not to go into battle constantly.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

[dsabanin]

We definitely do. How else are the LLMs that are going to replace managers will learn that? /s