Training Your Dog Through Punishment Should Be a Thing Of The Past

Punishment as a form of training is still widely used by dog owners who know no better when training a dog. What your dog sees as a punishment can take many forms: verbal (shouting or an angry tone), physical (kicking, hitting or other forced actions such as rubbing his nose in the carpet) or even the posture of his master. No dog wants to be punished, nor will he do anything 'on purpose' and be aware of the (physical) consequences beforehand.

If you come home to find your dog has upset the garbage can and spread the contents all over the house, he is unlikely to realize when he is being yelled at that it is because of the mess he made some hours ago. What he will do is associate the return of his master with physical or verbal punishment, making him anxious about you returning home. You may even begin to notice your dog showing fear towards you if your training methods have included physical punishment.

If you see your dog crawling or slinking around looking "guilty" about the time you have noticed something he did earlier, you might think he knows he has done something wrong. This is not the case. Dogs have no sense of right and wrong. When shouted at, he is not acting "guilty", but is in fact just showing submissive posture in response to your harsh tone of voice or angry demeanor.

There are forms of behavior modification that may be acceptable even though they are based upon negative reinforcement that you could use in correcting unwanted behavior in a dog. If this is a method you wish to use, it is best that the 'perceived punishment' does not come from you, but instead comes from the environment your dog is in. For instance, noise can be an effective form of correction. When the dog is caught doing something that is undesirable, a sudden loud noise can disrupt what he is doing. It is important that the sound does not appear to come from you, but is something that 'mystically occurs' whenever he is misbehaving - it can come from an air horn or a tin full of beans that is shaken to make a noise. In time, your dog will associate the unwanted noise with the behavior you want to correct and avoid doing it again, even when you are not around.

If any of the above sounds familiar to you, or punishment to correct your dog's behavior is not the way you want to train your dog, why not consider positive reinforcement as a training method? Positive reinforcement is the exact opposite of punishment as a dog training technique, and providing you are consistent, it can be much more effective, rewarding and enjoyable for both you and your dog.

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Punishment is an Ineffective Leadership Strategy

The measure of a leader is their ability to create an environment where followers produce their discretionary effort. Discretionary effort is probably best described as, "The behavior that a person chooses to do, but they wouldn't be punished if they didn't." Without a doubt, it has been clearly established that discretionary effort is the outcome of positive reinforcement and never punishment. This means that the organization that uses punishment will never achieve significant levels of discretionary effort from their staff. From a leadership point of view, punishment is counterproductive, yet it can be seen every day in the workplace.

One of the byproducts of punishment is that the workplace behavior becomes less stable and predictable. On the other hand, positive reinforcement will create stable and predictable patterns of behavior. Look at your organization. During the goal setting process is negative reinforcement factor? If it is, any improvement or development will be limited to the goal. Just enough to avoid any negative reinforcement. The logic is inescapable. Positive reinforcement must be the preferred consequence in business for the simple reason that it is the only consequence that produces discretionary effort. Negative reinforcement has some unpleasant and unwelcome side effects. When it is used to as the predominant consequence, things start to go wrong. Absenteeism increases, staff turnover increases, disputes increase, blame becomes endemic and morale sinks.

When you look at the two methods of reinforcement, either positive or negative, it's clear that the way to achieve anything is the use of positive reinforcement rather than punishment. Regrettably, negative reinforcement is by far the most common method of delivering consequences in today's workplace. The majority of managers and leaders don't know they are doing it. Groups that are managed by negative reinforcement, don't say anything in case there is some form of retribution. Often, they won't even give their opinion anonymously for the same reason.

Frequently, leaders may think that because they have very few face-to-face interactions with their teams, that they can't possibly be negatively reinforcing them. Unfortunately, when there is no active, frequent and consistent positive reinforcement the effect is the same as constant and consistent negative reinforcement. This is how the group members perceive the way that they are being treated. The neglect of positive reinforcement creates negative reinforcement. This is clearly shown by the person in a leadership position who says, "You get on with the job and you will only hear from me if it goes wrong." Obviously, this will not generate any discretionary effort and the person doing the job will take no risks, use no creative methods and to the barest minimum. This is obviously not very good formula for high performance.

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