Roll on the floor

"Perspective is worth 80 IQ points." – Alan Kay (American computer scientist and researcher)

My daughter Emma and I watched a show on Animal Planet last Saturday that made me laugh. Then it made me think. And then it made me realize I had laughed because I could identify with the people who made me laugh in the first place. I like it when it happens in that order.

The show is called “Who Gets the Dog?” and it is yet another “reality show,” this one a competition between three sets of people vying to adopt a lucky dog picked from the jaws of death at an animal shelter (or saved at least from the pointer fingers of small children poking them incessantly). The dog in question this week was a Rocky, a black Labrador Pointer mix.

During the show, each set of participants talked earnestly into the camera about why they would be the best parents for Rocky, what kind of home life they would provide, how they don’t mind if Rocky pees all over their imported Persian rugs and chews up their $468 Coach Beekman black briefcase with its front gusseted pocket made of glove-tanned cowhide, what Rocky would mean to them, how Rocky would change their lives forever, how much they loved their last dog that they nonetheless let run loose and were surprised when he got killed by a FedEx truck (my money was not on that group to win), and otherwise waxing poetic about Rocky and their adoration of our four-legged friends.

Dog specialists (people who read doggie “auras,” canine therapists, seers, behaviorists, and others too numerous to mention) rated the competitors who each hosted Rocky overnight, working to accomplish specific challenges during the sleepover—teaching doggie tricks to Rocky, for example.

One group was asked to teach Rocky to howl, another had to teach him to walk backwards. The third couple needed to teach Rocky to “pray,” putting his front paws up on their outstretched arm and “bowing” his head.

That last group provided the humor.

Essentially, they failed. They tried to talk Rocky into praying by showing him what it looks like, one fellow pretending to be a dog, his partner with outstretched arms yelling the word “pray.” Rocky looked bemused, I thought, in that “boy, I wish Spot were here to see this” kind of way, but definitely not inclined to mimic what he saw, seeing no reason to do it and not understanding that they wanted him to in the first place. Finally (and here is where I laughed, a laugh that included the daintiest of snorts), they actually resorted to conversing quite seriously with little Rocky about the presence of a higher being and what prayer is and means. I couldn’t make this up.

Must you be a dog lover to realize that the last strategy won’t work?

What went wrong, pray tell (sorry – I couldn’t resist…)? What might have been a more effective strategy to get Rocky to “pray”? The answer was provided by one of the experts, a dog trainer: first they needed to get Rocky to consistently lower his head by offering a treat and then continuing to lower the location of the treat while saying the word “pray,” praising him when he did it correctly, working diligently and repeatedly to positively reinforce the behavior. Only after that skill is solidly in place should they teach the paws-on-arm part of the trick, then put the two together, an altogether incremental approach that looks at each step, each behavior independently, unlinking the myriad of spiritual associations in the trainer’s mind of the concept of “pray” from the discreet behaviors that make up the action.

Perhaps the word “pray” gets in the way. Let’s look at it differently: Let’s suppose I invited you and some of your friends to my house for dinner and you’ve never been here before (yes, you can bring something: Hefeweisen with lemons, Joan Armatrading, Tracy Chapman, or Nina Simone CDs, and one or two or ten dark chocolate truffles). You get lost on the way and call me on your ubiquitous cell phone, describing where you are. Is it more effective for me to tell you how to get to my house from where I am or from where you are?

It’s not a trick question.

Obviously, I need to give you directions from where you are, turn by turn. I need to put myself in your space, see what you see, and move you from that point to where I am, or perhaps, in some instances, it’d be better to just come meet you where you are and hang out there for a while at the corner bar or bookshop, get comfortable, and talk a while about your neighborhood, meet the local characters—Floyd the barber, Goober, Andy, or more recently, Phoebe, Monica, and Rachel—so I can really understand where you are.

But how often when we’re trying to change someone’s thinking or behavior about something important to us (trying to get them to be where we are) do we stand steadfastly where we are, repeatedly insisting they “pray” (insert your issue here)  rather than looking at it from that person’s perspective, going where they are to start the conversation? This somehow reminds me of a man I used to work with who, in order to communicate with visitors from overseas—those “foreigners,” to use his welcoming terminology—adopted the strategy of speaking very loudly while moving his mouth in exaggerated ways to ensure understanding, getting louder and louder as the conversation continued—not changing the words if his listeners didn’t comprehend the meaning, but repeating the very same words over and over again, just increasing the volume and moving his mouth more widely rather than adopting a more effective strategy of—oh, I don’t know—speaking different words, taking another approach, meeting them where they were.

How much of my laugh at “Who Gets the Dog?” emerged from my own nervous realization that I, too, have been guilty of talking to people about the meaning of “pray” (insert your own topic here) or just increasing my volume when another approach altogether was required?

I see this in training rooms when talking about difficult issues like diversity: I presume a starting point and a willingness and passion and desire for awareness and change that often isn’t there, get frustrated when They don’t “get it” (the “they” we often rue), and keep going at them from that position on high where I am, a strategy similar to my colleague’s volume approach, further frustrating myself (and Them) and ensuring that they, in fact, will never “get it.” 

What would happen if at those moments I remembered Rocky and the concept of “pray,” really explored concepts with the learners in the room unencumbered by all the meaning I’ve attached to those ideas through the years? And what if I simply went where they are, saw things from their perspective, and helped them get to the destination bit by bit, breaking it down into small learning objects, discreet turns and navigations, rather than hammering them over the head with a large concept like “pray”?

And rather than “show” or “tell” learners what I wanted them to know—the equivalent of those doggie participants down on hands and knees to demonstrate “praying”—what would happen if I actually let learners experience what it feels like to be excluded, to be disregarded because of their skin color, to have to adapt to a dominant culture, for example? Showing Rocky what the desired action looks like was ineffective—they needed to engage him in actually doing it. What’s the learning in that for me as a trainer and facilitator (and as a mother, for that matter, and even more than that, as a human being)?

A tiny aside: How far down this “learning pyramid” (listing average retention rates for different instructional approaches) have I allowed myself to go–or does it feel too much like free-falling from my safe perch of lecturette? (click to enlarge, I’ve given up on figuring out how to reformat it…)):

Also, do we let our sophisticated and honed knowledge of issues and concepts stand in the way of being able to share them with others, teach others about them? I’ve been doing diversity work for a long time—am I making the error of not going below the surface of the words that I’ve co-created in my own mind, to better understand how others might make meaning from them?

Here are the 10 things I learned from little briefcase-chewing Rocky last Saturday:

 1) Language isn’t objective; it is full of associations created in our own minds. We must strip words down to bare structure sometimes, go beneath language to communicate, ensuring that we’re not layering meanings that others can’t see or don’t know. “Pray” doesn’t mean the same thing to Rocky as it does to me. I need to always remember that—where “pray” is replaced with the word, concept, behavior, or thing that I value and want others to learn.

2) There often needs to be a “treat” associated with learning a new trick: a tidbit, some praise, a clear reason, or (to use the happy vernacular of management consultants worldwide) a “business case” for doing what we’re asking Rocky to do. Rocky’s business case clearly revolves around liver treats.

3) I have to motivate Rocky with what matters to him (the liver treats of #2), not what matters to me (Hefeweisen, Joan Armatrading, those truffles).

4) To learn a new behavior or way of being in the world, people can’t just hear about it or see me demonstrate it. They have to do it themselves, try it out, fail sometimes, and get liver treats when they succeed.

5) We need to celebrate success more than we do. Whip out those liver treats and pig ears, let’s party!

6) Rocky (and people) need consistency; we can’t send mixed messages and expect results. It’s confusing and makes Rocky resort to submission peeing—you figure out the equivalent in humans.

7) It takes time to teach new tricks to a dog. A lot of dedicated, focused, engaged, consistent, and individualized time. Enough said.

8) We all make meaning in different ways.

9) I shouldn’t pretend that I don’t care if Rocky pees on my imported Persian rug and eats my $468 Coach Beekman black briefcase with its front gusseted pocket made of glove-tanned cowhide if I really do care.

10) Rocky learned best from the group of three goofy guys who got down on the floor and rolled around with him like a dog, shedding their human superiority; they honestly enjoyed him for who he is now, not who they wanted him to be. They went where he was.

That last group won the competition and took Rocky home with them to howl, walk backwards, and, of course, pray. 

~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~

The next time you get frustrated with someone who just isn’t “getting it,” slow down and ask yourself if it’s because you’re giving them directions from where you are, rather than from where they are. Remember Rocky. Roll on the floor and play. Shed your human superiority for a while.