Teaching A Dog To Whistle

I received this email last month...and I've spent a lot of time pondering it. I found it to be very profound. Here's what the email said:

A group of teachers are having discussion about a standardized test that the students have just taken. The children did not score as high as the teachers had expected.

One teacher said, "I do not understand why they scored so low. I covered everything that was tested." While this conversation is going on a veteran teacher, Mary, was listening intently to the teachers frustration.

What was said next drove home a very important point.
Mary waits for a pause in the teachers conversation and says: "I taught my dog to whistle."

"You taught your dog to whistle?" the teacher replied slightly puzzled, but curious.

"Yes, I taught my dog whistle." Mary replied as she smiled.

"Really? How did you teach you dog to whistle?"

Mary replied " I taught him to whistle. He does not understand how to whistle and I have not heard him do it yet. But I taught him to whistle."

How many times have we done the same thing? We explain how do something, but we just assume that everything is understood. Are we just "teaching our dogs to whistle"?

This email really started me thinking. I think this applies to life on so many levels...for parents, for teachers, for employers, or even for friends. For me, this hits home with regards to my team. I manage supervisors and they manage their reps while I oversee their work.

Life comes so fast and furious sometimes. Directives fly from everywhere. Everyone wants immediate results. There is no time to wait. No ramp up periods. When we get caught up in this and don't focus on training the behaviors...and only focusing on results, we do ourselves and those we're trying to teach an injustice. How can they get to the goal if we don't give them the tools to get there?

Behaviors have to be taught in steps. When someone models the desired behavior, it's important to recognize it and reinforce it through positive feedback and/or reward. And as they get better, we get better...and closer to our goal. And you build behaviors that will last long after you stop coaching to it because it's become a habit. A good habit.

I started wondering, much time do we spend spouting off whatever results we want and blurt a quick "cliff notes" version of how to get there without bothering to explain the whys or hows? And then we're shocked when we fail to attain the goal we set out for. Should we be? Did we not just guarantee ourselves failure?

And do we accept the blame or place it on someone else? Make excuses for our failure to execute? A wise manager of mine once told me about excuses..."I don't allow excuses, and neither should you. Allowing excuses enables your people to be less than what they're capable of. It tells them that you don't believe in them and that mediocre is okay to you because you accepted it from them. When you don't allow for excuses and you truly coach your people, you drive them to be better than they ever dreamed was possible and you achieve even bigger results than you expected."

I took this to heart...and I've found she's right. I watch teams where the manager, the example for the group, makes excuses, and I'm not at all surprised when I see the same behavior in the lower leadership...and reflected all the way down to the line level employees. And when they don't achieve the results they want, they are okay with that. There's no drive, no fire, no sense of pride their team.

I know I can grow, and that if I stop growing, so does my team. And I thought I'd share my most recent part of my growth process. If it opens any eyes the way it did mine, I'm glad.