Jeepney Press / Arnel Sugay

Rewarding Good Behavior

By Arnel Sugay

This is a story about a frog, a snake and a fisherman. One weekend, a fisherman decided to relax and go fishing. After a few minutes, he saw a snake near his boat, with a frog in his mouth. The fisherman felt bad for the frog. He reached for the snake and plucked out the frog from its mouth. The fisherman was happy. The frog was happy not to be eaten alive. The snake gave the fisherman a sad look.

Feeling sorry for the snake, he looked at his picnic basket and took a bottle of beer and poured it into the snake's mouth. Now the snake, the frog and the fisherman were all happy.

The fisherman went back to fishing, waiting for a fish to bite his bait. Half an hour later, he saw the same snake and this time the snake has two frogs in his mouth.

What can we learn from the story above? A behavior that is rewarded gets repeated. Make sure that we are only rewarding good behaviors.

Something similar happened in one of my workshops. The training runs for a few days. I started on time and I did not wait until everybody showed up. When others showed up I continued with my training without going over the material that they missed. The next day, all my late participants showed up on time. I rewarded those who came in early by respecting their time.

What are we rewarding both at home and at work? What behaviors would you like to see repeated?

Send your comments to arnel.sugay@gmail.com

illustration: Dennis Sun

Arnel Sugay / Jeepney Press