Workplace learning strategies and organizational development

Workplace Learning

The subject of behaviorism, being a very complex phenomenon, is still in its infancy. Therefore, the characteristics of human behavior are still being studied and many theses and antitheses are being presented by modern day theorists. Initially, many theorists believe that there are two inescapable disparities and holes in every behavioral explanation: one amid the energizing act of the surroundings and the reaction of the organism and the other one amid repercussions and the consequential transformation in behavior. These theorists believe that these disparities and holes can only be eliminated and filled by the expansion of brain science (Stephen B. Klein and Robert R. Mowrer, 2001).

On the other hand, modern theorists of behaviorism believe that brain science will not be able to fill the holes and end the disparities in the behavioral science. They believe that it is the connection amid information and expression organized in the brain and the behavioral knowledge that is required (Stephen B. Klein and Robert R. Mowrer, 2001).

Since the purpose of this paper is to assess the behaviorist perspective on learning and its capacity to explain the human learning within the workplace, this paper will present the importance of learning and how learning can be enhanced in a workplace environment from a behaviorist's perspective. This is important because after clearly understanding the significance of learning and enhancement theories in a workplace from a behaviorist's perspective, one will clearly understand the capacity of behaviorism to explain human learning in a workplace environment.

Behaviorism as a learning Process in a work place environment

The influence of the phenomenon of behaviorism on the human learning process in a work place environment is a relatively new concept. Nonetheless, theorists have arrived at certain noteworthy explanations and techniques to alter and enhance the human behavior, which will productively assist the learning process in a workplace environment. David C. Leonard (2002) writes, "One of the four major learning theory schools, behaviorism is the belief that instruction is achieved by observable, measurable, and controllable objectives set by the instructor and met by the learners who elicit a specific set of responses based upon a controlled set of stimuli. Based upon B.F. Skinner's initial research work with mice in the 1930s, behaviorism made the assumption that by controlling the lab environment of mice, they could be trained to behave consistently. Humans also, if provided with a correct stimulus, would be able to be trained to respond in a particular manner exhibited by a set of behavioral outcomes (David C. Leonard, 2002)." At present, it is clear that behavioral scientists have been successful in proving Skinner's theory of behaviorism. This paper will now evaluate the significance of learning within a workplace environment from a behaviorist's perspective.

Importance of Behaviorism in human learning in a workplace

Autoclitic Behavior

Behaviorists believe that managers trying to enhance workforce productivity have got to understand the imperative role of communication in the learning process. Both, talking and listening plays an important role in influencing others to take appropriate actions. Communication not only helps the managers convey their perspective to the employees but also assists employees in understanding each other and the dynamics of the organization. David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "Both human talking and listening are actions that are directly influenced, just like any other behavior, by reinforcement from the environment (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Furthermore, behaviorists assert that managers need to create an environment where the workforce feels challenged and motivated so that they work hard towards achieving their organizations objective. It is necessary to create a proper environment to acquire the desired results because majority of the humans are entirely dependent on their environment to motivate them. The challenges and motivation will present the workforce with newer opportunities to enhance their knowledge about all aspects of their organization. Discussing human behavior David C. Leonard (2002) writes, "It is based entirely upon the environment and environmental responses." And that it is, "entirely dependent upon other verbal behavior to qualify responses, to express relationships, and to provide a grammatical frame to the verbal behavior." Therefore, communicating and creating a suitable environment is absolutely vital for organizations to enhance not only the learning process of their workforce but also the productivity of the organization (David C. Leonard, 2002).

Behavior Control

Behaviorists believe that managers need to understand the basic human behavior so that they can create suitable organizational policies. To be more precise, they need to understand the motivating factors, the demoting factors, the ambitions, goals and objectives of their workforce. Learning these aspects about their employees will allow the managers to control their behavior through reward and punishment policy. Describing the effectiveness of the behavior control technique, David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "This is the control of an individual's entire physical existence through rewards and punishments. With behavior control, the coercive agent seeks to control all aspects of the person's life: where one lives; what one eats, wears, sleeps; duties performed, etc. It typically involves a set of coercive techniques used to alter both the behavior and the attitude of the subject. Critics of behaviorism claim that those who seek to manipulate individuals through behavior-control techniques are using behavior-modification and operant-conditioning methods to accomplish their mission. Leon Festinger in the 1950s argued that to avoid cognitive dissonance, humans will sometimes subject themselves to behavior control, thought control (i.e., control of an individual's thought processes), and emotion control (i.e., the control of an individual's emotional life) (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Behavior Modification

Furthermore, behaviorists believe that the employers need to understand their employees' behavioral patterns and tune them in line with the organizations mission and values. While the behaviorist's perspective does not support Fail-Fire policy, it does believe in reward and punishment strategy, as explained above. Behaviorists explain that while modifying the behavior of the employees in a very complicated process, it can be a very speedy process, if the employers are able to understand their behavior patterns. Similarly the employees need to understand the behavior of their clients, and other stakeholders so that they can effectively deal with critical situations before these situations turn into a crisis. Discussing behavior modifications David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "Also referred to as behavior therapy, behavior modification is a discipline that focuses on methods of changing human behavior, in particular, dysfunctional behavior. Behavior modification is based upon a series of assumptions regarding human behavior. These include the following: We can predict human behavior because it follows certain laws and patterns and we can change human behavior through operant conditioning and other behavioral science techniques. Other assumptions of behavior modification are that the mechanisms of human behavior are the same for both functional and dysfunctional human action and that the internal state or thoughts of the individual are not the concern of the behavioral scientist seeking to alter the dysfunctional behavior (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Behavioral Repertoire

Behaviorists believe that the all individuals have his/her own behavioral patterns of learning. These patterns have to be understood before they are used to enhance productivity through learning. This is important because no human being will be able to perform activities, which are not in line with his behavior patterns. If these behavior patterns are not understood, then it will negatively influence the organization's capability to achieve its goals. Discussing behavior Repertoire David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "Animals are limited by their specific range of actions they can perform (their behavioral repertoire), which is predominantly based upon the structure and function of their bodies. For example, no matter how much coaxing or conditioning, elephants cannot be taught to fly nor can birds be taught to swim given their body structures. In operant conditioning, animals are limited by their behavioral repertoire to be taught and to perform particular sets of actions. A behavioral scientist sets up a stimulus-response association within the constraints of the behavioral repertoire of the species. However, no amount of coaxing, cajoling, conditioning, or training will yield the result of the animal performing actions it is incapable of doing given its physiological makeup. The more closely a desired response can be connected to the natural behavior and motion of the animal (its behavioral repertoire), the more likely the behavioral scientist will achieve a positive result (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Learning enhancement theories

Classical Conditioning

Living in a dynamic world where the only thing stable is change, organizations are confronted with numerous challenges and these challenges have to be met on a daily basis. Therefore, they would want their employees to be responsive to their instructions and effectively carry out their orders without questioning them. This can be achieved through what is called "classical conditioning" by behaviorists. David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "The most basic and simple type of behavioral conditioning is classical conditioning. Classical conditioning occurs when two unrelated stimuli are provided simultaneously to a subject, whereby the subject begins to associate the two stimuli together and the subject provides an involuntary, reflexive response (elicited behavior) without being mentally aware of why the response is occurring. The classic example of this type of conditioning is the feeding of Pavlov's dog, in which the dog is provided with two unrelated stimuli (food at the sound of the bell). After a time, the dog, upon hearing the bell, begins to salivate, even though food is withheld from the subject. The dog "learns" that the bell sound means food, without the dog undergoing any cognitive processing or thinking about the activity (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Connectionism

The motivations provided by the employers should be closely associated with the response of the employees. This will allow the employees to transform all their behaviors into a learning process and thus a never ending cycle of learning and improvement will be created. However, there are certain complications in implementing the "Connectionism Theory." David C. Leonard, (2002) explains this phenomenon in detail, he writes, "Edward Thorndike's behaviorist learning theory proposes that learning occurs through the close associations that occur between stimuli and responses without any consideration of the internal mental states which, by their very nature, are unobservable and therefore irrelevant. Thus the "connection" in connectionism is the S-R stimulus-response association that guides all behavior, including learning. Connectionism, according to Thorndike, follows three basic laws: the law of effect, the law of readiness, and the law of exercise. The law of effect states that responses to stimuli become habits when the effect of the response is rewarding to the 'organism.' The law of readiness states that there exists a chain of responses from the "organism" as it pursues an externally rewarded goal. If this chain is blocked at any point, it causes the organism a great deal of frustration and annoyance. The law of exercise states that the more connections become stimulated over time, the stronger (and more habitual) they become and vice versa (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Contiguity theory (behaviorism)

This theory believes that humans learn through trail and error; that humans do not react as strongly to rewards/punishments as they do to trail and error. In an organizational environment, this may be factual because of the immense competition and very little time the workforce has to gather itself and assess the situation. Therefore, the time between the motivation and the reaction to that motivation is very little. David C. Leonard, (2002) explains this phenomenon by asserting, "This is Edwin Ray Guthrie's theory, which postulates that learning is a result of the organism's association between a specific stimulus and a specific response. The classic study that Guthrie performed was on cats trying to escape the maze of a puzzle box. Trial and error is important to escape. By photographing the cat's movements, Guthrie observed that the cats learned to repeat their movement sequences based upon their last escape from the puzzle box. The cats improved their escape ability by unlearning movements that were not successful to their mission (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

There are however certain complex implications in this theory as well. For instance, while the employees may be able to quickly react to the incentives and kick start the learning process, they may also very quickly forget the lessons learned from the task, once the task is completed. Therefore certain things have to be taken into consideration when executing this theory.

David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "The key thing about the theory is that learning occurs immediately at the time of the response to the stimulus. Rewards and punishments are insignificant to learning. Forgetting what is learned is not a result of passage of time, but rather a result of interference. For the learner, as the stimulus becomes associated with other incorrect responses, the interference occurs. Within a human (versus cat) learning situation, contiguity theory stresses having the learners perform very specific tasks and making sure that their last response in the learning situation is correct, for that is what will be remembered and learned. The downside of the theory is that just as specific actions are quickly learned, so too are they quickly unlearned (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Contingency schedule

Certain behaviors of employees are constructive for the organization's success, while other behaviors are considered to be destructive. The Contingency schedule can resolve this dilemma by restricting the employees' negative behaviors by strengthening their constructive behavior. This will allow them to focus more on their constructive side and thereby enhance the productivity of the organization. The equilibrium created through this measure will pave way for an effectual learning environment, where all members of the organization can fruitfully participate.

David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "Important within the context of reinforcer and reinforcement theory, a contingency schedule is a method used to increase behavior modification in an organism by denying access to a specific action. In early reinforcement theories, a reinforcer is anything that reinforces behavior. For Hull, a reinforcer is anything that causes drive reduction in an organism. Generally speaking, a reinforcer is a stimuli, of which there are two types. A primary reinforcer is one that has as its basis the survival of the organism. A secondary reinforcer is a stimulus that is paired with a primary reinforcer. According to William Timberlake, the disequilibrium hypothesis postulates that each and all activities of an organism can be a reinforcer if the experimenter provides a contingency schedule whose sole purpose is to constrain the organism from accessing a particular activity. The contingency schedule creates in the organism a disequilibrium in which the restriction to activity access is itself a reinforcer. By providing a contingency schedule, the least probable activity that could be reinforced is reinforced in the organism (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Disequilibrium hypothesis (behaviorism)

When the workforce is overly restricted and controlled, tie laves negative and unconstructive influence on the workforce. They turn out to be less productive and less enthusiastic to learn new things about their line of work. This does harm the organization because in this dynamic nothing is stable and the workforce has to consistently up date it self with the latest developments. Similarly, too much freedom given to the workforce will also have a negative influence on the organization's performance. David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "This reinforcement theory of William Timberlake states that restricting access to a particular response from an organism makes that response even more reinforcing. Conversely, providing excessive access to a response makes that response even more punishing to the organism (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Empiricism

The senses play an important role in developing complex ideas. In the present day environment a good idea can be the difference between success and failure. The workforce is seen to be extra motivated and inspired after hearing the new ideas, which they feel will bring out positive results for the organization. This in turn spurs up constructive activities that eventually pave way for an environment where exchange of ideas becomes a norm.

David C. Leonard, (2002) writes, "Not really part of any one learning paradigm, but an influence on all, empiricism is the philosophical belief that the basis for the understanding and attainment of human knowledge (i.e., epistemology) is through sensory experience. Through the senses, humans gather information and process it. The human mind is thus a direct result of life and learning experiences. From sensory experience, humans derive simple ideas. From a combination of simple ideas, complex ideas are formed (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

The study of senses is not a new phenomenon; since research has shown that the concept had been alive even in the first millennium. However, as time progressed, newer theories related to the sensory perceptions and the human mind started evolving. These theories sometimes contradicted one another and other times supported each other's claims. David C. Leonard, (2002) explains the historical development of Empiricism, he writes "Empiricism's most obvious and ardent expositor in relatively modern times was the seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke. He believed that the human mind at birth was a blank slate (tabula rasa) upon which experience writes. In the eighteenth century, David Hume, often regarded as a radical empiricist, argued that we can be sure of nothing, for all of our knowledge is based upon subjective and personal sensory experience. From a philosophical perspective, empiricism, especially in its most radical form, was a tremendous influence on behaviorism, in which the study of mental events was regarded as irrelevant and off-limits. Instead, human behavior, not human thought, should be the focus of learning research. To the behaviorists, behavior can be scientifically observed and analyzed. This is not the case with human thought (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Goal gradient

In order to effectively enhance the motivational level of the workforce; they must be given tasks they can relate to. This can be gauged frpm the response they give after the task is given to them. An energetic response will prove that they are eager to execute the task and lackluster response will show that they are not all that keen to carry out the task. The goal gradient theory lies on the fact the habit-strength is the key to not only effective implementation of the task and but also promoting an energetic learning environment in the workplace.

David C. Leonard, (2002) explains the goal gradient theory in a very effective way; he writes, "A term related to Clark Leonard Hull's concept of habit strength, goal gradient refers to a measure of the time length between a response and the reinforcement of that response. The shorter the goal gradient, the higher the habit strength. In Hull's drive reduction theory, habit strength is the measure of a bond formed between a particular stimulus and a given response. The more the stimulus leads to obtaining a basic need, the greater the habit strength exists. Also, the more quickly (i.e., the shorter the goal gradient) that the need is fulfilled and met with a positive reward, the more likely that the habit strength will be regarded as high. The higher the habit strength, the more likely that the response will be repeated successfully by the organism (David C. Leonard, 2002)."

Habit family hierarchy

This theory believes that humans always take the easy way out and as a result fail to achieve excellence. In order to take the best out of the employees they should be given very little room to maneuver their responses and the responses given by them should be carefully judged so that only the most productive ones are appreciated. This approach will result in a very friendly and affable workplace atmosphere where learning and behavior transformation can become extremely easy and uncomplicated.

David C. Leonard, (2002) further elaborates the Habit family hierarchy theory, he writes "Within Clark Leonard Hull's drive reduction theory, the habit family hierarchy refers to the fact that there are a number of given responses that an organism may take with regard to a particular stimulus. However, one response that typically involves the least amount of effort is the one chosen because it is most likely to provide the quickest reinforcement. If this first response is blocked, the second and third responses (and so on), are selected according to what takes the next least amount of effort to draw the next quickest reinforcement. These multiple responses that follow a particular order, based upon their effectiveness in achieving the desired reinforcement, are known as the habit family hierarchy (David C. Leonard, 2002)."