Episode 362: Dr. Susan Friedman Pt 3: Influence

This is Part 3 of our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman. Dr Friedman is one of our favorite guests on this podcast. She’s a professor emeritus in the psychology department at Utah State University. She’s been a long-time member of the Clicker Expo Faculty and she runs the very popular on-line course Behavior Works: Learning and Living with Animals.

In Part 1 Susan shared with us her most recent project - the Behavior Works Zoo School which you can read about at BWZS.org. We talked about why teams matter.

In Part 2 the conversation centered around how to develop great working teams. We talked about what it means to be a leader. How do you maintain control and support a creative, generative team? Susan discussed ways to maintain healthy teams.

Part 3 is about influence. Susan reminds us that we have evolved to be influenced by our environment. To build an effective team you need to get the explanation for a person’s behavior out of the inside of the person and into the environment where it belongs.

To use Susan’s example: instead of talking about what a jerk someone is, we should be looking at how the environment selected for that jerky behavior and how the team can change the environment to change that jerky behavior.

To build a good team you need to commit to the science of behavior.