What’s an example of good management? What’s the behavioral analysis approach?
Aubrey C. Daniels provides an alternative to ineffective management strategies that we’ll call the behavioral analysis approach. He describes this approach as a five-step process.
We’ll give an overview of Daniels’s good management example below.
The Most Effective Management Strategy: The Behavioral Analysis Approach
This good management example sees managers systematically analyzing the factors that influence employee behavior, rather than relying on intuition or trial-and-error methods. Then, they carefully optimize both antecedents and consequences to maximize what Daniels calls “discretionary effort”—employees’ willingness to go above and beyond their basic job requirements so that they take initiative to improve their performance and contribute more to the business. Discretionary effort is key to employee engagement—one of the markers of a successful business.
(Shortform note: Although Daniels argues that optimizing antecedents and consequences promotes discretionary effort, other experts disagree. For example, in Drive, Daniel Pink argues that extrinsic motivators (which include both antecedents and consequences) are ineffective. Instead, he proposes that intrinsic motivators like autonomy, mastery, and purpose are more powerful in encouraging employees to go above and beyond. Research suggests that both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators can promote employee engagement, so you may find it helpful to combine Daniels’s approach with strategies that tap into your employees’ intrinsic motivations.)
Daniels writes that the behavioral analysis approach beats out other approaches for two reasons:
First, it’s systematic and rooted in empirical evidence. Managers use science-backed behavioral management principles to effect the change they want to see. Then, they measure the impact of their interventions and fine-tune their methods over time. (Shortform note: In Competing on Analytics, Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris discuss how organizations that base their decisions on data and analysis consistently outperform their intuition-driven counterparts. This supports Daniels’s assertion that a scientific approach to behavioral management is superior.)
Second, it’s universal. Daniels says that the principles of behavior analysis apply across a variety of situations and settings. This means you can use his approach no matter what kind of business you run. (Shortform note: Psychologists generally agree that operant conditioning—the basis of Daniels’s approach—is a universal principle. However, sociologists note that behavior is largely situational; it varies based on context. It’s important to tailor your approach to suit the situation you’re in. For example, consider sociocultural workplace norms: In an individualistic culture, employees might respond positively to rewards like bonuses that emphasize personal achievement. Conversely, in collectivist cultures, employees might prefer group rewards.)
