I like that people in my industry are well intentioned and passionate. I also like that everyone wants to fix the problem.
What I don’t like? People don’t know what they don’t know. As I said, everyone in my industry is well intentioned and passionate. That is the good news. The bad news is that the training industry is largely driven by lawyers. I love lawyers, but they don’t know what they don’t know. They know the law. So the laws governing harassment training are law focused. The assumption is, if we just TELL people it’s against the law, they’ll stop harassing people. The problem is, never in the entire history of humanity as asking a person to stop bullying worked. Never. Not once.
The result is we have a huge industry and requirements to do training and the trainings are required to inform people about the law and their remedies under the law, but the law doesn’t say that they should also include information on how to make unwanted behavior like bullying and harassment stop.
The same thing is true of psychologists. The solution to the problem of unwanted behavior is a well researched operant conditioning technique known as “extinguishing a behavior.” The problem, it comes out of behavioral psychology and not clinical psychology. Further, the only people who really understand how to apply the technique appear to be animals trainers. This again falls into people not knowing what they don’t know. The good news is every psychologist I’ve ever talked to – is excited about the application of this. It’s just that they seem to need to be reminded as their training didn’t focus on behavioral modification.
If you want to be part of that change – first step – educate yourself. Join this blog and take advantage of all the free materials I find. Maybe even buy my book. Second step – share what you learn. I can’t make this change happen on my own. I need help. Please be that help.