Hi, it's Mike Raven. Welcome to episode 3, 17 of lean blog audio today, I'm reading a post that was published on October, 4th, 2021, titled dolphins are also smart enough to game the system to get more. So I really enjoyed an article a month ago. This article when it was sent to me, it's from 2003, but it was new to me. The headline said, why dolphins are deep thinkers Hours. I should have mentioned if you want to find a link to the
article. You can find my original blog post online at lean blog dot org, slash audio, 317 wide, ahlfors are deep thinkers the sub.
Headline says the more we study dolphins the brighter, they turn out to be So it says in the article, all the dolphins at The Institute for Marine Mammal studies in Mississippi are trained to hold onto any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer when they can trade the litter for fish in this way, the Dolphins help to keep their pools clean. Now, if you're familiar with the concept of gaming, the system
you might predict what happens. Next, given the reputation that dolphins have for their intelligence. I've written about this concept Before with posts including the following and you can find links to all of these again lean blog dot org. Slash audio 317 these posts include lessons from the Wells Fargo Scandal, mismanagement and gaming the numbers. The real VA scandal is the long waiting times and bad management. Not gaming, by the staff gaming, the system graduation rates and
pneumonia rates. Easier to game the numbers, then fix the system in education and Healthcare. A vivid example of gaming, the numbers on the office gaming, the system at Starbucks. And then finally, there's one of my favorite examples, the police officer who find themself to meet his ticket writing quota, if you can believe it, this happened in Poland some years ago and that blog post was titled. What would demmings a Polish police officer finds himself to meet quota.
So there's all kinds of links. I mean this is a topic that comes up a lot. So is the officer there in Poland like a dolphin? I mean, this is a post about dolphins. So Kelly, the litter fetching dolphin, for Mississippi. According to the guardian Kelly has with the Brits, might call a scheme. One, a person drops, a litter in the water too. Kelly could turn in the paper for a fish but Kelly tears. The paper into smaller pieces 3 Kelly.
He turns in each smaller piece of paper for a fish Kelly. The dolphin has gamed the system to get more fish. That's amazing as it says, in the article, this behavior is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification she has realized that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so it delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food. Coming. She has again, the dolphin in
effect has trained the humans. Well, that's not all, that's not the extent of Kelly's. Cleverness, When a gall a bird when a golf flies into the enclosure, Kelly could turn him. The bird to get a fish. Here's the scheme. Kelly came up with one capture a gall to turn it in for a fish. Three take the fish and hide it for use the fish as a lure to attract more Gauls, five get even more fish. What's even more amazing? Is that Kelly the dolphin even taught this gaming Behavior to a young calf.
That's it's mind-boggling. There's a lot of interesting details about dolphins in the article and again you can find a link to it at lean blog dot org, slash audio 317, the article ends with this, there is still much to learn about these flexible problem solvers. But from the evidence so far, it seems that dolphins. Do indeed deserve their reputation for being highly intelligent.
So to add a few more thoughts, you know, in a human workplace, there's a fine line between gaming and problem-solving. The article referred to the dolphin as a problem solver. Gaming tends to be dysfunctional, but it's natural, human behavior that results when you have a combination of targets or quotas combined with fear, when it's easier to game the system than it is to actually improve the system.
People will game the system, they're often doing so to get rewards and praise or they're doing so to avoid punishment or to save their jobs. Now as Leaders, we have to be careful when giving incentives that are intended. To get behaviors that we want is Daniel pink wrote about in his excellent book, drive incentives, work, but they have side effects. I was able to do a podcast with Dan in my lean blog interviews series decade ago.
It's from episode 107. You can find it at lien blog dot org slash 107 and Dan has an upcoming book. He's agreed to be a guest on my Mistake. So hope you will join us to listen to that. If you're not listening to the my favorite mistake podcast series, please do so you can find it in your podcast app or go to my favorite mistake. Podcast.com. So as Leaders as Dan pink and dr.
Deming and others taught us, we have to think about how an incentive scheme might cause people to to scheme instead of just pressuring people we have to eliminate fear is dr. Deming would have said we have to work with. People to help them actually improve the systems. They work within there's a great scene from Ted lasso season one where coach lasso tell Sam Oba Sonia to be a goldfish, meaning to have a short memory about a mistake or a failure.
If we're a management goldfish, if you will, who quickly forgets the lessons of organizations that pressured employees into gaming, the system, we might create more dolphins in our Workplaces. Don't blame them for gaming. The system. You've given them. No choice. It's only dolphin, I mean, it's only Human Nature. So again you can find this blog post at lean blog dot org, slash audio 317.