Bad Ass Training for Commercial Fishermen

By Theresa McKeon

They say it’s good to move outside your comfort zone. Over the years, I’ve had a terrific time pushing that zone wider and wider. I’ve also found that when you team up with new people, the comfort zone is infinite.

Comfort Zone Expansion - Case History #1

Commercial Fishing Crew and Management

The world has gotten a sneak peek at commercial fishing operations through cable shows such as "Deadliest Catch". The drama on these shows is heightened with editing, but the dangers and difficulties of working in close contact and difficult conditions are real.  Training is primarily for safety purposes and is often antiquated.  Injuries and poor quality control can sink a ship, but employee training on dangerous onboard machinery is virtually zero.  Tim Mientz, the former owner of “the Seafisher” describes his early attempts to bring productive training aboard his ship.

“I spent many thousands of dollars, got my crew together from around the world and brought in a professional suit-and-tie trainer. After two days, all I got from him was a suggestion that the guys take more time off and have some sort of Kumbaya picnic on an island somewhere. Are you kidding me?”

Tim realized his industry urgently needed specialized training and decided to get the ball rolling. Banding together with his safety regulations consultants, Amy Duz and Erika Seather (IWorkWise) the group did some research which led them to TAGteach International and Terry Ryan of (Legacy Canine and chicken training camps). Tim and Amy tasked us with creating a three day training program for crew and management, which would focus on the specific needs of commercial fishermen and processors. In some aspect or another, we were all about to go outside our comfort zones.



The TAG Team

The TAG Team, as we have come to be known has been around for 6 years and we have certainly broken the ‘suit and tie’ mold. The training looks something like this -

Fifteen to twenty men and women from every position on and off the ship arrive from points around the world. There are at least four native languages and some that don’t read or speak English. Graciousness is the first thing you notice. Everyone is on-time, sitting in seats, looking forward, and ready to go. After an introduction by Tim that includes attendees wining cold hard cash, the first eight hours is a crash course in clicker training chickens!  Terry dives in and takes the group through the foundations of operant conditioning by teaching them to recognize and shape discrete behaviors in chickens. The group learns that trying to force a chicken to acquire a skill is frustrating and a waste of time. Using the knowledge of the science of behavior to identify and change both the behavior of the chicken and that of the teacher is the path to success. That lesson crops up throughout the entire three days.

Introducing TAGteach

On the second day of training, I introduce TAGteach. We make the transition from shaping chickens, to communicating and training people. The connection comes early, and the Aha! moments come in tidal waves.

1. It’s not about the life form of the student; it’s about the teacher providing information the student can consume.
2. Yelling won’t make someone understand, especially since many of the crew speak English as a second language.
3. Nagging is a waste of energy. Energy is a precious resource on the ship.
4. Creating clear criteria during skill acquisition and providing timely reinforcement is far more likely to result in success.

The day is full of finding ways to incorporate TAGteach tools, especially the focus funnel into training.

Application of Behavioral Principles to Commercial Fishing Issues

The third day is led by Tim, Amy and Erika and once more the focus is on transition.  It’s a day of safe and open discussion about applying the information from the workshop to specific applications on the ship. The discussions can get heated, but they are tempered by shifting the focus back to problem solving instead of problem blaming.

The three days are intense, but peppered with time for brain rest, smoke breaks, meal times and communication opportunities for the crew. We use real poker chips from the local casino to inspire participation and fun. The poker chips can be used at the casino after training or turned in for cash. We’ve seen real success stories as crew and management have used the class as an opportunity to tackle issues of the past and set up for success in the future.

Way Out of Our Comfort Zone

The commercial fishermen came into a classroom full of chickens and thought, “Way out of my comfort zone”.  But after proper introduction, they were cooing and petting the chickens as if they were family dogs.  At the end of the workshop they were still in conversation about potential applications of TAGteach. “We can use this here.” “I can see that will help there”. They had successfully increased the comfort zone.

I came into a classroom full of commercial fishermen and thought, “Way out of my comfort zone.” But I was soon talking behavior and audible markers with the captain of the ship as we created training plans together. Together with Tim, Terry, Amy and Erika, I had kicked the edges of my comfort zone.
What’s next and who wants to go with me?

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TAGteach Presentations at ABAI

Every year TAGteach presents a session at the Association of Behavior Analysis state and international meetings. This gives us a chance to show our research results to the scientific community and to generate interest from others who want to apply TAGteach in their area of endeavor.  Each year excellent presenters join us to show the world what they have been doing with TAGteach. Below are slideshows of two of the presentations from 2010 ABAI. The third was discussed in a previous blog post.

The Combined Effect of TAGteach and Precision Teaching on Learning for Children with Autism - by Kevin Cauley and Elizabeth Benedetto-Nasho, Step By Step Learning Group Inc

Tagteach and Precision Teaching 2010

Creating and Following Directions In Hazardous Situations - TAGteach on the Bering Sea - by Theresa McKeon, TAGteach International.

TAGteach_ ABASymp_2010a

You can see a video that accompanied this presentation by clicking here. This video shows clips from a TAGteach consulting workshop where workers applied the TAGteach approach to solve some problems with training on work-related tasks.

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Learning to use TAGteach (Cascade Fishing Company)

Video shows a TAGteach workshop for the Cascade Fishing Company. The management has identified several tasks that on the boat have become NAG points. They broke them down and created TAG points. They really had to be creative, using props within a classroom to create the tag scenario. These inconveniences don't stand in their way of desiging clear directions for teaching. Bravo!

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Introducing TAGteach to Fishermen Part 6

An ongoing account of TAGteach introductions, triumphs and tribulations!
Chapter 5 of
TAGteach, Parrots and the Men from the Bering Sea!

Tagging the Table

By the afternoon, I thought the class was really starting to understand the TAGteach concepts and the benefits of delivering clear information and positive reinforcement.
Later that evening, I was sure of it.

While half sitting, half leaning on those cozy casino stools provided for those of us who station ourselves at nickel slot machines, I heard a louder than normal ruckus coming from the nearby roulette table.

Intrigued enough to leave my chance at nickel fortune; I found the guys from the Seafisher gathered tightly around the roulette wheel and table. Phil, yelled out, “Theresa, watch this!”
He showed me the tagger and started chanting to the roulette dealer…
“Click it, tip it…click it, tip it…click it, tip it”
The dealer just looked up a me with a big Cheshire grin.

They had been telling the dealer about TAGteach during the night’s gaming and jokingly told the dealer that every time they won, he would hear a tag (click) and that would mean a tip was coming for him. The dealer played along and soon everyone was clicking and tipping and laughing about the whole thing.

All of the laughter brought a bit of attention from the other casino customers and also produced a few security guards. Nothing illegal or suspect, just seventeen large burly fishermen chanting and making clicking noises at the roulette table…

The guys and the dealer explained to the security guards that all was quite well; they were just practicing positive reinforcement that they had learned about in a training seminar.

Although positive reinforcement can’t make a little ball fall into the desired slot of a roulette wheel, the dealer was rewarded when it did. Interesting concept…can one reinforce fate?

I told you these guys were brilliant!

Theresa

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Introducing TAGteach to fishermen Part 5

“The true test of a teaching methodology is its success across a spectrum.”

The first sentence of the first slide of the first TAGteach day said it all. TAGteach is a methodology that works...regardless.
I wanted to let the guys from the Seafisher know that although many of the examples and stories in the presentation were about TAGteaching gymnasts, golfers, kids with autism, and medical students, the methodology was universal and would certainly apply to them as well. Their minds should be set on “how this applies to me in my world”.

We continued with history and basic TAGteach information.
What is TAGteach?
What does TAG stand for?
What is a marker and why should you use it?
What are the benefits?

We let the guys practice tagging people on videos. This step is great to bridge the gap between clicking chickens and tagging people. It is a different feel and using the videos builds confidence and precision.
The group tagged examples like:
Using the inside of the foot in a soccer kick
Bent knees during a volleyball set
Straight legs in a handstand on balance beam

The seminar continued, loaded with games and practicals that provided on opportunity to experience teaching and learning with a focus on creating clarity. We talked about how to break down tasks into small crystal clear behaviors that could be tagged; tag points. The group had an “aha!” moment when they realized the added value that comes with tagging; competency assessment

Incorporating tagging and tag points provides the management or teacher a real time assessment of skill acquisition. An audible tag means “yes” success. No tag means “self assess and try again”. This method delivers as much information to the teacher or person tagging as it does the learner.

We often teach and then say “do you understand”.
The learner shakes their head “yes” because they don’t want to get in trouble, or do it again, or look foolish or whatever.
I have found that it is the rarest of times that the “yes, I understand” head toss is true to its implication.
This miscommunication between parties is the fuse that can torch a teacher/student relationship.
The teacher assumes the learner understands and moves on, expecting the behavior will be performed precisely as it was taught. The learner fears the impending failure.

Tag points provide clear incremental staging sites for success and assessment.
The tag point is given, “fish head facing in” (this was a real tag point for the guys lining fish up for efficient processing).
The tag is heard, the learner is reinforced by the sound of success (the tag).
If a tag is not heard then the learner looks at the position of the fish, mental replays the verbal tag point “fish head facing in”, corrects the position of the fish and receives reinforcement with the sound of the tag.
If the leader sees that the learner does not know why he didn’t receive the tag and cannot make the correction within a particular time frame, then the tag point can be taught again.
The leader is immediately made aware that for whatever reason, the information was not initially processed by the learner.

This particular benefit of tagging was meaningful to the group. A crew member not doing his job correctly can cause a myriad of problems: loss of production due to improperly cut, laid or packaged fish and of course any range of injuries from improper operations on the ship.

Next Chapter: Tagging the Roulette Table

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Introducing TAGteach to Fishermen Part 4

An ongoing account of TAGteach introductions, triumphs and tribulations!
Chapter 4
TAGteach, Parrots and the Men from the Bering Sea!

How Does One Reinforce for Learning to Reinforce Reinforcement?

Not a chair was left out of place, not a soda can or candy wrapper left on a table. This crew not only participated in every activity with great enthusiasm but now were seated and prepared for the second day even before the power point projector had even finished warming up.

OK, the guys were great, but what did we do to facilitate the process on day one?
We asked Amy and Tim “What do the guys really like?”.
"Well, they really like cigarette breaks but on the boat, once they start to work it’s hours and hours before they can even think about a break.
It is also difficult to eat while they are working."
Ok, Terry made sure there were frequent smoke breaks during the first day.
There was also a well stocked snack table close by for easy access.

Then there were the casino chips. They were handed out liberally during the first day for answering questions, asking questions or anything resembling active participation. After the completion of the first day the crew was driven out to a local casino, provided a great dinner and then allowed to gamble for several hours. Black Jack and roulette tables were well attended and I was told substantial sums were won by several of the guys.
Unfortunately, that did not include me as my limit of $20.00 was greedily gobbled by a five cent slot machine in under ten minutes…no reinforcement for me...I digress…

On the second day the chickens were tucked away for good and it was time to transfer the clicker training into a methodology that could be employed on a ship.

The first thing was to get the guys comfortable with giving and receiving positive reinforcement. Usually in a formal setting like this we rely on the leader to deliver praise or affirmation.
I wanted the guys to also get comfortable with saying to their peers or bosses, “yes”, “good job”, “I agree”, “I don’t agree but thanks for the input”.
It’s not as easy as it sounds.
When was the last time you felt confident giving a coworker or your boss a literal or figurative slap on the back and a hearty verbal, “good job”?
In the beginning it can make you feel a bit vulnerable. It takes practice.

Since the guys enjoyed the games of chance, I designed a reinforcement system from a deck of cards and a chance to play a hand of poker.
Actually it was an adaptation of a brilliant reinforcement plan developed by a fellow TAGteacher, Kevin England. Each guy was given a hand full of playing cards. If they liked anything a fellow attendee did or said or thought, they could hand them a playing card.
At each break the guys would look through the cards they had, pick out the best 5 and see who had the best poker hand. The more cards given out the better chance they had of a having a winning hand. The best hand received a casino chip.

It took a while for the guys to understand that it was not only the leader in the group (myself) who could dole out the cards… they had just as much responsibility to encourage participation and acknowledge success as I did.
To reinforce what I wanted (for them to hand out cards to each other) I would hand out a card to anyone who handed out a card. Now the guys were reinforced for reinforcing….

Stay tuned for chapter 5

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Introducing TAGteach to Fishermen Part 3

An ongoing account of TAGteach introductions, triumphs and tribulations!
This is the third installment of ,
TAGteach, Parrots and the Men from the Bering Sea!

Part 3: Egg laying and Clicker Training Give a Bear Hug to TAGteach and Poker Chips

January 2008, Seventeen members of the Seafisher management team arrived in Sequim, Washington for the first ever collaborative TAGteach-Clicker Training seminar for commercial fishermen.
Terry and I were honestly a bit apprehensive.
Would our training interest these tough guys?
Would they participate or sit back sullenly, arms folded, waiting for the day to end.
Had we prepared a program that would be applicable and beneficial to the crew of a commercial fishing vessel?
No time like the present to find out!

All seventeen guys were seated with coffee and snacks neatly placed on the side of their desks next to their pens and yellow pads of paper.
Note taking?…They had come prepared for work. In fact they were seated and ready fifteen minutes early. The guys were immediately rewarded for their attentiveness with real poker chips that could be used that night at a local casino.
Big smiles and laughter broke out…success…this reinforcement plan was used throughout the day to encourage participation.
Note: casino chips are great reinforcers!

How does you pick up a chicken?
Will it peck my eye out?
Will it fly off the training table?
How do you hold it so it doesn’t…uh…leave droppings on you?
All very good questions answered with great patience by Terry during the first few minutes of class. The guys quickly warmed up to their egg-laying beady-eyed, clucking partners and got down to the serious business of clicker training chickens.

The training sessions were brief as chickens can only be trained for a few minutes at a time. This left plenty of time for Terry to introduce the basics of using a clicker, operant conditioning and force free training. The guys quickly learned you cannot force a chicken to do anything except get back into its cage. Yelling, cajoling and threatening would only be met with a blank chicken stare. On the other hand you can encourage a chicken to do all manner of chicken things and then reward them when they do. Walk over here; climb on top of that, peck the paper with the picture of a flounder on it instead of the paper with a mackerel on it on so on.

The group was amazed. They could train a chicken to do a variety of skills without raising their voices or even using language at all. If I can train a chicken…I can train anything! Yep, the seed was planted.

Next Installment:
Chickens to Champions: Making the TAGteach Jump

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Introducing TAGteach to Fishermen Part 2

This is the second installment of ,
TAGteach, Parrots and the Men from the Bering Sea!

Part 2
Cascade company co-owner Tim: Burly Bear or Behaviorist Extraordinaire?

Tim said it was time for a shift in the way the management and crew communicated with each other on the boat and in the shipyard." Tim speaks and people jump, literally.
He is not only the co owner of the company; but a big guy with a booming voice and personality. He is also open to ideas that will benefit his employees and has great trust in Amy's recommendations, so when she told him about her idea, he listened.

"Why don't you listen to this CD and tell me what you think"Amy said. She handed over an audio book of Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. "This is about the science of teaching and learning, it doesn't matter whether it is dogs, cats, dolphins or fishermen. It's just science. I've done the preliminary research by contacting Karen Pryor Clicker Training and explaining our situation. They sent me to TAGteach International which is the company that caters to the human branch of clicker training. I think they could really help us".

After hearing the CD, Tim was cautiously optimistic. Cascade had tried offering traditional `management training' in the past with less than ideal results. Men in suits laden with personality quotients and powerful buzzwords just weren't bringing the right ingredients with them. This I understood. I've been to a few of these seminars and while the information was interesting, it was nearly impossible to bake that cake.

This TAGteach stuff piqued Tim's interest but he wanted to attend a seminar first to assure it would be a proper fit for his guys. Tim is not the kind of guy that will keep forcing a square peg into a round hole….We found a seminar close enough that despite a crazy schedule, Tim, Amy and an engineering manager could attend.

The seminar was held at Terry Ryan's dog training facility in Sequim, Washington. The seminar had open enrollment including 2 behavior analysts, a flight instructor from Australia, 2 classroom teachers, 3 people who teach people to train dogs and of course Tim, Amy and B.

TAGteacher, Keri Gorman and I often teach seminars together and she agreed to help plan and teach this one. It's wonderful to have friendly, knowledgeable co teachers like Keri. I often look to her with a stumped look on my face and say, uh…why don't you answer that question!

Well, the seminar must have been acceptable as we started discussing plans for a Cascade event while at dinner the first night. Terry (the owner of the facility) joined us for dinner and conversation during which her achievements not only a dog trainer but a "chicken camp" director came out. The idea of being able to train chickens to discriminate in a short period of time was intriguing to Tim. It would be fun and certainly entertaining for the guys and maybe tie into the TAG training somehow. He threw the suggestion out for consideration.

I was horrified.
Haunted by "You can't train me like some kind of dog with that clicker thing", I had spent the last 4 years trying to build a great big wall between animal clicker training and TAGteach. Now there would have to be an explanation for "Are you trying say we are only as smart as chickens?". Well, there are stories circulating that Tim gets what he wants and can be intimidating but he used his charm and positivity to convince us to give it a try…The TAGteach seminar would partner with Terry Ryan who would present a lecture on operant conditioning and a chicken training introduction.

Stay tuned for part 3...
Egg laying and Clicker Training Give a Bear Hug to TAGteach and Poker Chips

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Introducing TAGteach to Fishermen Part 1

Welcome to the adventures of TAGteach!
(Insert appropriate TV introduction music here.)

An ongoing account of TAGteach introductions, triumphs and tribulations!
This week I offer the first installment of :
TAGteach, Parrots and the Men from the Bering Sea! by Theresa McKeon

(Warning... these accounts are in bloggish form which means they have not been edited and will contain gross errors in grammar, form and spelling. I often use ... as a pause when I don't feel the comma is up to the task of defining the whirring sound that goes off in my brain when I think. It is my desire to dispense the information and later find perfection. To prove my point and horrify professional writers, Iwill add an emotcon :) )

Chapter 1
Blink...blink, blink...blink If this had been a face to face meetingi nstead of a phone call, the client would have thought the person she contacted was stone deaf. I was caught speechless. I didn't make the caller repeat herself but I did have to mentally replay the introduction. "Hi, this is Amy Duz owner of IWorkWise, a company that provides safety training and regulatory compliance consulting for several major companies. I would like to talk to you about providing a management training course for the crew of a commercial fishing vessel in Dutch Harbor, Alaska"

I recovered from brief bout with aphasia. "Hmmm, you mean like the television show, "The deadliest Catch"? Like with freezing temperatures and slippery decks and very, ah...tough...people... She made a sound that must have been a cross between a sigh and a chuckle. "Well, yeah, I guess. But these guys are fantastic. They are smart and fun and want to make their workplace better."At the risk of alienating this woman further, I blurted out "Do you know what we do?" "Yes" she replied with great confidence, "you teach people how to work with other people in a positive reinforcing manner, yes?"

Well yes, that was true but usually it was directed towards coaches, teachers and behavior analysts... you know, land lubing types. I wasn't sure that the guys who performed "the world's most dangerous job" would be wholly captured by positive reinforcement and marker based training.

Oh the biases we hold close to the vest.

After a proverbial throat clearing to convince her I was not unsure of my ability to provide said services, maybe just nursing an early cold, I said, "We can do it!" (You may have noticed a certain politician co-opted my powerful phrase with some equally positive results.) I asked Amy how she had found us and she recounted the search for positive training and her path to TAGteach.

Amy had a parrot that was in need of training when what should appear in the pocket of her airplane seat but a fortuitously left behind copy of Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. The book literally opened the world of reinforcement based training to Amy. The leap between positive behavior training for parrots and positive physical and behavioral training for humans was not so big. "I'll call Karen" she thought...and she did.

Next installment:
Company co-owner, Tim: Big Burly Bear or Behaviorist Extraordinaire?

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Comments from Cascade Fishing Workers

Here are some comments from the participants from the second seminar held for Cascade Fishing Company workers. They had implemented TAGteach in real life situations on the boat and had come back for a more advanced seminar to learn more.


"Now other commercial fishing companies are hearing about it and they are considering the same training."

"Train a chicken?! It was amazing I learned you can't force something or someone to learn, I have to work with them."

"It gives you patience to solve a problem instead of getting angry and yelling."

"It taught me to look at myself every time I train. Never blame the person you are training. I never saw it like that before this seminar. That's why we came back for a second seminar and brought back more people."

"I believe it's beneficial for any company that trains people to do anything."

"It just streamlines the idea of teaching and understanding "This is really good stuff"…Theresa said that!

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