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Train the Media with Shamu
Copyright © 2002 - 2010 by Susan Harrow. All rights reserved.
Amy Sutherland, author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and
Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" did it
with her husband. If it works with husbands, why not the media? Sutherland
discovered Shamu while writing a book about a school for exotic animal
trainers who worked with hyenas, cougars, and baboons to do tricks and
tasks. (They were teaching the baboon to skateboard.) She had some issues
with her husband. He'd toss his stinky bike clothes on the bedroom floor,
he'd crowd her in the kitchen. Small annoyances that added up to less
love. Shamu seemed to provide some answers and gave her hope that she
could love more.
The first principle was to reward behavior that you want to continue
and ignore behavior you don't. So she'd walk around the stinky clothes
in silence. She thanked him when he tossed a soiled shirt in the hamper.
He began to put those stinky clothes more and more regularly in their
proper place.
The second part of the first principle is to reward good behavior. So
when a journalist that you want to cultivate a relationship with writes
something that pleases you (or at least is correct), then send along a
compliment about the approved passage. This is what animal trainers call
"approximations." You begin to reward small progress with the
intention that the animal will learn a completely new behavior. For an
article in Entrepreneur I was interviewed for, I chose a few points that
I particularly liked and jetted an email to the journalist. Now we're
in friendly correspondence and just a few days ago sent her an idea for
a piece about one of my clients. She is going to pitch the idea to a number
of national publications. Good Shamu.
The theory is if you continually praise each small act, the leap to bigger
things happens more quickly. For animals, it means getting a seal to balance
a ball for a few seconds, a minute, then several minutes. Sutherland lavished
praise on her husband for even one pair of shorts that made it to that
hamper.
The next principle is called "incompatible behavior." On a
student field trip, Sutherland observed a professional trainer's techniques
to halt African crested cranes from landing on his head or shoulders.
He directed them instead to use a mat on the ground as a landing pad.
The trainer taught the birds a new behavior that replaced the undesirable
one.
To keep her husband from hovering over her in the kitchen, Sutherland
put chips and salsa at the other end of the room so her hubby hung out
there. When a client I was media coaching for the Early Show was worried
the host would focus a business story on her husband's physical abuse
of her, I showed her how to use this technique. We gave the host a juicier
story that she couldn't resist so she would forget all about the abuse
and only concern herself with the positive aspects of the story. We gave
her a different landing pad. It worked.
At SeaWorld San Diego, Sutherland learned L.R.S. or least reinforcing
syndrome. "When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't
respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look
at the dolphin, and then returns to work." Behaviors that are given
either positive or negative reinforcement strengthens them. The theory
is that zero reinforcement allows the behavior to fade on its own accord.
When Sutherland's husband lost his keys and began his usual temper tantrum
and mad-dash frantic searching, she did nothing. When he told her he found
his keys she replied, "Great, see you later."
When a freelance reporter from the New York Times interviewed me extensively
for an article and then attributed my quotes to another interviewee who
had credentials more suited to his subject, I did nothing. Did I want
to call and cuss him in many languages? Of course. I'm Italian. But instead,
I let it go. Now I can contact him when I have an appropriate lead or
another idea.
The animal trainers motto was, "It's never the animal's fault."
If you can adopt this attitude when the media print something horribly
out of context, misquote you, treat you like dirt, insult you, or in general
make your life difficult, remember Shamu and it will help tame the animal
in you, too.
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Susan Harrow, CEO of
http://prsecrets.com, is
a top media coach, marketing strategist and author of
Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul® (HarperCollins),
The
Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah, and
Get a 6-
Figure Book Advance. Clients include Fortune 500 CEOs, bestselling authors and entrepreneurs who have appeared on
Oprah, 60 Minutes, NPR, and in TIME, USA Today, Parade,
People, O, NY Times, WSJ, and Inc. |
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