The author recounts a project where he was involved in studying dolphin communication patterns. As is typical with crowd pleasers the trainer had to teach a dolphin a few tricks in order to pull in and entertain the audience. On day 1 the dolphin would be rewarded with a fish for say, jumping out of the water. The trainer would blow on a whistle before tossing the dolphin its reward. Dolphins are bright so it would not take him long to realise in order to obtain a tasty morsel he would have to jump out of the water. And so he did.
Day 2 would be a different story though. The dolphin would perform one fruitless jump after the other with no reward forthcoming until in pure frustration it rolled over in the water. Immediately the trainer blew on a whistle and tossed the dolphin its fleshy reward. I'm sure you can see where this is going. Said dolphin will catch the drift, roll over again and wait for the fish to be tossed in his direction. And it did. Over a period of 14 days the dolphin quickly learned that he won't be rewarded for yesterday's tricks - only for new ones. Talk about being motivated to think creatively and then act upon it.
Coming back to the subject of carrot and stick. Being an observant chap the author witnessed the trainer throwing "unearned" fish for the dolphin outside the training context every now and then. Of course he questioned the trainer who answered, 'That is to keep my relationship with him. If I do not have a good relationship, he is not going to bother about learning anything'.
Loving it! Rapport always matters, no matter what the situation is.
Gain it. Maintain it.
