Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 12)

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Antecedents

by

Charles Lamson

What Are Antecedents?

If you've been reading the preceding posts, hopefully you now understand how behavioral consequences affect behavior, it is necessary to examine how we learn that consequences are available for behavior. When an automobile salesman on TV says that he has the best deal on the planet, why doesn't everyone rush to the dealership to buy a car? Why do people park at the No Parking - Violators Will be Fined sign? To understand these circumstances beyond a common sense level, you need to understand antecedents.

An antecedent is anything that comes before a behavior that contains information about behavioral consequences. It may tell us that a consequence is or is not present; or it may tell us that it is usually present, but not always. Of course, this information will affect our behavior. Although the research on antecedents is extensive and complex, we are going to limit our discussion to any deliberate attempt to change or maintain behavior by doing something before the behavior occurs. For example, traffic signs and signals are antecedents for behavior related to driving safely and efficiently. They tell us to stop, slow down, or move over. Instruction booklets with new products are antecedents for the assembly and/or safe, efficient use and enjoyment of the product. Hearing the weather report on the radio is an antecedent for the way we dress for the day or for the plans we make.

All behaviors have antecedents whether we plan them or not. An antecedent can be anything that we see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. We see a book with a title that interests us and we pick it up. We feel a soft fabric and we continue to rub it. We hear someone call our name, and we turn and look. We bite into something that tastes really good, and we eat the whole thing.

Antecedents do not cause behavior, however. If they did, everybody who heard the telephone ring would pick up the receiver; everybody who saw a Stop sign would press the brake pedal; everyone who saw a Handicapped Parking sign would look for another place to park. Words like beg, invite, persuade, and cajole refer to verbal behavior intended to get the behavior of another to occur. As such, they are antecedents since they come before the desired behavior. However, we do not do everything we are begged to do, do not accept every invitation extended to us, nor are we persuaded by every sales pitch we hear. As you will see, an understanding of the simple fact that antecedents do not cause behavior can lead to an efficient design of business processes and will often lead to the solution of problems frequently viewed as intractable.

Although in Applied Behavior Analysis the word antecedent has a very precise meaning, there are other words in our everyday language with similar meanings. The words stimulate, signal, cue, prompt, trigger, encourage, and motivate all refer to antecedent-related events. All of these common words have connotations that do not communicate the precision needed in behavior analytic research or the precision needed to analyze and solve organizational problems.

Examples of Antecedents in Business and Industry

Because every behavior has an antecedent, antecedents surround us all the time. In businesses, we design the workplace to prompt the correct or desirable responses and performances. Some of the more common antecedents used in business are such things as corporate communication documents, goals, objectives, priorities, accountabilities, job descriptions, policies, procedures, standards, and rules. All of these are intended to communicate what is appropriate behavior in the workplace.

All resources provided to help people do their jobs are antecedents. Tools, raw materials and workplace conditions such as temperature, lighting, and housekeeping can affect the way you work. All of these set the stage for a work behavior or performance to take place, but they do not guarantee that it will occur. People can have a wonderful workplace with the most modern equipment and still not do the job as it was intended to be done.

Introduction and information related to policies, procedures, and processes are probably the most common antecedents used by business to change or improve performance. Indeed, businesses spend billions of dollars every year on these activities. Seminars, workshops, motivational speeches, films, videotapes, audiotapes, and textbooks are all designed to prompt performance of one kind or another.

When managers tell employees to do something and to do it in a particular way, they are using antecedents. Managers may give this direction face-to-face, by phone, or in writing. In these cases, the information being given is an attempt to influence some performance and is given prior to the performance.

Sometimes written directions or instructions appear in checklists, directories, flowcharts, equipment labels, or operating manuals. Signs and color coding are frequently used. Such antecedents are referred to as job aids. 

Much effort is expended in the workplace providing the proper job aids; indeed, it has become a science. Human factors researchers study the proper design of machinery and equipment and how to arrange it to facilitate performance. Control panels are designed so that switches are easy to reach, and computer programs are designed to be user friendly. Such job aids can be a very cost-effective alternative to training, under certain circumstances. All of this work attempts to control work performance through antecedents.

Advertising uses antecedents to influence behavior. Packaging, commercials, and direct mail campaigns all directly manipulate antecedents to influence purchasing behavior.

The behavior of other people is also an antecedent. The actions of fellow employees and the boss influence the actions of other employees. If older employees complain, new employees may soon start complaining. If the boss comes to work early and leaves late, some aspiring young managers may do the same. Thankfully, people do not model all of the behavior they see in the workplace.

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 99-101*

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