September 13 The value of feedback loops
As a bird trainer and caregiver, you probably know that the behavior-response feedback loop is one of the most essential elements of maintaining communication with the bird in your care. It’s one thing to pay attention to a bird’s body language, it’s next level to respond consistently to body language to maximize comfort. To show that you are listening with your eyes and ears. The feedback loop is not only important when communicating with animals, it is also an important part of human relationships. Let’s talk about how you can use it in your organization to maximize your training programs.
Creating safe and supportive spaces within animal care staff is important not only for trainer development, but also for animal welfare. But what does this actually mean? Is it as simple as paying people and praising them for a job well done? It turns out there’s more to it than that.
Creating a safe and supportive space goes beyond financial incentives. It’s a practice that means embracing the idea that progress is not always a straight line. We recognize that mistakes are part of the journey and that different individuals (yes, including animals) require tailored approaches to succeed. We may not always fully understand their process, but we can implement it. This means identifying the environmental factors and variables that lead to consistent success and working to nurture and replicate them.
But, like many things in behavioral science, it sounds simple but it’s not easy. There are obstacles to overcome when it comes to creating safe spaces in a training environment. So let’s explore what this could look like for your workspace and offer some insights to improve your feedback loops for continuous improvement.
Above all, a safe space means that team members feel comfortable discussing their failures as openly as their accomplishments. For what? Because practice makes permanent, both for humans and animals. When a person repeatedly fails, it means that the learner (whether a bird or a person) is exposed to a problematic stimulus, engages in problematic behavior, and experiences a problematic consequence, entrenching thus a problematic pattern.
But here’s the thing: team members need the right conditions so that discussing their mistakes is easy, accessible and enriching. How you keep behavior logs, engage in conversations about training sessions, and allow individuals to address training issues sets the tone for these discussions. Although we avoid prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach, we can share our practices.
Accountability plays an important role here, starting at the top. As a leader, I find it crucial to openly discuss my own mistakes, explain what went wrong, how I will handle it differently next time, and invite criticism and feedback, even when I don’t. I’m not efficient. I am the one who opens the door and welcomes everyone, fostering an environment of honesty and accountability.
Another aspect of our approach is recognizing that a coach’s first reaction is rarely questioned, particularly during difficult sessions in rapidly changing conditions. We conduct post-mortem discussions on many training sessions, dissecting both successes and failures. We discuss this in more detail in Chapter 6 of our comprehensive roadmap, Building a Training Program. These discussions are especially beneficial for new birds and trainers, creating a safe space where learning recognizes the constant analysis of our choices.
These are our practices, but I encourage your team to think about how to build their safe learning space. A team that embraces mistakes as a part of growth works harmoniously across generations and skill levels.
At ABI we like to film our training sessions, not for the likes on social media, but for our own growth and development. Video recordings provide invaluable insight into our training process and the benefits are remarkable.
When we replay sessions in our minds, we often have a general understanding of how they made us feel. However, relying solely on emotional memories can mislead us. Our judgments about duration, spatial configurations, and mechanics can be inaccurate. There are movements that we may ignore because we don’t know they exist.
Filming training sessions is not without its challenges. Initially, this required more time and thought, especially during the flight sessions. Still, the knowledge gained was worth it. We found that we were pushing sessions too long, causing stress and undesirable outcomes like fly-offs or difficult crating sessions. In the heat of the moment, we focus on details or think about the future. But reviewing the video allows us to see both parties’ interactions and external cues, highlighting feedback loops we might have missed.
Birds sometimes behave differently on camera, but they learn to adapt, as they do with any other variable. Filming also helps maintain consistency between trainers. When someone takes a day off, we can review the previous session via video, discussing criteria, progress, and what went well or poorly.
Video commentary isn’t just for experts; it’s for everyone. However, how you use it depends on your specific needs and goals. Film is a powerful tool for feedback and growth in your training program, delivering exponential returns when incorporated into your routine.
Also in our roadmap, we discuss the concept that we influence the behavior of animals whenever we are in their proximity, whether we are actively training or not. Even during basic husbandry tasks like cleaning enclosures, we provide constant feedback that shapes future interactions.
This concept is vital, especially in nonprofit organizations with volunteer work and animals looking for homes. This means we need to establish procedures that view breeding as training. When cleaning enclosures, we need awareness, protocols and clear communication within the team.
We don’t want to overwhelm our team during breeding tasks, but we also need to recognize that feedback loops are at play. Some team members are eager to train and may be frustrated by the limited training time, while others may feel that the responsibility of cleaning gets in the way of their work. Creating balance is essential.
Like the training and breeding levels we created that combine human skills with bird skills, we establish specific protocols depending on the situation. For high-stakes scenarios with minimal margin for error, we limit breeding to experienced personnel. However, daily breeding can provide eager learners with an opportunity to practice their observation and communication skills.
Tracking breeding observations is useful for identifying gaps in practices and protocols, helping us become more astute in feedback loop assessments. These ideas reinforce our principles from a different perspective, demonstrating that by prioritizing animal welfare we can reduce stress and maximize staff fulfillment.
We believe that creating a safe and supportive training environment, monitoring trainer ratios, using video feedback, and treating husbandry as training are all essential elements of a training program progressive. We hope that these principles of transparency are evident in the various media through which we share our work. Inspiring other trainers, facilities, and bird enthusiasts to feel connected through progress rather than perfection has helped us understand that mastery involves many things, and that feeling comfortable sharing the highs and the downs start with us. Adopting these concepts can lead to positive outcomes for both your team and the animals you work with.