The Foundation of it All
I am reading a book right now called Bringing Out the Best in People (Daniels), and it has really challenged my belief system. The book presents Behaviorism at it's best. The author starts by laying the foundation of his Behaviorist views and how they apply to managing people in a businees environment.
The issue that I have with this Behaviorism view is that it is a naturalistic perspective that believes that people's actions are solely reliant on the things that happen to them. In the book, the author makes the case that it is the environment that you create and the reinforcements that you give that will determine how productive your people are. The problem with this is that people are more than (naturalistic) chemical reactions. True Behaviorism takes away ideas like free-will, free-thought, and concepts like dignity, and replaces them with purely mechanical reactions. In the behaviorist's view, natural reactions, cause and effect, have no room for these things, so then they simply cannot exist.
My Biblical worldview helps me to believe that man is more than a purely physical being, and that brain activity is more than a chemical reaction. I believe that man is not only physical (body), but also has a soul (feelings and emotions) and a spirit. With this view of the mind/body, there is a place for things like free-will. People have choices, can make decisions, and can exercise their will.
Rebellion is a perfect example of the difference between the two. The Behaviorism view would have no place for rebellion because it is not a natural reaction that supports the survival of the species. The free-will allowed by the Biblical worldview allows for rebellion because people have the choice to go against the grain of the "reinforcers".
There are elements of the behaviorist viewpoint that I do agree with, like the importance of positive reinforcement. I will dig into this in more detail later, but positive and negative reinforcement is something that exists even in Old Testament times. For example, the Proverbs are full of reinforcement concepts for certain behaviors.
However, we must be careful of picking and choosing what we like and what we do not like in order to determine what we think. By saying that "I like this part of this idea, and this part of that other idea over there...", then we are walking into territory where there is no absolute standard. And where there is no absolute standard, chaos is the ultimate result, because anyone can pick and choose whatever they want. There would be nothing to stop one person from picking a standard that completely contradicts your own, and there would be no basis to prove them wrong.
Therefore, the foundation of this look at "Management by God" is the Bible itself. Positive reinforcement is a concept that is covered by the Bible. And even though it is also covered in Behaviorism, I will not be discussing it in that sense. God's principles work whether you believe in Him or not, and have yet to be proven wrong. However, all other perspectives have flaws that make them irrelevant, even if they do contain elements of Truth. THIS is the standard for "bringing out the best in people"!
The issue that I have with this Behaviorism view is that it is a naturalistic perspective that believes that people's actions are solely reliant on the things that happen to them. In the book, the author makes the case that it is the environment that you create and the reinforcements that you give that will determine how productive your people are. The problem with this is that people are more than (naturalistic) chemical reactions. True Behaviorism takes away ideas like free-will, free-thought, and concepts like dignity, and replaces them with purely mechanical reactions. In the behaviorist's view, natural reactions, cause and effect, have no room for these things, so then they simply cannot exist.
My Biblical worldview helps me to believe that man is more than a purely physical being, and that brain activity is more than a chemical reaction. I believe that man is not only physical (body), but also has a soul (feelings and emotions) and a spirit. With this view of the mind/body, there is a place for things like free-will. People have choices, can make decisions, and can exercise their will.
Rebellion is a perfect example of the difference between the two. The Behaviorism view would have no place for rebellion because it is not a natural reaction that supports the survival of the species. The free-will allowed by the Biblical worldview allows for rebellion because people have the choice to go against the grain of the "reinforcers".
There are elements of the behaviorist viewpoint that I do agree with, like the importance of positive reinforcement. I will dig into this in more detail later, but positive and negative reinforcement is something that exists even in Old Testament times. For example, the Proverbs are full of reinforcement concepts for certain behaviors.
However, we must be careful of picking and choosing what we like and what we do not like in order to determine what we think. By saying that "I like this part of this idea, and this part of that other idea over there...", then we are walking into territory where there is no absolute standard. And where there is no absolute standard, chaos is the ultimate result, because anyone can pick and choose whatever they want. There would be nothing to stop one person from picking a standard that completely contradicts your own, and there would be no basis to prove them wrong.
Therefore, the foundation of this look at "Management by God" is the Bible itself. Positive reinforcement is a concept that is covered by the Bible. And even though it is also covered in Behaviorism, I will not be discussing it in that sense. God's principles work whether you believe in Him or not, and have yet to be proven wrong. However, all other perspectives have flaws that make them irrelevant, even if they do contain elements of Truth. THIS is the standard for "bringing out the best in people"!
Comments