Countless Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) have shared stories of amazing small organizations they worked for, as well as poor treatment from other organizations. Those smaller Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) companies run by ethical and clinically strong BCBAs are great, but often struggle to grow ethically and help more clients. Larger organizations unknowingly scale while implementing punishing, often unethical, contingencies on staff.
Unfortunately, it’s not something unique to the ABA field. I recall way back in High School, a dear friend of mine worked for a local movie theater in our nearby mall, that was part of a globally recognized brand. Knowing how responsible and hard working he is, I have no doubt he made a great employee. He worked there for over 3 years. One day he called me, quite upset; the story he recounted went something like this:
Unfortunately, it’s not something unique to the ABA field. I recall way back in High School, a dear friend of mine worked for a local movie theater in our nearby mall, that was part of a globally recognized brand. Knowing how responsible and hard working he is, I have no doubt he made a great employee. He worked there for over 3 years. One day he called me, quite upset; the story he recounted went something like this:
There are a lot of things wrong with this story, including:
There are countless stories from BCBAs and Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs) of similar stories. I recall a story about a client not making progress after 12 months, and an RBT who we’ll call Robyn was fired over it with no discussion. Robyn recounted making countless suggestions about why the behavior plan wasn’t effective, with suggestions for improvement, but nothing changed. Robyn wasn’t at fault here, a system to blindly punish was.
Behavior Systems Analysis (BSA) is a part of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), discipline of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Per a research article in ABAI, BSA is more about the analysis and improvement of the relationships among the parts of a system (including organizational systems), as well as the relationships between the system and the external environment (Kast & Rosenzweig, 1972), blending ABA and general systems theory.
If an organization wants to scale beyond the smaller ABA companies we all know and respect, it needs processes and systems. The owner can’t oversee every staff member or client, it’s not humanly possible beyond a certain size. Careful consideration in creating processes and systems is crucial. When implementing a new BSA process, we need to ask a few questions to conduct effective analysis:
Behavior Systems Analysis (BSA) is a part of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM), discipline of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Per a research article in ABAI, BSA is more about the analysis and improvement of the relationships among the parts of a system (including organizational systems), as well as the relationships between the system and the external environment (Kast & Rosenzweig, 1972), blending ABA and general systems theory.
If an organization wants to scale beyond the smaller ABA companies we all know and respect, it needs processes and systems. The owner can’t oversee every staff member or client, it’s not humanly possible beyond a certain size. Careful consideration in creating processes and systems is crucial. When implementing a new BSA process, we need to ask a few questions to conduct effective analysis:
Successful client onboarding is a key business outcome with a number of processes involved. Once process could result in the output of a signed Client Services Agreement (CSA), another could involve seeking insurance authorization with the output of an approved or denied authorization from the insurance payer. Stay tuned for a future blog on creating ethical systems.
As your organization grows, you'll want to test your systems for ethics, and ideally address issues before they even arise. In our client onboarding example, what ethical issues could arise? Here are some to consider:
The same goes for staff management. When systems are implemented, they should mostly use positive reinforcement. Give supervisors discretion to implement reinforcement based on what’s reinforcing for individual staff members on their teams. Don’t implement systems of punishment at scale, but rather alert management to issues at scale and let them exercise discretion. This doesn’t mean the BCBA business owner needs to do all the punishing. Each supervisor or manager needs to start with positive reinforcement, and bring in punishment when absolutely needed. An organization will need Human Resources (HR) policies and procedures for staff members that truly need to be managed out for good reason, but that should be the exception as opposed to the rule.
After implementing a process, stress test it with some test data, and monitor regularly. Ask some questions to gauge if you need to course correct the process:
After implementing a process, stress test it with some test data, and monitor regularly. Ask some questions to gauge if you need to course correct the process:
ABA practice owners need to implement systems and processes; they can’t do all the managing themselves, and aren’t the only ones who manage people. Systems should reward, and punishment should be brought in on an as-needed basis. Systems can identify problems such as attendance issues and high cancellation rates, allowing people to manage those issues individually. Practice owners can reach out for support any time. We don’t do paid consulting, and are simply happy to have conversations with like-minded BCBAs trying to improve the field. OBM@acclaimtraining.com
Jamie Turner
MBA, PMP, BCBA
