Willingness Questions

Would you be willing….. ?

Willingness questions can expose weakness and deception.

An example….

When I was working on fraud issues, I was the guy explaining to the press corps how a massive fraud in Iraq worked.  

Long story short, a company with the laughable name of “Custer Battles,” which had no experience, no equipment, no money, and no personnel, put itself out as a defense contractor.  

Unbelievably they got a massive multi-million dollar contract to provide security at Baghdad International Airport to open it to commercial and military flights right at the start of the Iraq War.

A few days after the fraud was exposed in the pages of The New York Times, I got a call from Mike Battles, a named principal in the company.  

Mr. Battles wanted me to know it was all a mistake, the complaint was all a bunch of lies, they were a legitimate company, yada, yada, yada.

I listened and then asked two questions.

Was “Global Relief Solutions” — the predecessor company of Custer Battles — the company he cited as his past experience to the US military?”

A pause, and then he said it was.

Right.

Would he be willing to share with me that company’s IRS Form 990?

Another long pause.  And then “I don’t know…l…”

I cut him off. 

This was a shibboleth, and he had already failed.

“The question is about WILLINGNESS “ I explained.  “Would you be *WILLING* to share with me your predecessor company’s 990?”

I stopped talking.  

He was confused.  He flapped around.

I went on.

“You see, I already HAVE Global Relief Solutions’ IRS form 990.  Which means I know your total annual revenue stream was about $135,000. You told the military that Global Relief Solutions did work in almost a dozen countries all over the world, when in fact the company was not much more than a phone and a desk in McLean.  You didn’t do ANY of the stuff you told the US Government you had experience in. You had no experience, no money, no mercenaries, no weapons, and the whole thing was a Hollywood western town painted on glass. It was fraud.”

He protested that I was saying small companies didn’t deserve to be considered for contracts.  

No, I wasn’t.  I was saying he committed fraud.

Suffice it to say that the conversation and the litigation and subsequent government investigation did not go well for him. You can now look up the story on Wikipedia >> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer_Battles

Willingness.

Willingness questions can tell you a lot.

Would I be *willing* to show you my dogs working to ground on any day you can get out here?

Yep, but you carry the tools.

Would I be willing to take a PETA member our hunting? 

Sure, but they have to carry the tools.

Would I be willing to pay for the new-born lamb you are going to stake on a 10-foot lead in a field to prove to me that a fox will actually kill a new-born lamb?  

I would, but you have to supply the video tape.  Cash instantly, in any currency you want, as soon as the video file is received.

Willingness.  

It tells you a lot.

If a police officer pulls you over and asks if you would be *willing* to pop the truck, he finds out instantly if there’s a problem — he doesn’t actually have to do the search.  

A willingness question is a very good way to test scienter — the self-knowledge of fraud.

The generalized freak out yesterday on Facebook at just *asking* the question about willingness to walk an allegedly well trained dog off-leash down a median strip for 200 yards means the hyper-ventilating respondents *knew* their dog was only moderately well-trained, and in all likelihood with only weak proofing.

People were kind enough to provide examples.

A woman sailed into the comments to tell a tale of a Doberman trained to a “very high degree of obedience” who bolted after a deer and was killed by a car.

That dog owner was NOT training her dogs for the real world, but for the ring:.  Her dogs were doing tricks for cookies so that the owner could get a ribbon. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but that’s obedience that is likely to fail in the real world.

And it did.

Most dog owners have experienced this failure, though they may not know why it occurs. or what to do about it.

The simple story is that dogs are not very good generalizers.  A dog that does a perfect down-stay on a cot in the driveway, may not do it on an urban sidewalk.  

What about on grass, on top of a tree stump, on asphalt, on a gravel road, on a clay canal path, on a kayak?  What about if there are squirrels or ducks, deer, or other dogs about?

Until a command is widely generalized and reliable in a very wide array of situations, it is not adequately proofed.

Proofing is the difference between suggestions and commandments, and in difficult situations it can be the difference between life and death.

Proofing a dog is not a “one and done” kind of thing.  Practicing generalizations has to be done all the time and everywhere for the simple reason that dogs, like people, are slow learners and quick forgetters.  If you want a down-stay to be a command, rather than a suggestion, it needs to be almost muscle memory for the both of you.

Don’t need that or don’t want that?

No?

That’s fine, but own it.

And put your dog on a leash.

Also recognize that some dog owners *have* trained and proofed their dog to command, rather than suggestion levels of performance.

The actual training is repetition, repetition, repetition.  

The proofing is done in a wide array of places and with distractions, and mild aversive consequences for not getting it right or blowing off the command.

It’s not all “high value treats”.  If your NO is not stronger than the dog’s GO, you will never have a truly well-proofed dog.

In the case of the question I asked yesterday, the willingness question was whether someone claiming they had a well trained dog would be willing to walk it 200 yards down a highway median with that dog off-leash

Linda Kaim recognized the task in question immediately; it was nothing more than a close heel.

Bingo.

But the kicker was that this was not a close heel in the same hallway or large room where the owner had practiced a close-heel a hundred times.

This was not going to be a close heel in the obedience ring with the owner wearing their dog trainer outfit.

This was going to be a real world close heel in a location they had not trained for, i.e. a close heel that would actually matter.

And the freak out?

The freak out was a lot of folks telling me they did not understand generalization or proofing at the most basic level.

Proofing?  

What’s that?