I was in a doctoral seminar with my friend Dave maybe twenty years ago or so. There was an uncomfortable discussion happening, and Dave was getting attacked. I was able to smooth things out a bit by saying something like “I think what Dave means to say…,” and happily the discussion went somewhere else. That night, a few of us were at dinner at my house, and Dave recounted the story of what happened. He ended it with “Barry is the most tactful person I know.” Well, my wife Cheryl nearly choked on her food, and couldn’t stop laughing for an absurd amount of time.
Dave and I moved to different parts of the country. But this became “a thing” around my house. Whenever I said something that was not tactful, I could always say “but I’m the most tactful person Dave knows.” Several years later, I met up with Dave at a conference and he, of course, doesn’t remember the story at all. So, when I tell it to him, he says, “I guess I didn’t know a lot of people back then.”
It is important to be careful with comparisons. Though I possessed enough tact to smooth over the argument at the seminar, clearly Cheryl believed there was room for Poogi. I think BCBAs fall into the comparison trap all the time. We might be doing much better than Program X, but that doesn’t mean we are doing well. In some organizations, when I have suggested things that would produce massive POOGI (very tactfully, of course), a BCBA is likely to say “It’s just not practical. Look, this is what we are able to do. This is dramatically better than he would have received if he was at X.”
The fact that our program might be better than a completely non-scientific, poorly run program is no excuse to have low standards. Low standards are bad for your clients, bad for the profession, and bad for your own mental health. The only way to POOGI is to be constantly looking at what can be improved, not being satisfied that you are “the most tactful person Dave knows,” or that you are better than that absurd non-science-based programs offered somewhere else. Avoid comparing yourself to low performers. Set high standards.