Sales managers and tiger trainers have a lot in common. Both have to motivate, plan, organize and control. It is also their job to leave the beast’s pride intact while insuring that he or she does not fall prey to the overwhelming urge of sloth. In this brief description of one tiger trainer’s unusual methods, readers can draw their own parallels between the demands of the big top and those of the big sell.

Wade Burck, youngest tiger trainer for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, gets criticism from other tiger trainers that his lines (of tigers) are not even, that some tigers stand while others sit, that still others have paw hanging over the edge. However, Burck believes that happy tigers are not militaristic tigers.

“Why do we need to demand absolute perfection from them? When they all sit up, why do they all have to have their feet up here? Why, if one’s comfortable with his foot there, can’t he do that? I’m not going to put that type of pressure on my animals.” Tigers standing in line for audiences are only a means to another end for Burck, a man who never loses sight of his goal.

When he set out to breed white tigers nine years ago, there were only four in the U.S. Now that he has sixty-three, he’s gone out on the road to prove that nice guys and educated tigers do finish first.

“You go to the zoo and they’re all lying there doing nothing. I said, ‘Why can’t these animals be trained to get up and get active physically and mentally so they don’t deteriorate in captivity?'” He relishes his role as a kind of motivational force for captive tigers, to help them overcome the overwhelming urge of sloth. “All they’re looking for,” says Burck, “is – let’s get this done so we can go lie down and sleep.

“The animal in captivity needs stimulation to get active. The stimulation of being scared is gone and so is the need to hunt.” His unending patience with his animals stems from his desire to do this for their own good, a positive intention which he cannot, unfortunately, communicate to his feline family.

Although he believes that “every animal is capable of doing something,” he doesn’t push animals beyond their natural abilities. “I could take a male tiger and beat him over the head and eventually get him to do it out of fear, but it would also eventually get me killed or it would destroy this tiger. You never ask more from a tiger than he’s physically capable of doing.”

Burck also maintains a demeanor of assurance that lets the tigers think he’s always on top of things – even when he’s not. “Each time you go in to practice with them, you’re going in there knowing exactly what you’re going to do. If it doesn’t work, give them a piece of meat and make them think it’s all you wanted them to do.”

The proper demeanor when attacked, is to first fold, then come back to life later. This philosophy of resurrection evidently confuses tigers. “If you go limp, he’ll walk away and then you’re up on your feet again and say, ‘No, come lie down.’ In a situation like that, the animal is actually afraid of me. In his mind, he has killed me. For two weeks, the animal will be leery of me.”

“When the tigers attack me,” Burck goes on, “I get right back up and go back to what I as doing when I was attacked. I show them that I’m invincible. I’m saying to them: ‘You can’t harm me, look you bit me and I’m right back here.'”

To illustrate the important role pride plays in a good performance, Burck tells how his two uncles in North Dakota raised horses when he was a boy:

“One uncle was very much the Bronco Billy,” says Burck, who lettered in rodeo in high school. “You get a two year old horse in, you tie him down, you put a blindfold on him, you throw a saddle on his back, you get on and ‘break’ him. He throws you off, you get back on, you ride him until the animal collapses or accepts you as its master.

“My other uncle was one who would spend a month running the horse in a circle. Then he would put a blanket on its back, then spend a month letting him walk around with the saddle on, then he would sit in the saddle, then get off. I watched the finished product. The uncle who got everything done in two weeks had very good animals. The only difference is he had to go out and lasso them when he wanted to ride them. My other uncle, who spent a year with the horse, would whistle and the animal would come to him. The physical product at the end may have been the same, but we’re talking about the mental product. You don’t want to break their minds. I don’t want to break their spirits either.”

Not breaking wild spirits, keeping a tiger’s pride, is the theme of Wade Burck’s school for animals. Some day we may see these same methods in management seminars and sales meetings. The beasts may roar, but when they perform with pride, the result is a good showing on the bottom line.