Managers in Pygmalion roles

As a boss, one important everyday job is to manage the performance of the employees working with you. More often than not, you may have had to confront poor performances and in all probability the learned reaction is one of disdain for the poorly performing employee. If this was the usual reaction, you had been all along looking at the wrong side of the problem. Consider this.

Research points out that if the subordinates are not doing well in their jobs, the problem could well be the boss himself. It is the manager’s expectation that determines the performance of the employees. Employees respond to the expectation of the boss. If the expectations are low, performance is likely to be poor. If expectations are high, performance is likely to be good.

Physicians and behavioral scientists have long recognized the powerful influence of a person’s expectations on another’s behaviour. The legendary story of the clever horse Hans was a story of the power of expectation. This clever horse would answer mathematical questions with the tap of its hoofs when asked by its owner, a mathematician himself. This extraordinary skill of the horse baffled many for a long time.

The secret to this powerful mathematical intelligence rests in the ability of the owner to communicate his expectations to the horse. Clever Hans only responded to the expectations and really did not even know 2 and 2 made 4. It was only clever in reading even the subtlest bodily gestures such as the dilation of the nostrils. ‘Tap the hoof when dilated and stop when relaxed’ was the kind of magical formula for the horse sense. Hans was clever only when its owner expected him to be.

The powerful influence of expectation has also seeped into the education circle. Teachers know that students perform better with positive reinforcement. Carrot has replaced stick in many classrooms. Positive and higher expectations gradually predominate low expectations. If the teacher expects a student to perform poorly, the performance is likely to be poor. It really is a “self –fulfilling prophecy”.

In 1971, Robert Rosenthal, a professor of social psychology at Harvard demonstrated the powerful influence of expectation using rats. He told his students that he had developed intelligent rats, which can run the maze quickly. In an experiment to compare the ‘intelligent’ rats with ‘normal’ rats, he told half his students that they had the bright rats and the other half had dull rats to assess the performance of the rats. Perfectly normal rats were passed through the maze in both the groups.

Result! Student group who was told that they had bright rats actually recorded significantly better performance than the group who were told they had dull rats to work with.

So how does this power of expectation work? The first step in this process of self-fulfilling prophecy is the expectation. We are conditioned and inclined to form expectations of people and events. Forming expectations is natural and unavoidable. We form expectations easily. Meet an accountant and we expect him to be meticulous. Meet a nurse, who in our expectation is a woman, and we expect her to be gentle and tender.

The process is then furthered when we actually communicate those expectations with various cues. Explicitly and subtly with or without our realization, we communicate these expectations to the person. In Rosenthal’s rat experiment, the students who believed they were dealing with intelligent animals actually treated them gently and were enthusiastic about the experiment. There was a relaxed atmosphere. It was not the case with the group who thought they had dull creatures to work with. Both the groups thus communicated expectation cues.

Generally, people tend to respond to the expectation cues. They would adjust their behaviour to conform to the expectations.

When a large group of college friends expects a mate to be brave and their expectations are communicated through several cues, the mate is likely to even confront the raging bull especially when friends are watching. The result is that the original expectation becomes true and the behavior is further reinforced. This reinforced behaviour would self sustain in the long term.

This process of self-fulfilling prophecy can be gauged from George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion when Eliza Doolittle explains:

“You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.”

The self-fulfilling prophecy is popularly adapted in the field of management as “Pygmalion effect”. Although the effect is not widely understood, many research studies point out the stark truth of the powerful influence of expectation. Research findings compiled by J. Sterling reveal the following:

• An employee’s career progression and performance is largely determined by the expectation of the boss and the way he treats the employee.
• An important characteristic of the effective manager is his ability to create high performance expectations that the employees achieve.
• Most ineffective managers fail because they develop mental conditions to create lower expectation and the employees’ performance suffers consequently.
• Employees adjust their behaviours to match the expectation of the boss.

When confronted with a poor performance, it is important first of all to assess the Pygmalion effect. Performance could be perceived as poorer than it is. The manager’s expectation would be lower than what is required. In which case, the boss needs to develop skills to form better quality expectation.

But the BOSS then asserts: what if the employee is made of real poor stuff? How can one harbour high expectations? It would be simply dreaming the impossible and creating an illusion for both the boss and the employee.

The manager’s expectations should be tested against reality. To translate expectations into self-fulfilling prophecy, the expectations should not simply be one emanating from an attitude of positive thinking and a generalized confidence on another fellow being. Expectations should be realistic and achievable. They should be realistic and achievable in the perception of the employee as well.

Setting an expectation, which the employee perceives as unachievable would simply be counter-productive. The employee would quit trying for the result and settle for even a lower productivity. The art of forming an expectation therefore, rests in the capability of the boss to assess the general competency and the expectation level of the employee. The key is “do not keep the carrot dangling just beyond the reach of the donkey”. The donkey must realize that carrot can be relished after performing a job, which any hard working donkey could. Otherwise, the carrot is simply a mirage in the desert. The danger is if the donkey realizes it as a mirage, any carrot, even the one too near the mouth would be a worthless goal to strive for.

The other thing to look for when confronted with poor performance is to assess the “enabling factors for poor performance”. Enabling factors would be varied and numerous in their manifestations. The poor performer may only be a single player in the team. Enabling factors would be related to the goal and competency fit of the employee, general skill level, motivation, work environment, team cooperation etc. The problem can only be eliminated when the root cause is addressed.

Expectation cues are transmitted consciously or unconsciously by the boss to the employees. Most often, negative expectation cues are communicated effectively. Generally, even the employees are attuned to pick up the negative cues more often than the positive ones. The boss should be sensitive about it. He or she must realize that in every interaction with the employees known and unknown cues of expectation may be transmitted which would have a powerful influence on how the subordinates behave.

High and positive employee expectations should be sincere and genuine. The boss should feel sincere about the positive expectation. An insincere expectation related verbally to the employee would not be supported by other media through which cues would be transmitted. The end result will be a “confused employee”.

Pygmalion, the sculptor in the Greek mythology carved a statue of a beautiful woman that was subsequently brought to life. Every manager has a Pygmalion like role to play in the organization. The expectations as the chisel and hammer must carve a beautiful statue of the woman. Just as the beauty of the statue would depend on the sculptor and the tools, performance at workplace would depend on the manager’s expectation of the employee and other enabling factors.

1. Sterling Livingstone, J, Pygmalion in Management (Harvard Business Review, Harper & Row, London, 1979
2. Eden, Dov. Pygmalion in management. D.C. Heath: Lexington, MA, 1990
3. Rosenthal, Robert and Jacobson, Lenore. Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development. Irvington Publishers: New York, 1992