Believing in People – Pygmalion and Golem
/One of my absolute advantages and assets as a leader, is that I have an unshakeable faith in people – in their ability and their desire to learn, to grow, to develop, to take responsibility (for themselves and others), to act ethically, to do the right things, to subordinate themselves to the cause, to be tough when they need to and compassionate when they need to, to be fabulous. To me people are beautiful, flawed geniuses. My faith in human nature is my God. And it has never ever let me down. Individual people let us down occasionally, people disappoint us occasionally, but are we not allowed to be human? If that behaviour is serial then maybe we can’t be in relationship (since I am clearly not right for you either, but someone will be…..) – if this cause is not for you, that’s fine, but you now need to go and find a cause that you can give yourself to.
Now I understand that this can all sound a bit cult-like and we certainly need to be aware that our egos can start taking things very seriously. Pomposity is neither pretty nor effective. But the only reason we would not be able to get people excited about our cause, is if there is actually nothing to get excited about – if our company serves no real purpose or adds no real value. Leaving things like cigarettes and arms aside, there are not many products that I cannot see the value in. I may rail against the rampant consumerism of needless consumption and disposability which is fuelled by capitalism, but I don’t for example have a problem per se with luxury cars even though my socialist bone marrow shouts for us all to be driving Fords. My wife Rachel taught me, in an echo of both Karl Marx and Janis Joplin, that real socialists don’t want to get the rich out of their Mercedes and into Fords, real socialists believe everyone should have a Mercedes. Let’s not dumb down to the lowest common denominator, let’s lift everyone to the highest quality.
So if every company has a purpose, then every company can achieve a culture whereby every single employee is a passionate evangelist for the cause – for the products and services, for the customers, and for the future destiny of the business.
One of my favourite leadership quotes was written about Earnest Shackleton. And this is what I profoundly believe to be true:
“At the core of Shackleton’s gift for leadership in crisis was an adamantine conviction that quite ordinary individuals were capable of heroic feats if the circumstances required; the weak and the strong could and must survive together. The mystique that Shackleton acquired as a leader may be partly attributed to the fact that he elicited from his men strength and endurance they had never imagined they possessed. He ennobled them” - Caroline Alexander, 1999
You may have heard of the famous experiment done by Rosenthal and Jacobson in 1965 with a group of Teachers and Pupils. A number of teachers of equal ability were split into 2 groups. The first group were given a cohort of pupils who were above average intelligence and attitude, and the teachers were openly told this. They were tasked with taking the above average students to an even higher level of performance and it was made plain that the school had very high expectations of both the teachers and the pupils. The second group of teachers were given a cohort of pupils of below average intelligence and attitude, and again the teachers were openly told this. They were tasked with doing their very best with the pupils, but the school accepted that the outcomes would be limited.
Unsurprisingly, when tested at the end of the programme, the first cohort of pupils achieved great results. The teachers had taken them to new heights of performance, and in fact their feedback was that actually the task was not that hard, but they were very proud of themselves and had had a thoroughly enjoyable year. Everyone was really happy. Unsurprisingly the results with the second cohort of pupils were very different, with little if any real progress, and actually with many examples of pupils having regressed, especially in attitude. And the teachers fed back that they had had a somewhat dispiriting year themselves and had even started to doubt their competence as teachers.
All this sounds predictable and perhaps inevitable. And that might be true, if it were not for one critical factor. The school had lied to the teachers about the abilities of the pupils. The pupils were in fact of all the same level of intelligence and attitude. There was no difference in the ability of the 2 groups. The only difference was the expectation of the teachers.
This is also known as the Pygmalion Effect - the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. A corollary of the Pygmalion effect is the Golem effect in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance; both effects are forms of self-fulfilling prophesy. A leader's expectations of their employees are influenced by their perception of both the challenge at hand, and of the competence and attitude of the followers themselves. Perception and expectation are interestingly found in a similar part of the brain, making us unconscious slaves to our pre-judgements. It’s why one of my main exhortations is to believe that people are capable of the most extraordinary achievements and accomplishments, given honest leadership and a decent opportunity.
Boss: “I thought you’d never get here”
Employee: “That’s what took me so long”
Article excerpted from “Corporate Emotional Intelligence” - by Gareth Chick
About the Author:
Gareth Chick is a 40 year corporate veteran with a global profile. His career has included hugely successful spells as CFO, CEO and Chairman in both public and private sectors, including private equity. What makes Gareth's experience unique is that he combined those executive roles with a part time career as a leadership trainer, researching psychology, neuroscience and psychotherapy to create leadership development programmes used now by many major global corporations. In the last 15 years Gareth has trained over 5000 managers and served as Executive Coach to over 200 senior execs including FTSE100 CEOs and Fortune 500 VPs. As Founder of Collaborative Equity LLP, “promoting corporate cultures and sustainable business models of shared ownership, shared responsibility and shared rewards", Gareth acts as consultant to many global leaders, specialising in first time CEOs and Start Up founders. ↠ find out more at ceq.com
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