In the
film Batman Begins, Bruce wayne was lost in the feeling of vengeance. But
Alfred and Rachel Dawes did not give up on him. It took their superior
expectations on him to create the legend of The Dark Knight. There is something
special in everyone, it takes patience and perseverance to reveal that hidden
diamond.
Pygmalion in Management
Now let us
get back to real world, J. Sterling Livingston, a professor at Harvard Business
School wrote an article called Pygmalion in Management,
where he says that “Manager/Supervisor’s
expectations are key to the development and achievement of Subordinates”.
This was later reinforced by a lot of experiments in many organizations.
These studies do reveal the fact that if the managers have high expectations
about their subordinates. They indeed tend to show this in non verbal
cues. For example, they tend to give them more ambitious tasks, keep in
constant touch with them and communicate their high expectations in many
non-verbal cues such as facial expression, eye contact, reassuring voice etc.
The very fact that their superiors are taking out time to spend with them
works on the minds of the subordinates and that motivates and helps them
perform better.
It is said that we humans have an innate tendency to feel motivated when we
see/ realize that someone has high expectations of us. That gives a high
and we start putting in more and more into the work we do. So the leaders
who believe in the potential of their team members keep giving them more and
more challenging tasks and keep assuring them that they indeed can achieve it
and support their members through the journey, this makes the subordinates
expand their potential and scale heights they never knew before.
Ok,
now I am boss and I start defining my expectations to people. Every task for me is a motivating one and every time I start
The Pygmalion Effect is the best when
the Probability of Success from the subordinates perspective is 0.5 on a scale
of 1.
giving non-verbal cues will
that work ? To me it won’t. Studies again tell us that the
Pygmalion effect is the maximum on the people only when the probability of
attaining the task is at 0.5 on the scale of 1. When the task is
easily doable (Probability >0.75), or when the task is extremely difficult
(probability < 0.25) the effect of Pygmalion on them tends to go down.
So how do you use Pygmalion to
generate effective results in your team?
1. As ever you ought to have a clear vision of what’s need to be
done. (the work or the task at hand)
2.
Have a high regard for your team and a belief that your team members are
achievers. Have trust and faith .
3.
Understand the profile of your team member to identify what he did very
well previously and what according to you would be a very good challenge for
him. Make sure you pick something that the team member himself feels has a 50%
chance of succeeding at.
4. Put
that goal in front of him/her and start supporting them in their endeavour. Now
don’t be surprised if the they surprise themselves and you.
SMART GOALS
Specific: It means that the goals should be clear,
unambiguous. It should make a team to concentrate on the clearly defined
objective and should help decide the action plan.
For example, before starting the
tower building activity, the height of the cubes' tower was anticipated with a
single number and not with a vague range.
'S' also stands
for Significant, simple
Measurable: It asks for a specific criterion to measure the
progress towards achievement of the specified goal. It helps to track the
performance of a team and provides feedback whether the team is moving towards
the goal.
'M' also means Motivational,
manageable, meaningful, mind-blowing!
Attainable: It demands that goals should be realistic and
attainable. Un realistic targets wont help in long term. This may
result in failure of an activity creating extra pressure on everybody.
For example, Once the first team
built the tower, the next time the height of the tower was predicted to be
higher but around that number, making the goal achievable.
'A' -> Appropriate, achievable,
agreed, ambitious, acceptable
Relevant: The goal must be challenging, yet realistic.
Lowering the bar for a high jumper could not realistically increase motivation
nor enhance performance. Similarly, setting a goal to build the tower of 30
blocks is not a realistic or attainable goal and would therefore not positively
affect motivation or performance.
'R' also means Results-oriented,
resourced, resonant, realistic
Time Bound: It states that the goals should have definite time
limit to achieve. It helps a team to focus their efforts on the completion of
the goal. It makes a team proactive to deal with the day to day crisis arising
in an organization, because the deadline is set.
The tower building activity performed
in the class was not a time bound.
'T' -> trackable, tangible,
timely
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