Pygmalion Effect

Dear Readers,

In the first posting, I’ve posted my write up on Pygmalion Effect which was published in HR Republic, Malaysia too. Hope you would enjoy reading it.

Pygmalion effect – Right people Management by right perception

It’s really amazing that how we perceive others could have a huge impact on their behavioral pattern and performance.  When the perception is positive, even a poor performer will respond positively and it’ll have a positive influence on his performance.

Here goes an interesting study that was conducted on how perception could influence the behavioral pattern and performance either positively or negatively.

This study was conducted to find out the impact of teachers’ perception towards students’ performance.  Two groups of students, one group consisting of all bright students and another group of average students were identified by the researchers.  These two groups were then handed over to their teachers stating the facts otherwise, viz.  the group consisting of bright students were told as average group and average students’ group as a bright group.  When the students’ performance was measured during their academic year, it was found that the average group consisting of bright students has not performed well and the bright group consisting of average students has really performed well. 

The researcher were surprised and found out that the change in performance level of the students was primarily due to teachers’ perceptions towards their students and students’ positive response towards teachers’ perceptions.  The Teachers that had the bright group consisting of average students perceived the students as bright students though they are average ones and related to them in a very positive way, encouraging them to be confident and perform better without any doubtful pessimistic attitude.  Their quality of interaction was good.  The students were also better adjusted and very receptive. Whereas in the other group, average group consisting of bright students, the teachers have perceived the students as average ones, related to them without much encouragement in a negative way and the students also, though they were bright, responded in the same fashion, thus, could not perform well in their studies. 

This study confirms the direction correlation between perception and performance.  Consciously or unconsciously, we hint people about what we think of them, either good or bad.  This is exhibited through our body language, how we communicate etc., Though it could be in subtle ways many times (sometimes in most obvious ways), people do pick up these cues and tend to respond in a similar manner. This theory is called Pygmalion effect. 

It has few key principles as given below:

1)     We form certain expectations about people, either good or bad.

2)     We express these expectations through lots of ways, either consciously or unconsciously

3)     Others do understand these cues and adjust their behavior and tend to respond in a similar fashion matching the expectation.

4)     The final outcome, the original expectations become true.

In the workplace context, the Pygmalion effect in terms of leaders and managers’ perception play a massive role in motivating the teams and employees across the organization.  It all the more confirms the Gallup findings that the onus of motivation lies with the boss.

It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on their Managers. The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect: which means you must always expect the best. “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.” 

We would’ve seen in our experience the so-called performance-challenged employees becoming good performers when they work in different teams or when their supervisors are changed.  Though the reasons can not be entirely attributed to supervisors in all the scenarios, the perception factor in terms of how the employee is perceived does matter a lot in most of the cases. 

Like the teacher with the student, the trainer with the trainee, the supervisor has a profound impact on the success or failure of the team members. 

To conclude, it’s always the Great Managers who can produce Great performers and Great Teams.