Harnessing The Pygmalion & Galatea !...

Has it ever occurred to you, why some employees perform consistently well and why others struggle? Do you often rack your brains, and ponder how do we get our teams to increase their effectiveness and enhance performance?

Well, the answer to the above questions lies in the famous Pygmalion & Galatea Effect.

Pygmalion first appeared in Greek mythology as a King of Cyprus who carved a beautiful statue of a woman called Galatea. Overtime Pygmalion deeply falls in love with the statue and begins to wish that his beloved statue breathed some life. Pygmalion prays to Goddess Venus asking her to give him a lover just like the statue. Venus is touched by his love and brings the statue Galatea, to life.

Do you remember the famous movie, “My Fair Lady”? The movie was based on the famous play ‘Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts’ written by George Bernard Shaw. In the play, Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a Duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech.

In simple words, the Pygmalion Effect means "You get what you expect". If you expect disaster, your expectations may well be met in a kind of "self-fulfilling prophecy". Come to think of, the recent best seller, ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne subtly tends to highlight this aspect.

Long time ago, J. Sterling Livingston in Harvard Business Review perspicaciously described The Pygmalion effect in Management. "The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them." Livingston went on to say about the supervisor, "If he is unskilled, he leaves scars on the careers of the young men (and women), cuts deeply into their self-esteem and distorts their image of themselves as human beings. But if he is skillful and has high expectations of his subordinates, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop and their productivity will be high. More often than he realizes, the manager is Pygmalion."

Can you imagine how performance will improve if supervisors communicate positive thoughts about people to people?
Today this very principle is used by sports coach. The legendary Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh used to share with his team lots of positive thoughts and his expectations with the team. He used to hand out a page to every player stating their individual strengths and his expectations about their performance before the match. No wonder his team managed to become number 1 in Tests and One day international and managed to create a record winning streak of 16 tests in a row.

At work place, the supervisor forms expectations about the employee's behaviour and performance. These expectations in turn influence the supervisor’s behaviour towards the employee. An employee who is expected to do well receives more emotional support thorough verbal and non-verbal cues, frequent and valuable feedback and reinforcement, challenging goals, better training and more opportunities to demonstrate her or his performance. These have positive effects on the employee who in turn demonstrate desired behaviours and better performance, thereby supporting the supervisor's original expectations.

Apparently the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy can be summarized in these key principles:
1. We form certain expectations of people and events.
2. We communicate those expectations through various cues.
3. People tend to respond to those cues by adjusting their behavior to match them.
4. The result of the original expectation becomes true.

At the same time one must also be cautious; remember that communication can sabotage staff performance if you tell them, even subtly, the opposite. For example, the supervisor fails to praise his subordinate performance as frequently as he praises others or the supervisor talks less to a particular employee. All these lead to de-motivation and creates negative impact. Therefore it is important that a culture of appreciation and providing individual constructive feedback is regularly practiced by managers across all levels.

Here are some practical ways to harness the Pygmalion Effect:
• Hold frequent, positive verbal interactions with the employee
• Communicate consistently your firm belief in the employee's ability to perform the job.
• Make sure employees are receiving consistent messages from others.
• Provide opportunities for employees to work on increasingly challenging assignments.
• Make sure they succeed at each step before moving forward.
• When coaching employees focus more on employee strengths
• Encourage employees to visualize the successful execution of tasks
• Enable the employee to participate in potentially successful projects that bring continuous improvement to the workplace.

Now let’s quickly understand how Galatea Effect works.
A manager could be having low expectations from an employee or an initial neutral impression could get lowered due to the employee making a mistake. The manager then begins to wonder if this person has what it takes to be successful in the organization. His verbal and non-verbal communication conveys the lack of confidence in the abilities of the employee. This doubt leads the manager to watch this person more carefully. The employee, of course, notices this reservation and begins to sense a loss of trust. The employee then gradually starts doubting his own judgment and competence. This process results in a destructive relationship that is fuelled by negative expectations.

So, are you unwittingly communicating low expectations to your team? If yes, gradually change the way you behave. Remember people’s expectations of themselves also affect their performance. This is called the Galatea Effect. Employees who think they will succeed are most likely to succeed. So it goes without saying that any actions the supervisor takes to increase the employee's feelings of positive self-worth will help the employee's performance improve.

Pygmalion effect can cause Galatea Effect and both can be powerful performance management tools. The simple truth is that almost all of us behave pretty much according to the way we’re treated, isn’t it!