Pygmalion Side Effects: Bowling a Strike

Many managers know of the Pygmalion Effect, in which our expectations not only influence how we see employee performance, but also influence the employee's performance. This happens because we telegraph our expectations through tiny cues that are out of our awareness. When people pick up these cues, their behavior tends toward our expectations, and our expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies.

You might know this from personal experience. Perhaps your supervisor expected the best of you, and you delivered, and felt great. Or perhaps you were expected to fail, and you did. It's difficult to excel when your supervisor thinks you're a loser.

But there's much more to it than the Pygmalion Effect — there are the Pygmalion Side Effects. Managers who leave in place employees whom they believe are poor performers risk lost productivity, higher turnover, and interpersonal conflict, not only among the poor performers, but among other employees, too.

For example, the people around Elise also pick up on Alton's low opinion of her, which influences their expectations and how they behave toward Elise. They're less accepting of her contributions, and they might come to distrust her and even dislike her. These Pygmalion Side Effects influence Elise's performance, perhaps even more than the original Pygmalion Effect.

And the team's Managers who leave poor
performers in place risk triggering
the Pygmalion Side Effects —
lost productivity among
other employeesperformance can degrade. With or without a spoken agreement, the team might isolate Elise, depriving itself of contributions she might have made. Team members might second-guess her work, or distrust her opinions, or they might even reject her valid contributions. Interpersonal conflict can erupt, and that can lead to defects and project delays.

The Pygmalion Side Effects are something like bowling a strike. The bowling ball itself knocks down some of the pins, but most of the pins are knocked down by other pins.

If you're a manager, what can you do about a poor performer?

Beware perceptions

Recognize that it's possible that you're seeing the performance as poorer than it is. You can clear this up only by greater first-person involvement with the work of your organization — the whole organization. Email and third-hand communications are not first-person involvement.

Change something — carefully

If there's a performance issue, your best options are training, reassignment, transfer, or termination. Leaving poor performers in place and hoping for the best isn't likely to work, and could threaten team performance.

Go for the root cause

In today's highly interconnected work teams, evaluating personal performance can be difficult. If someone isn't doing well, some of the rest of the team could be playing a role. If you terminate a "poor performer" when the root cause is actually elsewhere in the team, the team will likely produce a new "poor performer."

The next time you're thinking about someone's poor performance, try not to bowl a strike.  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

For a discussion of the connection between confirmation bias and the Pygmalion effect, see "Confirmation Bias: Workplace Consequences Part II," Point Lookout for November 30, 2011.

For more on the Pygmalion Effect, see:

• J.S. Livingston, "Pygmalion in Management." Harvard Business Review, reprint #88509, in The Best of the Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School Press, 1991.
• "Expectations May Alter Outcomes Far More Than We Realize," by Sharon Begley, in The Wall Street Journal, p. B1, November 7, 2003.

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Taming the Time Card

Filling out time cards may seem maddeningly trivial, but the data they collect can be critically important to project managers. Why is it so important? And what does an effective, yet minimally intrusive time reporting system look like?

Let's Revise Our Rituals

Throughout the workday, we interact with each other on many levels. Some exchanges are so common and ritualized that we're no longer aware of them. If we revise these rituals slightly, we can add some zing to our lives.

Healthy Practices

Some organizational cultures are healthy; some aren't. How can you tell whether your organizational culture is healthy? Here are some indicators.

A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding

Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided. Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.

Team Risks

Working in teams is necessary in most modern collaborations, but teamwork does carry risks. Here are some risks worth mitigating.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 19: Embarrassment, Shame, and Guilt at Work: Creation

Three feelings are often confused with each other: embarrassment, shame, and guilt. To understand how to cope with these feelings, begin by understanding what different kinds of situations we use when we create these feelings. Available here and by RSS on December 19.

And on December 26: Embarrassment, Shame, and Guilt at Work: Coping

Coping effectively with feelings of embarrassment, shame, or guilt is the path to recovering a sense of balance that's the foundation of clear thinking. And thinking clearly at work is important if you want to avoid feeling embarrassment, shame, or guilt. Available here and by RSS on December 26.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenEXXhEeYGGGxbBYutner@ChacyyLtSszMzLUfgBpgoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented 6:00 PM June 29 (Eastern Time), Monthly Webinar, Technobility Webinar Series. You can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.