The Pygmalion effect

If a manager is convinced that the people in her or his group are first rate, they will reliably outperform a group whose manager believes the reverse, even if the innate talent of the two groups is similar.

Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.

In psychology the Pygmalion effect, also called the Rosenthal effect, was first demonstrated in 1968 by Robert Rosenthal, a pioneer of behavioural science, together with Lenore Jacobson, the principal of an elementary school. They wanted to know whether a teacher's expectations of students shaped their results at school.

They gave the students an IQ test at the start of the year. Teachers were told the test predicted which children would intellectually bloom over the year. The researchers then picked students at random and told their teachers those children had done exceptionally well, even though the results gave no sign that they would bloom.

At the end of the study the students took the same test again. Everyone improved, but the children who had been labelled bloomers improved more than the rest. A teacher expecting better performance had helped produce it.

In management this asks us to check our own bias towards our team, and to question whether our expectations are high enough for people to reach their potential. It should also make us look hard at the performance systems that attach a rating to a person, and wonder how those ratings can turn into expectations that come true on their own.