BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
I quickly gained a reputation for spotting people with potential. In truth I gave all my staff the same treatment. Most met my high expectations of them; a few did not for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons being their:
• Fear of failure and a • Lack of trust due to bad experiences with other managers in the past.
Sometime later I refined my use of expectation to transform not only an individual’s performance but to also tackle the fears mentioned above. I did this by delegating lots of higher level work to my new assistant. Of course when I delegated work to my assistant I remained accountable for results so this took away some of the pressure on the person. A couple of other things were important at that time.
1 A lot of the work I was delegating was not meant to be done at this level in the team or even at the level above. However I had no one else available to me at the time and with some guidance my assistant was soon able to do some of the higher level work. I deliberately did not mention that the work was two levels higher in case it affected my assistant’s confidence. However, in all my dealings I behaved as though the assistant could do the work.
2 I found that very quickly I could confer and confide with my assistant on nearly all important matters. My assistant had become my professional colleague.
So what did I do? Well I made a couple of phone calls, spent the night reading up on the issues and the next day - I got on with it.
After a few weeks, when worries about an ever increasing workload surfaced, a couple of other things seemed important.
1 After explaining how to prioritise work I took the opportunity to explain the ‘Pygmalion Effect’. My assistant’s response was thoughtful and positive - and worries about the workload ceased.
2 I then commended my assistant’s work to senior management. A few weeks later I was moved elsewhere eighteen months later my former assistant had gained the two promotions needed to get to supervisor level.
THINGS FELT VERY DIFFERENT TO ME How do we exert the power of expectation? How is the Pygmalion Effect achieved? Well I am not absolutely sure (because so few people have used it on me) but the first time they did - things felt very different to me.
I distinctly remember thinking to myself ‘I‘ve never done this work before but this person expects me to do it’. ‘What do I do now?’ ‘Do I explain my problem or do I just get on with it?’
I was reluctant to say anything because the person seemed to genuinely think I was doing work at the higher level. They did not seem to understand what level I was supposed to work at and I found it difficult to disappoint a person who had such confidence in me.
LOOKING AT PEOPLE, NOT AS THEY ARE, BUT AS YOU WANT THEM TO BE It was much later on that I realised the person was just using the power of expectation on me. So what’s the trick here? How does it work? Well if there is one it is the trick of looking at people, not as they are, but as you want them to be. Looking past their current experience and convincing yourself that this person has already reached their potential and what is more they are still growing. Then it is taking the time to talk to people as if they had all the ability you need them to have already. In ‘My Fair Lady’ Professor Higgins knows that Eliza has potential but fears failure and lacks confidence. Communicating his expectation built the confidence she needed to succeed.
The important thing here is that you need to be convinced yourself that the person can and will do what you want. This is not just a technique. Too many people can tell if you mean it or if you are trying it on. If you don’t believe it – they won’t believe it.
Well you might think ‘What about people who are untrained?’ ‘We cannot just dump the work on them’. That is true but I recall that the people who used the power of expectation on me were:
1 Rather matter of fact – so as to help me believe this was quite normal for them and quite normal for me
2 Careful to extend my abilities a little at a time so that my confidence grew
I now feel that a form of collusion starts to occur with this process, the two people concerned collaborate rather than contend over who is capable of doing what. This was best illustrated in my case when having agreed to do something well above my level - I casually mentioned that there was a training course that might be useful.
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