Thread by @WillJMeddings

1963, Cambridge, MA. A psychologist is about to run an experiment with profound impacts on how instructors view students and leaders view their people.

Bob Rosenthal is about to discover the #Pygmalion Effect.

A thread about unlocking #potential for leaders and instructors

But first, h/t to @rcbregman. You can find this and other lesson on human nature in 'Human Kind'. I highly recommend it.

And to people like @UpSkillYourLife, @dklineii and @SahilBloom, all of whom have touch on this before.

@rcbregman @UpSkillYourLife @dklineii @SahilBloom Back to Bob. He sets up two cages, each with the same maze. Then puts signs on each cage identifying one group of rats as highly intelligent, and the others as dull and dim-witted.

The catch? Both groups are perfectly normal and exactly the same.

@rcbregman @UpSkillYourLife @dklineii @SahilBloom But strangely, the rats that the student think are brighter and faster actually start to complete the mazes more quickly.

And not by a few small percentage points.

In fact, they perform *twice as effectively*

@rcbregman @UpSkillYourLife @dklineii @SahilBloom Bob is confused but eventually understands the difference.

The researchers working with the 'super-intelligent' rats treated them better. They handled them more gently and more warmly and the rats responded better.

It triggers a thought for another experiment...

@rcbregman @UpSkillYourLife @dklineii @SahilBloom 'If rats became brighter when expected to, then it shouldn't be far fetched to think that children could become brighter when expected to by their teachers' he speculated.

His next experiment was the kind of thing you wouldn't get away with these days.

He repeated the experiment at Spruce Elementary school.

Following an IQ test, some randomly selected kids were assigned to a 'high potential' group. The others were told nothing.

The results were startling. They matched what he found with the rats

The largest effect was among the youngest children, who gained 27 IQ points.

In groups normally subject to the lowest expectation the effect was even larger.

Bob named it the #Pygmalion Effect, after the mythological Greek sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved

Over the last half a century the effect has been tested in hundreds of studies.

At universities, in families, in courts and, unsurprisingly, in the army. And its still holds.

In 2005 a critical review concluded that 'teacher expectations clearly do influence students'

And there's a flip side to: the Golem effect.

Because it cuts both ways.

If you have a low expectations of your students, trainees or team members you will look at them less, smiles less, help them less. And they will begin to perform worse.

If you are a teacher you have probably learnt this already. How you treat students and what you expect of them matters. A lot.

But there are two lessons that really resonated with me. A lesson about the #culture leaders create, and a lesson about the @Army_Leadership Code.

First, culture.

Perhaps you like to gripe about your people. Or how new recruits are not as good as you were when you joined the Army.

Remember that when leaders do this in private it seeps out into how they act in public. It creates a culture of expectations.

If you are an officer or a senior NCO who denigrates the ability of your soldiers while griping at the bar in your Mess, you are creating a culture of low expectations.

If you are a JNCO swapping stories of how useless your recruits in training are, it's the same.

As Chris Finbow wrote in his letter to new platoon commanders

"All too often you will encounter negativity and bitterness.... It is your responsibility to never deal in it in front of your soldiers"

Instead, be a dealer of high expectations.
thearmyleader.co.uk/platoon-comman…

Endlessly repeated research shows us: expect your people to excel and you have a good chance of making them better.

Who would throw away a 10% #improvement in their team just so they can complain and put people down?

In fact, we've even codified this lesson...

Second, the @Army_Leadership Code.

The ALC came out of the Values Based Leadership project at @ITC_Catterick and later @ARITC_ASLS.

It was based on Hardy and Arthur's Bangor #leadership model formed after a study into improving @RoyalMarines training.

army.mod.uk/media/2698/ac7…

In 1978 Lew Hardy was responsible for developing the world's first Sports Science degree.

So he knows a thing of two about squeezing the best out of people.

Hardy and Arthur's 2010 paper on their work with the @RoyalMarines 👇
ipep.bangor.ac.uk/docs/DTLI%20mi…

His study found these factors mattered:

👍Contingent reward
👍Intellectual stimulation
👍Inspirational motivation
👍Appropriate role models
👍Individual considerations
👍Acceptance of group goals
👍High performance expectations
👍Global transformational leadership

Back to the ALC.

The D of LEADERS is 'demand high performance'

In the original study (and in Values Based #Leadership) this was instead termed 'set high performance expectations'

See the difference? It's about who is being focused on. Let me explain...

In the ALC, it is about the leader *demanding* high #performance. Its about setting high targets and holding people to account.

In the second, it is more about getting your people to have high expectations of themselves.

The difference is subtle. But it's important.

The second lesson then, is about what you expect of your people, and how you nurture their own expectations of themselves.

Kill the Golem Effect and harness the Pygmalion Effect.

#Rolemodel expecting the best of themselves.

TL;DR:

The Pygmalion Effect means people will perform better if you expect them to
It is backed up by research
It means not setting a culture in private of putting subordinates down
And it means setting high performance expectations so that your people believe in themselves

I (with @Jon38856779 and @rawdon_john) were some of the first to trialed VBL at @ITC_Catterick in 2006/7.

Hence why I'm so passionate.

So I'd be grateful if you could share the original tweet and spread the message about the Pygmalion Effect. Every leader should know it.

And finally, if you found that interesting I'm sharing threads on #leadership, training and UK/African security and operations.

Here's a #leadership one on one of the most legendary RSMs who ever lived: JC Lord.

https://twitter.com/WillJMeddings/status/1474039674696081412?s=20&t=ER6R-3C5e-cWpBPQBpPj0Q