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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT I

Do great

o you remember R. K. Narayan's classic novel, 'The Guide'? Railway Raju, the protagonist is a criminal who on being released from prison takes refuge in an ancient temple by the riverside of a remote village. By a fortuitous turn of events, the villagers misjudge him to be a saint and repose their faith in him. Caught in a dilemma of wanting to be free, and the guilt at the thoughts of disappointing them, he ultimately succumbs to their expectations at considerable costs to himself.

The effect of managerial expectations on subordinate behavior and subsequently on performance was comprehensively documented by Livingston in 1969. He concluded that what managers expect of their subordinates and the way they treat them largely, determines the subordinate's performance and career progress. Driven by his high expectations, the Pygmalion manager treats his subordinates in such ways so as to increase the subordinate's self-confidence. In turn, the employee is motivated to excel at his job making the original prophecy come true.

From the time Livingstone first proposed that an individual's expectations may powerfully influence another's behavior, a myriad of theories dealing with Self-Fulfilling Prophesies (SFP) have emerged. The most famous among these is the Pygmalion effect - named after George Bernard Shaw's play - which posits that

D employees create great

managers?

Since a manager's expectations of his team members and their expectations of themselves are the core factors that decide how well employees perform at work, it is interesting to explore the fundamental ideas behind what inspires a manager and his subordinate to give their best at work.

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BY PROF. P.D. JOSE

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I PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT human behavior and achievements may be positively or adversely shaped by expectations of their supervisors. In other words, people will internalize the negative or positive labels assigned to them and perform accordingly.

This phenomenon has been validated in a number of contexts.

The Pygmalion effect also spawned a set of associated theories, among them the Galatea effect which posits that directly inducing subordinates to expect more of themselves enhances their performance. The story goes that Pygmalion fell in love with an ivory statue he had crafted and it came to life after his incessant appeals to the goddess Venus. In both cases, the payoff for the organizations is better performance and higher productivity. In most studies of expectancy effects in the classroom and work situations, Pygmalion and Galatea effect have been viewed as downward flowing. In the Pygmalion effect, it is the supervisor who must convey the expectations to the subordinate while in the Galatea

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effect, though the supervisor is more tangential to the process, the expectations of the subordinate need to be raised by an external agency from a credible source.

What if these effects were to be reversed? Do the expectations of the subordinates influence the performance of leaders? If yes, what implications exist for the management? These are questions worth exploring. It is proposed that when the expectations of the subordinate are positive (optimistic) and the outcome too is positive; it is called reversed Pygmalion or the Extended Galatea Effect (EGE).

When the subordinate expectations are negative (pessimistic) and the outcome is negative, this is called the confirmed failure effect.

How does this work? We can hypothesize as follows: Subordinates convey their high expectations of a supervisor's potential performance consciously or otherwise.

Simultaneously, they also tend to facilitate the supervisors' leadership process and effectiveness by exhibiting increased levels of

maturity and facilitating easier control and coordination. In short, by giving the best, the subordinate can muster in terms of administrative/technical inputs, and thus leave the manager free to grapple with the problems of a higher order such as planning and coordination, the subordinate also increases the probability of the supervisor's success.

Simultaneously, the belief that positive outcomes will result from the supervisor's leadership motivates subordinates who puts in greater effort and achieves enhanced performance. The supervisor is then motivated to put in greater effort in achieving the desired outcome.

On the completion of the task, both the supervisor and the subordinate evaluate the outcome against their initial expectations.

From the view point of the subordinate, a positive outcome reinforces his earlier prediction completing the SFP process for the subordinate. In short, the realization of high subordinate expectation justifies the subordinate's high initial

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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT I expectations, reinforces them and revalidates his decision to treat this supervisor as special.

Simultaneously the supervisor too evaluates the outcome. A positive outcome will increase his feeling of self-efficacy leading to increased motivation and enhanced performance.

Evidences of reverse Pygmalion in the classroom

PROF. P.D. JOSE Associate Professor â– Indian Institute of Management Bangalore P.D. Jose is an Associate Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Earlier he has been a member of the faculty at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. Jose has been a visiting faculty at Cardiff Business School, IIM Kozhikode, and Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law. Jose is greatly interested in issues related to business strategy and its linkage to sustainable development including corporate social responsibility.

His recent research involves examining how Indian firms are reporting on sustainability issues.

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Examples of student expectations influencing teacher performance in the classroom are visible in a number of everyday classroom situations. My own experience has been that in most classroom situations courses offered by some faculties are more popular. These faculties normally also get high ratings from the students. In other words, most relationships between 'teacher expectations' and student performance in classrooms may be more accurately construed as 'student effects' on teachers rather than 'teacher effects' on students.

The extended Galatea effect in the classroom may be hypothesized to work as follows. The expectations of the new entrants to the course are raised as a result of feedback received from the seniors and other sources.

These expectations are conveyed to the teacher unwittingly.

The teacher's performance in the class is facilitated (paying more attention, more attendance, raising more questions, etc.). Constant feedback, mostly non-verbal, is also given to the teacher. Simultaneously, the learning process of the student is facilitated as a result of these positive attitudes. As the learning increases and achievements (good grades in the exam) are visible at the outcome evaluation stage this is attributed to the effectiveness of the teacher.

Extended Galatea Effects (EGE) at the workplace In the Galatea effect, productivity of the subordinate is increased by raising the self-expectations of the subordinate using an outside agency other than the immediate supervisor.

However, it can be hypothesized that

productivity can also be enhanced by raising the self-expectations of the supervisor using the subordinate, which the subordinate plays the role of the Pygmalion. However, if the subordinate is given feedback from external sources that the induction of a new manager may significantly improve the organizations performance, will it make that prophesy a reality?

The extended Galatea effect appears to be most useful in situations where employee morale and self-esteem are low - a situation commonly observed in organizations or departments on the decline. In contexts where employees have low morale and low self-esteem, introducing a change agent while simultaneously manipulating the expectations raises the employees' assessment of the probability of a successful turnaround. This in turn creates favourable conditions for a faster revival.

While managing turnaround situations, EGE can be used to an advantage. A planned intervention such as the appointment of a new manager with a successful reputation, or a restructuring effort under the leadership of a trusted manger - may be the trigger for creating a change in expectations. In many turnaround situations, this can be tremendously facilitating.

Imagine the entry of a manger with a reputation for turnaround. The employee's expectations about his leadership are based on external information about his successful tenure elsewhere. High expectations about possible revival, while simultaneously motivating employees, also may make it easier to push through the tough restricting measures. When ultimately the first positive signs of turnaround are visible, evaluating the situation reinforces the group's beliefs about the leadership, creating a virtuous cycle. This may also imply that when outsiders with a positive reputation are chosen to lead change efforts, it increases the probability and quickens the pace of organizational revival.

Of course, turnaround situations

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I PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT are complex and cannot be adequately explained by resorting to EGE alone. An organization may still fail in spite of confidence building measures because of fundamental flaws in other aspects of management and control. Conveying high levels of expectations only motivates the employee to put in a more persistent effort.

The ultimate outcome will depend on a number of external variables such as ability, clarity and achievability of goals, and other environmental factors beyond the individual's control. On the other hand, raising expectations gives it advantages in terms of increased stock market support, and an increased ability to raise the required resources from outside sources.

Limiting processes in EGE in work situations The analysis of self-fulfilling prophesy as a psychological process that raises the expectee's self-efficacy and consequently the productivity is a restricted explanation for behavior in work situations. This analysis does not take into consideration other variables such as authority that may lead to conforming behavior. The subordinate's compliance to the supervisor's expectations may result from their belief about the manager's control over valued resources such as pay rises, promotions or favorable evaluation reports. The extended Galatea effect makes the implicit assumption that enhanced performance results from high expectations and is not in any way influenced by reward or punishment systems. However, the original question still remains - would high expectations be still instrumental in giving better performance if the expector has no control authority over the expectee?

Second, EGE in the work situation is triggered by raising the 'shared expectations' of the subordinates. This is considerably more difficult than manipulating the expectations of a single individual. There may also be individual differences within the group resulting in both positive as well as negative expectations. It is also possible that the skeptics may contaminate and lower the expectation level of colleagues in the course of their interactions. It is not clear how the supervisor would react to these conflicting signals.

Third, as Livingstone noted in 1969, expectations must pass the text of reality before they can be translated into performance. Too high an expectation may erode the credibility of the source of those expectations, will not raise productivity, and may trigger indifference and even scorn. It is important that the expectations raised in subordinates are realistic and achievable so that it will serve as a motivator to the supervisor.

Finally, if the above propositions are true, it raises some fundamental questions regarding workplace motivation and performance. There is ample discussion on how toxic bosses compromise and destroy the performance potential of employees, but not all the blame may be laid on the bosses. The reversal of this theory implies that toxic employees too may exist in organizations and they may HC compromise the ability of the boss to succeed.

(Note: The author acknowledges Professor Deepti Bhatnagar of IIM Ahmedabad, who provided the inspiration for the original work.)

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