Yet another
Thought-Provoking Lecture taken by Dr. Mandi. This blog will throw some light
on SMART Goals and Pygmalion Effect.
SMART GOALS
SMART stands for:
S= Specific, Simple,
Sustainable
M= Measurable, Motivating, Meaningful
A= Attainable, Ambitious, Appropriate
R= Realistic, Relevant, Result-oriented
T= Time-bound, Tangible
Let’s have a deeper
look in all of these:
Specific
The goal should be clear and unambiguous;
without vagaries and platitudes. Goals must reveal exactly what is
expected and why is it important. Specifics help us to focus our efforts
and clearly define what we are going to do.
Measurable :
Goals must be measurable to be able to provide feedback and
to know when the goal is achieved. Measurable goals help to check the progress
of the particular activity.
Attainable:
The goal should be attainable. Unrealistic targets
won’t help in long term. This may result in failure of an activity
creating extra pressure on everybody. The goals should be neither out of reach
nor below standard performance.
Realistic:
The goal must be challenging, yet realistic. A goal that
supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant
goal.
Time Bound :
In order for goals to positively affect motivation and
performance, goals must be time-bound. A commitment to a deadline helps a team
focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This
is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that
invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish
a sense of urgency.
PYGMALION EFFECT
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. The effect is named after Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.
Pygmalion effect – the original study
The well-cited study by Rosenthal and Jacobson found that if
a teacher were led to believe that a student or group of students would be
superior learners the teacher would hold higher performance expectations from
these students. As a result the students would then raise their performance in
order to live up to these heightened performance expectations.
All students were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning
of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told
that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be
expected to be “bloomers” that year, doing better than expected in comparison
to their classmates. The bloomers names were made known to the teachers. These
20% were also the ones that showed higher result in the end of the year.
There was no difference in the amount of time the teachers
spent with the students. Evidently there was a difference in the quality of the
interactions. The teachers also found the “bloomers” to be more appealing, more
affectionate and better adjusted. Some students gained in IQ even though they
had not been designated as “bloomers” but they were not regarded to be as
appealing, affectionate or well adjusted.
Such communication together with possible changes in teaching
techniques may have helped the student to learn by changing his self concept,
his expectations of his own behaviour, and his motivation, as well as his
cognitive style and skills.
Pygmalion effect in organisations
During the years, many studies in organisational settings
have shown that the Pygmalion effect is highly existent. For example a study by
King and Catalanello from 1971 where managers were given names of trainees who
scored high on tests. The names were chosen by random, and the trainees that
performed the best were the ones that were named to the managers. To a recent
study from 2012 by Whitely et al of 151 dyads of leaders and followers, the
performance expectations of leaders with less supervisory experience were more
strongly influenced by their conceptions of followers. Hundreds of studies have
shown the Pygmalion effect during the years before and after these studies.Try a broad overview
When we create a talent pool and work with success planning
the Pygmalion effect is something that has to be taken into consideration.
Managers who know employee talent classification would be expected to behave
the same way. Unconsciously, they give more attention to the elected persons
and communicates to employees, explicitly and also in non-verbal ways,
according whether they belong to the talent pool. A manager’s beliefs that
particular employees are high potentials influences their expectations and
behaviour towards these employees because they are given career opportunities.
Recent studies from Zurich University show what employers
naming high-potentials is counter intuitive. The high potentials were more
likely to leave the company than the non-high potentials, and they had less
work engagement compared to the non. Instead of just focusing on the high
potentials try a broad overview.
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