“Pygmalion in Management”

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“Pygmalion in Management” by J. Sterling Livingston, Harvard Business Review 1969 Introduction A manager’s expectations are the key to a subordinate’s performance and development. The main idea of an article “Pygmalion in Management” is that if manager believe that subordinate is capable of achieving greatness, then the subordinate indeed achieve the greatness. Some managers always treat their subordinates in a way that leads to superior performance. But most managers, unintentionally treat their subordinates in a way that leads to lower performance than they capable of achieving. If manager’s expectations are high, productivity is likely to be excellent. If their expectations are low, productivity is likely to be low. In other words, believe in potential simply creates potential. The Pygmalion effect enables staff to surpass in response to the manager’s message that they are capable of success and expected to succeed. But it can also undermine staff performance when the unrecognized communication from the managers tells them the opposite. In another way every managers have some expectations of the people who report to him or her and they consciously or unconsciously communicate these expectations to their subordinates. On the other hand people get it, or consciously or unconsciously read, these expectations from their managers or supervisors and people perform in the ways that are consistent with the expectations they have picked up on from the managers. Summary The book is divided into four big parts. First part is Impact on Productivity. This part provide example from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They divided their agents into three groups. Best agents with the best assistant manager, average agents with average assistant manager, and the low producers with the least able managers. With the result group of best manager give by far best

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