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How you Condemn your Staff to Failure

21 April, 2014 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Dunce

Rats and children are not so different They are similar in the way they behave: If you think a rat is clever, then the it will become clever If you think a child is clever then it will become clever as well Those might be scientifically proven facts, but proof and explanation are not the same […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: motivation, performance management, pygmalion effect, Robert Rosenthal

What Could a Lab Rat Teach You About Leadership?

13 April, 2014 by James Lawther 16 Comments

Self fulfilling prophecy

In the 1960’s a couple of scientists (Rosenthal and Frode) were busy trying to breed clever rodents.  To see if they had succeeded they ran some experiments with two strains of rats and a series of mazes: The first strain was “maze bright”, with parents and grand parents who were good at navigating mazes The […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: management style, motivation, pygmalion effect, reinforcing behaviour, Robert Rosenthal, stereotype

Are Your Team High Performers or Losers?

11 May, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Pygmalion effect

What do you think of the team you manage?  Are they the crème de la crème or a shower of … Is that a rather harsh question?  Perhaps, but the answer may well have a lot more to do with you than with them. Why do some people do better than others? In 1968 Rosenthal and […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: beliefs, employee performance measures, management style, pygmalion effect, reinforcing behaviour, Robert Rosenthal

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