The Pygmalion-Galatea Effect and First Line Managers: Issue I Volume I (Inaugural Issue)

Dear Friends,

I have the pleasure of presenting you the inaugural issue of ‘The Enablers’, a e-publication aimed at developing the First-Line managers in the pharmaceutical industry.  

The mission of ‘The Enablers’ is to unlock the concealed potential in people, convert their dormant inherent strengths into actuality, leverage their latent energy to achieve their goals and dreams and enable them to emerge as winners.

In every issue, which will not be more than two pages, I intend to pick up one topic of interest which can be useful to the First-Line managers. In this issue, I have talked about the Pygmalion-Galatea Effect based on an article by Prof. J. Sterling Livingston which appeared in Harvard Business Review in 1988. 

In case you find it useful, you may forward it to the First-Line managers in the pharma industry. 

This e-newsletter will also be useful to students in pharma management business schools who desire to pursue marketing or sales as their career. 

I also welcome your candid and critical comments to upgrade the future issues. you may respond at:

• theenablers@gmail.com or 
• vivekhattangadi@yahoo.co.in  

With warm regards,

Prof. Vivek Hattangadi

13th July 2010
vivekhattangadi@theenablers.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pygmalion-Galatea Effect and First Line Managers

The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea says that a sculptor from Cyprus named Pygmalion disliked the female sex and yet set about to sculpt the perfect woman. He worked hard on his creation. The beautiful figure in cold marble which he eventually crafted - melted his heart. Finally Pygmalion fell in love with the statute and had a desire to marry it and prayed to God Aphrodite. Aphrodite felt sorry for Pygmalion, brought the statue, Galatea, to life, and blessed their union.

In George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, the character Eliza Doolittle says: “You see, really and truly, apart from the things any one can pick up, [the dressing and the proper way of speaking and so on]; the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Prof. Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will; but I know that I can be a lady to you (i.e. to Col. Pickering) because you always treat me as a lady and always will.”

The Pygmalion Effect can help First Line Managers (FLMs) to reflect on how their expectations can influence better performance from medical representatives. Those FLMs who set and effectively communicate high performance expectations, can expect superior feats from the people they lead. Like Prof. Higgins, many FLMs inadvertently treat their medical representatives in a way that leads to lower performance than they are capable of achieving! The way FLMs treat their medical representatives subtly influences them on the actual expectations from the FLM.  If the FLMs expectations are high, productivity from a medical representative is likely to be excellent. On the other hand, if their expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. “It is as though there was a law that caused subordinates performance to rise or fall to meet the managers’ expectations!” ⁽¹⁾ 

This is one of the reasons that apart from other qualitative attributes medical representatives possess, high performance should be given importance when considering them for promotions. The high performing people will always expect high performance from their people. This becomes all the more crucial when we recruit FLMs from outside our own organization. In the first place, such promotions should always be from within, however, where it is inevitable always recruit people from companies which have a higher sales turnover or at least about the same.  It is prudent to avoid candidates who are from the lower rung companies as their original company may have unintentionally developed in them a ‘low expectation’ mindset.

When medical representatives are treated by their FLMs as ‘super-people’ they try to live up to that persona and perform like ‘super medical representatives’. Unfortunately, the converse is even truer. When the medical representatives are treated by their FLMs as not having “any chance” of success, this negative expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The FLMs expectations must pass the test of reality before it can be translated into performance. Medical representatives will not be motivated to reach high levels of productivity unless they consider their FLMs high expectations are realistic and achievable. This is where cSMART goals are relevant.

The Galatea Effect

The Galatea Effect may even be considered as more powerful than the Pygmalion Effect and is a compelling factor in a medical representative’s performance. The FLMs who can help medical representative’s to believe in themselves and in their efficiency, have yoked a powerful performance improvement tool. Here are some ways in which FLMs can encourage positive, powerful self-expectations from people:

• Assign increasingly challenging yet cSMART goals.  
• The FLMs can project their sincere commitment to the success of the medical representatives.
• Ensure that the medical representatives also receive consistent messages from other people in the organization. In the Indian context, this becomes very important as sometimes the higher-ups directly interact with the medical representatives.

To conclude - A "Pygmalion Effect" occurs when medical representatives live up to the high expectations that FLMs have of them. A "Galatea Effect" occurs when they becomes self-motivated.

Ref: (1) J. Sterling Livingston, “Pygmalion in Management”, Harvard Business Review, September –October 1988