the belief-energy cycle, or, why you shouldn’t watch tv if you have allergies
As a leader, maybe you’ve occasionally had the feeling, “My top performers somehow manage to continue getting even better while my lower performers seem to actually be getting worse.” I hear this from leaders I’m coaching all of the time.
In many cases, it’s actually the same underlying force that is causing both of these trends to continue: It’s called the Matthew Effect, and it seems to be directly connected to the positive feedback loops people naturally experience at work. To illustrate, here’s a pretty typical week-in-the-life for a top performer: They work hard on some task, they succeed, this success creates positive impact on others/the mission, seeing these results affirms their identity as top-performers and reaffirms their commitment to the mission, then this swell of emotion fills them with energy, which then fuels even more hard work on the next task. And then the cycle begins again. I call this the “Belief-Energy Cycle”.
The problem is, when we think about how to improve the performance of people who are currently struggling, leaders often act as if these feedback loops aren’t constantly affecting people’s motivation. Consider the typical way of working with someone with a particular skill deficit: First, we give them encouraging but direct feedback that they aren’t great at X. We give them some tips and practice to get better at X. Then we set a development goal for them to work really hard at X and set a plan to check back on how well they can X by the end of the quarter.
The masters of helping others grow invert the “work → success → identity” process.
Consider how much harder it is to summon the energy to work on something you’re bad at compared to something you excel at. Students who believe they stink at math will slump deeper into their seats in response to a teacher’s (well intended) exhortations that they’ll surely improve if they’d only be willing to work harder. It’s no wonder that people struggle to find the activation energy required to work hard enough to jump-start the belief-energy cycle. Striving continually through failed performance to improve just doesn’t work.
So how can you overcome this? Rather than starting with the hard work, start with the identity of your under-performers. Reset their view of themselves as being more capable. Telling someone that they’re good at something sets a new expectation, which they then accept as a new identity.
Performance will then live up to those standards.
“No way!” you’re probably thinking, “I can’t just say to someone who is bad at X, ‘hey, you’re great at X’ and then suddenly they’ll be great at X. I’d be lying and they’d know it! The whole reason we’re in this mess is that, ex hypothesi, they’re bad at X!”
Fair enough. And yet there are probably countless micro-behaviors and sub-goals related to X at which these people excel. Your job is to point out every positive energy expenditure, every productive micro-behavior, and every instance of incremental progress on which these people are succeeding. Remind them of all the times they have accomplished things related to X. Consider all of the ways in which their skills are well suited for doing X. Remind them of other times they took on new challenges and eventually conquered them; in other words, establish their identity as someone good at acquiring new skills. In sum, shift their sense of self as being the sort of person who can totally knock X out of the park. They will then do the things that people who are good at X do, and their performance will then catch up.
-Ben
PS: Oh, by the way, what’s this have to do with allergies? In the category of “spooky social science findings,” THIS team of researchers found that people’s anti-histamine response to taking Claritin was lower after watching a few Zyrtec commercials scattered throughout a movie. Yet another powerful demonstration that beliefs don’t just reflect reality, they construct it.
