Coaching and Change

My favorite college class was Behavior in Public Places, which used the same-named book by Erving Goffman [1] as its text. In this class, assignments had me violating the personal space of strangers on the University of Illinois Quad: Close talking about whatever and quietly observing my subjects’ shocked reaction. Speaking no French, I attended a French class and wrote a paper on the non-verbal interactions in the classroom, which abounded. Our final exam consisted of attending a blow-out party (lots of alcohol) at the professor’s home (not something I suspect that would happen today on campus) and writing a paper while hung over on the vivid social interactions at the party.

The Pygmalion Effect

Had I not already been on my way to being a journalist, I probably would have become a sociologist or, more accurately, a social psychologist, a field that was just emerging as I close-talked to fellow students on the U of I Quad. The year before, Robert Rosenthal, a pioneer in the field who died earlier this month at age 90, published his book, Pygmalion in the Classroom, [2] which first exposed the now widely recognized Pygmalion Effect. Rosenthal described it thusly: “The bottom line is that if we expect certain behaviors from people, we treat them differently, and that treatment is likely to affect their behavior.” [3] He discovered this effect when in an experiment he told teachers that one set of students was set to blossom in the next year and that another set was not. The students, in fact, were selected at random and the groups did not register different IQ test scores. Lo and behold, a year later the “blossom” group tested 27 IQ points higher than a year earlier and the other group actually tested worse.

What Rosenthal saw in this and many other experiments with all sorts of groups was, “These same factors operate with bosses and their employees, therapists and their clients, or parents and children. The more warmth and the more positive expectations that are communicated, the better the person who received these messages will do.” [4]

Worthy And Talented

There you have the crux of my premise as a business coach, which, melded with what I have learned over many decades as a competitive athlete and more recently as a running and triathlon coach, has led me to fervently believe: We are capable of so much more than we ask of ourselves. We are all worthy and talented. It’s my job as a coach to build up my clients, expect the best from them, and help them shine and succeed in whatever they are chasing or aspiring to be.

My late spouse was a clinical social worker and we - me, the would-be social psychologist and coach and she, the trained and highly experienced clinician - often discussed and disputed whether people could be expected to fundamentally change. In part because she was dealing with dysfunction or at least with children and adults from bad environments, such as broken families, her goal was to help her clients change. In my case, judging my clients as generally functional and here-to-fore successful people, my goal was to bring out the best in them and help them achieve. I brought the general view that people are who they are now and that fundamental change is expecting too much. My mantra was and is, meet people where they are and help them make the most of what they bring as they reach for their goals.

Expect The Best

In essence, my fellow coaches and I use the Pygmalion Effect, not as a trick but as a valuable tool, by seeing the best in and expecting the best from our clients, building them up so they can excel at whatever they want and need to be good at, and at progressing toward their loftier goals.

Simply, by expecting the best behaviors, we are more likely to see the best outcomes. Rise and shine!

1 https://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Public-Places-Organization-Gatherings/dp/0029119405

2 https://www.amazon.com/Pygmalion-Classroom-Expectation-Intellectual-Development/dp/1904424066

3 Risen, C (2024, January 21). Robert Rosenthal, 90, Psychologist Who Linked Subtle Cues to Behavior. The New York Times.

4 Risen, C (2024, January 21). Robert Rosenthal, 90, Psychologist Who Linked Subtle Cues to Behavior. The New York Times.