Shocking Stuff !!
If someone told you to act in a way that you knew would hurt another person, would you do it? No? Absolutely sure about that, are you? Th ink about it. If a recognised authority figure told you to push a button, which you knew would deliver a mild electric shock to another person every time they made a mistake, would you? You might do that, right? I know I probably would. But, if that same authority figure told you to push a diff erent button which they said would severely shock – and perhaps even kill – the person, would you do it then? Absolutely not, you say? Me neither. No one would ever knowingly do something as perverse as that, would they?
in the 1960s, Professor Stanley Milgram from Yale University conducted a series of experiments [1] – you may well have heard of them – which researched the effect of authority on obedience. Essentially, the background to the experiments was as follows. Milgram and his team solicited local volunteers for what they said was an experiment on learning. When each of the selected volunteers arrived for their appointment, they were met by two people – a research scientist dressed in a white lab coat, and another ‘volunteer’ (who was actually one of Milgram’s team). Th e researcher then proceeded to explain the study to the ‘two’ volunteers.
The real volunteer was told that he or she would be the ‘Teacher’ and the pretend volunteer would be the ‘Learner’. The researcher explained that they were exploring the effects of punishment on memory. The task of the Learner was to learn a series of words and the Teacher’s role was to test the Learner’s memory of those words and administer electric shocks for each wrong answer. And they were told that, for every new wrong answer, the voltage would increase. The Teacher and Learner were then placed in adjacent rooms. On the instrument panel in front of the Teacher was a device which had different buttons, each signifying shock levels from 15 to 450 volts, along with words such as ‘slight shock’, ‘moderate shock’, all the way up to ‘Danger: Severe Shock’, and, finally, a worrying “XXX”. During the experiment, the Learner – who could be heard through the thin wall – was also told to grunt at 75 volts; complain at 120 volts; ask to be released at 150 volts; plead with increasing vigour; and let out agonised screams at 285 volts. Eventually, in desperation, the Learner was told to yell loudly and complain of heart pain.
So that, albeit very briefly, was the scenario. You get the picture. If you don’t know about these experiments, then you are probably wondering what the results were? Well, under some circumstances, 65% – yes, that’s two-thirds – of the Teachers were willing to progress to the maximum voltage level, regardless of the distress they could hear in the adjacent room. Prompted by the researcher, that proportion of volunteers went all the way, even to the point where they believed that they had potentially killed the person next door. Sure, many were distraught about what they were doing, but they still did it. They kept following orders. All very frightening, really.
You may wonder what all this has to do with day-to-day life for managers, but I think there are some obvious, and also more subtle, lessons to be drawn from these experiments that are worth noting. For example, a big factor in the outcomes seen in the Milgram experiments was the general environment created – the white-coated respectable authority fi gure, the side-by-side rooms that allowed for expressions of pain to be heard, the pressure to continue, etc. In light of this, I think it’s worth refl ecting upon how the work environment created can, intentionally or otherwise, infl uence behaviours. And oft en not for the better. Here are three examples of what I mean.
How You Use or Abuse Power
?This is perhaps an obvious conclusion. At one level, the implications from the Milgram experiments are fairly clear: managers, as authority fi gures, can exercise their authority in a positive or negative way. But, apart from their management style and its eff ects on others, what about the general environment that managers create for those around them? Th e majority of managers I know don’t intentionally set out to create workplaces where people would knowingly harm others, but sometimes this is precisely what happens, at least emotionally speaking:
? I have seen countless examples where the boss has hassled his or her managers to such an extent that they then take out their frustrations or stress on others. Dog bites cat and so on.
? I have seen sales people under such pressure to hit targets that they have knowingly sold products or services to clients who did not actually need them.
? I have seen accountants put under the cosh to make the numbers look good to the extent that applying a bit of ‘creative accounting’ becomes an attractive proposition.
? I have seen managers take a dislike to an individual, and I have then watched how others did the same to that person for no apparent reason other than to stay in the boss’s good books.
I could go on, but you get the point. Few managers intentionally set out to harm others through the exercise of their power, but some do just that. Think about those types of concerns in relation to your business. Is power and authority generally used for the good?
How You Appear
This is a less obvious conclusion drawn from the experiments, so here’s the link. The Milgram experiments, and others too, have shown that the appearance of authority is just as powerful as the authority itself; the ‘man in the white coat’ and the fact it was ‘Yale University’ all created an air of formality and respectability to the experiments which directly infl uenced the behaviour seen. But, forget about scientific studies for a moment and think of all those hidden-camera-type shows you’ve seen whereby somebody gets set up by what they believe is an authority figure of some kind. You therefore should be aware of how your own appearance can infl uence the way in which you are perceived by others and bear that in mind in terms of how you project yourself. Do you look the part?
How You Treat Mistakes
This is another point that relates to the impact that the overall environment can have on behaviour. Let me explain by means of highlighting another piece of important research. One group of eminent professors studied hospital unit teams[2] and found that the better-performing teams actually had a higher rate of reported errors than the lower-performing ones. That seemed impossible. Further research then revealed that the reason for this was that the higher-performing teams had developed a greater bond and stronger levels of trust and openness between them, so they were not afraid to admit their mistakes; in fact, they saw them as learning opportunities. On the other hand, the lower performing teams were hiding their mistakes from each other because they did not feel secure enough to own up to them.
If there is a lack of trust in the work environment where you manage, or if the general culture is one of punishment and retribution, then this may lead to negative behaviour patterns of some sort. Think about how mistakes are currently treated within your business and how that might be influencing behaviour.
The focus here has been to highlight that there are many ways in which the conditions you create as a manager can influence behaviour at work – and it’s not just about the styles of management you adopt. Many of the things you do, or don’t do, in terms of how you structure and manage various aspects of the business can negatively influence behaviours seen, or sway how people think and act; and that’s the last thing you want right now when you need each and every one of your employees to operate at full capacity.
You should reflect on such matters in order to avoid any future shocks.
References
[1] Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (Reprint edition, Harper Perennial 2009)._
[2] Edmondson, “Learning From Mistakes Is Easier Said Than Done: Group and Organizational Influences on The Detection and Correction of Human Error”, 32 (1), Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, pp. 5–28.