“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start…you will.”
Stephen King
We all know how important it is to be believed in. Years ago researchers from Harvard University conducted a study. They would go to elementary school teachers at the beginning of the school year and tell them they that they had designed a test that would correctly predict which students were going to grow intellectually during the coming school year. Someone called it “The Harvard Test of Intellectual Spurts” because he said it told which students were going to ‘spurt’ that year. The researchers promised the teachers it would pick out the right students and that the test itself was very, very accurate.
Given permission to give the test, the researchers then administered, unbeknownst to the teacher, an obsolete IQ test. When the students had finished, the researchers threw the tests away. Then they picked five names at random and told the teacher, “These are the students who are going to have a very good year. Watch these kids. The first one of them is Rachel Smith.”
“Rachel Smith?” the teacher replied incredulously. “She couldn’t ‘spurt’ if you shot her from a cannon. I have had two of her brothers and each one of the Smiths is dumber than the last.” But the researchers maintained that the test was hardly ever wrong in its findings and that Rachel’s progress in the ensuing year could be readily observed.
You can imagine what happened that semester, can’t you? Rachel never had a chance to be her same old self. Under a barrage of “Rachel, would you write this on the board this morning?” or “Rachel, will lead the line to the lunch room today?” or “Is that a new dress, Rachel? It sure is pretty” or “Thank you, Rachel, that was very good,” Rachel “spurted” all over that school. And so did every name they put on that list. One little boy on the list even remarked, “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was. So I was!”
I absolutely love this story because it provides such a compelling testimony to the fact each and every one of us possesses the ability to put into practice a powerful principle psychologists term, the Law of Positive Expectancy: This law, simply stated, affirms how you achieve what you expect to achieve and what others expect you to achieve.
Since the teacher expected a lot, so did Rachel. In effect, the positive expectations everyone began to express in Rachel’s potential created a virtuous cycle that provided both teacher and student with the motivation and confidence to be and do their best at every turn.
The implication of the Law of Positive Expectancy for leaders is massive. It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you. The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect. The greater the expectation you have of those you lead, the better they perform. This phenomenon has been validated in study after study, with researchers consistently finding that leaders who expect the best out of their people get the best and those who expect the worst, get exactly what they expected – the worst.
Those who make it a priority to operate with an attitude of positive expectancy understand that to achieve more, you have to expect more. And, to get more from the people who work for you, you must expect more from them.
William James, the founder of American psychology, said: “The one thing that will guarantee the successful conclusion of a doubtful undertaking is faith in the beginning that you can do it.”
Positive expectancy works so well because it provides the power of focus. When we focus our thoughts, plans, and actions on our goals we are better equipped to define our priorities, build and maintain our enthusiasm, and accept responsibility for taking the actions necessary to achieve our dreams, aspirations and expectations.
To gain the advantage of positive expectancy, begin to adopt these three beliefs:
A no-limitations belief in yourself;
A no-limitations belief in the potential of other people;
A no-limitations belief in the power of focusing on possibilities instead of problems.
I’m convinced the primary reason so many bright and capable people never perform up to their abilities is that they’ve encountered far too many people in their life who dump on them instead of believe in them—destroying their self-confidence and diminishing their desire to grow into the best possible version of themselves in the process. Don’t let that be you. Be generous with your praise. Choose to be an encourager and communicate to those around you in word and deed you expect the best from them, you are committed to liberating the best in them, and you have nothing but the highest hopes of success for them.
And watch them blossom in ways you never imagined.
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