Harvard-12-Leaders Create their Environment I-Psychology of Leadership-Tal Ben Shahar [eTati].mp4

good morning hi my name is Michael Burcham and I'm here just to speak for a moment about the Leadership Institute at Harvard College where a new campus organization dedicated to many of the same principles that you're learning about in this class namely to help help individuals become better leaders and to bring leaders together for collaborative growth and exchange of ideas we're already off to a great start we have a few programs running including the president's forum that's being run by Jessica's office and Angela Anthony which is bringing together leaders of student group organizations sports teams community service organizations etc Angela's where's Anjali Anjali stand up right there that's Angela you can see and we also have a leadership outreach program where we're working with elementary schools and middle schools helping them develop student government's and leadership skills Paul has been generous enough to offer to send out an email in the near future asking you guys to participate in a survey where we're looking for some feedback in finding out how we can best help you we hope that you guys decide to get involved in making leadership improvement part of your Harvard experience beyond psychology 1508 past the May midterm and we hope to be one of the vehicles that you can seek that out through now I'm gonna pass it over to Adam Hahn who's going to talk to you about one upcoming event coming up real soon thank you I'm Adam one of the things we're started in this spring is a Harvard leadership development series and the first event we have for this is going to be the first Saturday after Spring Break April 8th we have David ager and professor Amy Edmondson from the business school coming out and they're gonna be leading an interactive case discussion on how to work in groups how to make decisions on your feet and it should be a really a really great group exercise so you know you can come with your teammates coming to friends incoming your coaching groups it's the first Saturday after Spring Break we'll send out an email with more details but we hope that we hope to see some of you guys out there here's Rachel to talk about the next event alright so our next event after that's gonna be a series of events kind of dinner meetings talking about public speaking Harvard students say that they would really like to learn how to present themselves more confidently and more eloquently in public so we're getting together with Toastmaster clubs from MIT and HS pH and the public speaking Club at the Business School they're going to give you some pointers and how to better speak in public and also you'll get the chance to give little impromptu speeches on things ranging from the best class you ever had to your role model growing up it'll be a really casual informal of supportive atmosphere and we'll send out an email with locations there'll be one in each neighborhood um any questions you can email leadership tout Harvard at gmail.com and we will send out an email with the details for all these things and we really really hope to see you guys there thank you so much so this is a this is a wonderful initiative I highly recommend you to take advantage of it again to go beyond just the the classroom experience and it can be one of your personal goals to to go to the decision-making workshop to participate in the public speaking workshop and again get out of your comfort zone and improve as a leader it's a slow process yet possible okay so we have a lot to get through today so let me jump right in remember the last time where we left we talked about the vision the importance of the vision for an organization the importance of a vision for the individual and then we started talking about communicating how do we communicate the vision so the first thing we talked about what be positive appreciate the seed that's there for the potential and we contrasted Regan and Carter two very smart presidents but one did the appreciative inquiry thing talked about faith hope success heroism whereas the other talked about the malaise in this country the problems both are important but the question is what do we focus on more not to the exclusion of the other the second thing that we talked about is the importance of evoking emotions and we do it through stories through metaphors and through images the most successful communicators whether it's US presidents throughout history or successful businessmen and women use stories they bring up images pictures these are the things that stick finally the most important thing when we communicate a vision is to walk our talk otherwise what we get is cynicism within the organization ultimately we stop believing in ourselves it affects our self-esteem if we don't walk our talk if we don't lead by example neural tissue leading leadership scholar unless the vision is sustained by action it quickly turns into ashes Warren Bennis leaders articulate and embody the ideals toward which the organization strives first of all they articulate articulated and then they embody it they live it yet in dreams begins responsibility it's only the first step to establish a vision after that the most important thing is action walk your talk lead by example I want to do a quick exercise with you here not too difficult let's try it so take your thumb and your middle finger just take put and put them up like this and then get the tip of your thumb to touch the tip of your middle finger and try and make it as circular as possible a circular responsible you're not an ellipse but a circle let's check if it's a circle as much as you can some people are more flexible than others now take this the circle the space in the circle and put it on your cheek on your cheek on your cheek on your cheek there is still some of you all right action speaks louder than words I was looking most of you certainly the first time I said it is that for the ones who got it right the first time I did it most of you had it on your chin actions speak louder than words Emerson put it beautifully what you do speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say as a leader especially people are watching you and they are watching you all the time this is also important for parenting the kids will ultimately do what you do not what you say so you can tell them be honest live a life of integrity but if the parent doesn't live a lot of integrity doesn't lead by example the kid is more likely to follow the actions rather than the words Gandhi going back to his quote be the change you want to see in the world if you want to see an organization where people are driven where people are committed be that be committed be driven if you want an organization where people are benevolent and generous be vet there's not a hundred percent there's not a one correlation between how you behave as a leader and how the people behave but the correlation is very high and the lecture today is going to be about how leaders create their environment in the primary way of creating an environment whether a positive or a toxic environment depends on how you behave on your actions as a leader myths and facts one of them sorry from built to last one of the myths that they identified companies become visionaries through vision statements that's a myth they become visionary not by writing the vision visionary companies walk the talk their focus is on expressing their vision vision is just the first that in a thousand-mile journey it's a step that informs every step along the way remember it makes us more resilient more likely to overcome difficulties but it is just the beginning to summarize the vision component of the lecture the ABC of Psychology effect emotion behavior action and cognition thought in terms of the effect of envisioning the emotion you want to evoke emotion through stories through images through metaphors in terms of behavior walk the talk great leaders under-promise and over-deliver and that's a real challenge in today's world because we have so many competing requests especially the higher you go up in the hierarchy under-promise over-deliver the vision needs to be you're in a spouse theory and also you're in use Theory there has to be integrity there and finally cognition repeated the thought repeat the vision over and over again remember Jim Burke 40% of his time talking about the Johnson and Johnson vision Jack Welch spends 50% of his time teaching and what he mostly teaches of it is the GE way or taught the General Electric way in each ironic iczer in a number of occasions every time I saw her she's the founder of the body shop every time I saw her she was talking about the vision of the body shop what it's about over and over and over again like a broken record if necessary so let me move on now from the vision to the context in which this vision is implemented this is your role as a leader but before I go into the leader I first want to hear from you I first want to hear from you what do you think is the ideal employee so as a leader and you're going to our current leader you're going to be a future leader what is the ideal employee that you would like to have that would make your life so much easier as a leader the reason I'm asking this is because 1508 in collaboration with Harvard University has a new program and the new program is to help you when you graduate I find those ideal employees but before we find those ideal employees we need to know what we're looking for so I want to hear from you what will that ideal employee look like just characteristics traits very briefly yes passionate communication reliable honest takes initiative created sorry good-looking no problem yeah yeah disciplined good leadership loyal smart confident strong voice yeah what was it friendly authentic what's that authentic objective gives good feedback a bijective team player beautiful enemy now we already said that but looking right yeah resourceful fun okay so if you had these characteristics would you be satisfied as employees will make your job so much easier right as a leader we're gonna go back to this later or you'll get that ideal employee in the mail sooner than you expect okay so I want to go back now and today will be a little bit of the history of leadership studies because I want to go back to one of the first theorists on leadership who talked about the ideal employee who talked about what great leadership is and that is McGregor McGregor who taught at MIT here then went and actually was the president of Antioch College and what McGregor talked about and he said all leaders all managers have to or have one of two basic assumptions about human nature he called them many of you may have heard of it Theory X and Theory Y let me tell you what Theory X basic assumptions are and what Theory Y basic assumptions these are the are assumptions that we as leaders future leaders future managers have about most people not all people but most people most people who are going to be working with us or for us in the future first of all a Theory X manager believes that most people don't are going to work in the morning wait for that Friday to most people do not want to take on a lot of responsibility what they want is to do whatever is assigned to them and that's it most people want the Paycheck at the end of the month there is little ambition beyond that most people want to be told what to do they're looking for a leader to tell them exactly what they should do how they should move from point A to point B they have little ability to solve problems they want answers more than they want questions most people cannot be really truly trusted you have to watch them you have to control them otherwise they make mistakes otherwise they loaf and finally the important point is fortunately there are two groups of people there is them who need to be watched who need to be controlled we need to be told what to do who need to be led who don't like working and therefore we have to keep close control of their actions but then there is us we the lucky few the leaders who are going to make sure that the organization functions were the doers we make the dream happen to groups of people so let's look at theory why now very different radically different management assumptions work can be enjoyable as as play most people can enjoy work again not all people most people most people want to accept reasonable levels of responsibility doesn't mean that a secretary wants the responsibility of the CEO but it means that she wants to take more and more responsibility over time and grow most people do have sprung for themselves the goals for themselves and they're looking for the right organization where they can realize lies those goals beyond just getting to Friday beyond just getting their paycheck most people like to lead occasionally they want to take on more and more responsibilities most people can solve problems again not everyone can solve the problems that a CEO solves but they have very high potential for solving problems most people don't need to be watched you can leave them tell them what you want they'll do it they're responsible they don't need to be watched they're trustworthy and finally most people can be autonomous and independent just like a leader now here's the question and it's a it's a fundamental crucial question and it's not an easy question which one is right now the reason why I'm saying it's not an easy question think about it this way if your job depended on it what kind of assumptions would you act according to if your job depended on it and your job will depend on it because the leader depends to a great extent on how the followers perform which is Right theory X people need to be controlled watch led directed or Theory Y people can be autonomous and independent people can be trusted they don't need to be watched closely people can be given responsibility it's not an easy question which one is right think for a second if your job depended on it or currently in the organization that you're running or in the future when you become a manager don't just think about which is your espoused Theory think about what would your in-use theory be because there is a right answer to this question and here it is which one is Right theory XOR theory why the right empirical research based answer is that they're both right they're both right because the way it works is that our expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies if we have management X assumptions and we behave accordingly we will bring out the behavior associated with Theory X if we believe in theory Y and behave accordingly we will bring out behavior is associated with Theory Y you get what you expect as a leader because you create that environment that brings out these characteristics or the characteristics of Theory X let's go over them again most people hate work sure they hate it if when they come to work they're bored they're not given any responsibility and their control tightly of course they'll hate it on the other hand if you create a different environment where people get to express themselves they may like work just as much as they like play most people want to avoid responsibility what kind of environment do you create well if it's an environment where every mistake is punished you'll get one kind of employee if people are encouraged to take risks to try to experiment then they will want to take more responsibility ambition nothing kills ambition more than boredom and control most people prefer to be led we've spoken about this a lot leadership people are not born leaders they're not born with any skill if they were given an opportunity to exercise leadership a skill then they'll become leaders they will want to lead on the other hand if they're not given the opportunity they're not going to want to do it little ability to solve problems and one of the things that we've known for years is that we only use small percentage of our capabilities so how much of our brain power is exercised at work how much do we get to practice how much do we get to develop as leaders most people require close control to prevent mistakes and prohibit loafing that's true if that's what we expect from people there's a lot of research we'll talk about some of it in a few minutes on equity theory where people feel the need to reciprocate something that they get so if someone gives you a gift it's automatic human nature we want to reciprocate that gift that is that works with physical gifts but also with meta physical gifts such as trust if I give someone trust they will want to reciprocate that trust if I don't trust them that they will feel no need to be trustworthy and finally two groups of people that's right there are if that's what you expect you get what you expect leaders create the environment and they're by their beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies let me give you an example as you know I served in the Israeli military for three years and it was probably the period when if there was one thing I learned was about leadership wasn't fun three years but I did learn a lot my fruit might at the beginning of my tenure in the in the Israeli army I was under your typical sob commander the ones you've seen the movies he would scream at us I was part of a quite a large unit he would scream at us he would make us work he kept us on a short leash if we did something wrong if we did deviate from the straight of narrow and narrow he would punish us but now we were smart ways to circumvent his control so what we would do for example you know the base was a huge army base it was his offices were in one side and where we did a lot of our work was on the other side of the base so we worked there and we'd have a watch person outside you know working or pretending to work and we were inside storerooms and what we would do there is we would either sleep or play the official sport of the Israeli military which is backgammon and one thing you don't know about me I'm a wicked bad gammon player thanks to the army so this is what we did as soon as his car would come we would immediately be either woken up or alerted and go back to work after a while he realized that we were playing no games with him so instituted even closer controls and what he did was divide and conquer and he said if I catch anyone here loafing the entire unit is going to stay here for the weekend now the most precious thing for a soldier is home leave you want to go home over the weekend to see your family at you see a girlfriend boyfriend so that's what he punished us and he followed up on what he said he said if I catch anyone loafing that person is gonna go to jail and he practiced what he preached many people from my unit went to a military Jail for four small tiny misdemeanors we were afraid teamwork went down there was no fun in the unit and then we found other ways to circumvent his control we were able to fake temperature so we would get home leave sick leave and their ways if you want any I can tell you later they come in handy one day we got we found ways to leave the the army base and there was there were a few holes in defences we would leave at night go out of the city and come back we paid a price if we were caught we were mostly not caught the end-of-the-year inspection was coming up he gathered us all together and he said and this was a national inspection where they come from the Central Command and test your your your base he said if you fail this you're gonna pay a dear price he didn't specify what but we didn't want to find out what we knew he meant it so we worked for the inspection and we passed fortunately his tenure came to an end about halfway through my tenure in the military and a new commander came in this guy was tough this guy was demanding but this guy was respectful and generous and he came his first day and he said to us these are the things that I expect I know you can do them I'll help in whatever way I can and that was the end of it he also gave us a pass in the army a pass means when in which he signed you can leave the base he gave us an open pass and said you can leave whenever you want you can come back whenever you want I just want the work done initially we weren't sure what's going on here because the only model we had was the previous one but he practiced what he preached to teamwork skyrocketed humor went up fun went up and we worked harder than we'd ever worked before we didn't want to let him down when the yearly inspection came around he said these are the things I expect he himself worked hard practice what he preached led by example we didn't only pass the inspection we won top prize in the military for the best base my first half of the tenure theory ex-leader the second half theory why sane people there was very little turnover while they were there same people behaving radically different once like Theory X we hated our work we didn't want to take on responsibilities were afraid we didn't want to lead we just wanted to get home over the weekend we certainly couldn't be trusted on the other hand with Theory Y we actually enjoyed our time there it was fun team work skyrocketed we worked extremely hard we could be trusted we were autonomous and independent same people different leader radically different behaviors now how does that work you see leaders create their environment first a leader has assumptions expectations of employees Theory X Theory Y somewhere in the middle something different but every leader has certain expectations of his or her employees or followers then these expectations manifest themselves in behavior the behavior then creates an organizational environment and their environment interns produces certain behaviors in the employees which then go back and reinforce the leader assumptions and expectations example my theory X commander the first commander that I had assumptions about human nature can't be trusted need to control them I don't have high expectations behavior very strict controls very strict punishment short leash the environment oppressive terrible awful and nightmare what kind of behavior that it does it produce people loafing trying to get away with as little as they can running away faking temperature playing backgammon and this behavior whenever we were caught only reinforced I told you I can't trust them I told you I have to keep a short leash and the leash becomes even shorter the oppression becomes even stronger the environment becomes even more oppressive our behavior becomes even more sophisticated which reinforces the assumptions you see I really can't trust them and so on and so on and so on in a downward spiral of distrust take the theory while it manager assumption I can trust them they're capable of a lot the behavior free pass freedom to do what you want I'll just be there supporting you the kind of environment that it created open fun enjoyable the behavior that he brings out the best we want to work hard we don't want to let him down we want to be there for him he trusts us we want to reciprocate it and when he catches us doing things right he says you see I can trust him they're wonderful they're great even more perks even a better environment behavior we want to reciprocate even more further enforcing his beliefs and so on and sewn in an upward spiral of trust and productivity same people very different behaviors think about yourselves think about yourself under a good manager a good leader a good teacher versus a bad one what were you like you're going to have an assignment to talk about this but also to interview your parents or someone who's had expect much more experience in the real world and ask about a good leader that they had and about a bad leader that they had and then to ask them what were you like under a good leader what were you like under the bad leader same people behave radically different depending on the environment that leaders create I do a lot of consulting and one of the types of consulting that I started doing just recently well over the last five years is ethics I studied philosophy as an undergrad I also did a lot of work on on leadership and ethics so organizations invite me to talk to them about the importance of ethics and I connect it to the vision to the values so I was brought into one one of the largest companies in the world was brought into one of their large subsidiaries and the manager brought me in and he was managing hundreds of people and he said I have a problem people are dishonest in my organization they don't tell me the truth now one of our core values is integrity which it was but still there is no integrity in this organization help now what I do when I consult I always interview people from the very top all the way down so I interviewed a cross-section of the organization within two or three interviews it was clear to me what was going on here is what was happening every time someone came in to this CEO and delivered bad news that the CEO didn't like the person would be shouted at in other words the messenger was shot and what did the people learn very quickly that if they don't want to be shot if they don't want to be humiliated which which is the word that they use one person after another whether direct just directly under the the boss or all the way to the secretary in the organization they knew that if they didn't want to be humiliated they couldn't they wouldn't be able to tell the full truth and nothing but the truth so what was happening there was that they learned to lie or to hide unfavorable news the leaders behavior shoot the messenger the environment people were scared because people were scared they started to lie whenever he caught them lying he said you see I can trust him there is no integrity in this organization so his behavior would be even more oppressive he would get even more angry when people when he caught people lying and people became more afraid of telling the truth or being caught downward spiral of distrust and no integrity in their organization in other words he was the cause of the problem and ultimately he also became the solution let me discuss some research findings that show how this work how leaders create the environment I want to start with what is considered by many the founding research of the human resource movement with in organizational behavior this was done not far from here in the Hawthorne plant plant of Western Electric and the study was supposed to be a very simple one they wanted to see the effect of light on employees productivity so here is what they did they went into the the plant and there were workers working there and they turned the light up and what happened employees productivity went up they went in again and they turned up the light even further you know what employee productivity went up again then they said let's try the opposite they turned down lights to its initial level and you know what happened productivity went up again then they turned the light down to a lower level than it was at the beginning and you know what you got it productivity levels went up even more they didn't understand what's going on here what's up we thought like helped but then even less light and initially and the productivity continues to go up and after much thinking and after interviewing the employees what they realized was that what brought productivity up was the fact that the employee employees felt that they were cared for then here someone is interested in them in their productivity it wasn't the light yeah maybe it was less convenient to work with less light versus more light but ultimately it was that they felt cared for by their management whereas before they were just doing the job and you know until then remember professor Ellen was talking about Taylorism until then Taylorism prevailed which was human beings are like machines now you put in a quarter and you get X number of minutes of productivity you put in two quarters you get double and they thought you turn on the light you will get more I mean this was already a radical idea but suddenly they realized human beings are not just machines as filete said the whole human being goes to work not just the hands or not just the mind it's this - and if you invest in the human being you will get much more out of that person it's been called the Hawthorne effect very powerful effect and it works leaders create their environment by what they show their employees do I care or do I not care equity theory I talked about it earlier a lot of research shows that we want to reciprocate that which we that which we get whether it's money or trust I want to share with you a story it's a story rather than an the actual research that was carried out but it's a true story so it wasn't in any of the refereed journal I read it in all I needed to know I learned in kindergarten she's a great psychological text but you know unfortunately I can't reference here as you know as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology not quite the same but an important story they did this an actual experiment they ran it in New York City and what the person did was he found someone with a foreign accent to stand on a street corner and to he'll a cab and what he did was ask the cab to get to a certain street now the street was actually just around the corner literally but the taxi driver stops asks the foreigner asked him to get to that Street the assumption is this guy has no idea where he is this is an opportunity for the perfect crime so to speak no one will know I can just take him for a ride now this person did it 32 times in New York with taxi cabs stopping the cab asked me to get to a certain Street out of the 32 cab drivers that he stopped how many do you think took him for a ride seriously how many do you think 5-3 I actually always ask this question I guess probably 10 you know how many people here have been taken for a ride by taxis or no people who have been taken for a ride by Texas I think many people I certainly know so in fact out of the 32 one taxi took him for a ride but here is the interesting point out of the 32 almost all the driver said the following oh the street is just around the corner but be careful because other drivers will take you for a ride so even they didn't understand or respect enough their own quote unquote kind why because what we hear about are the negatives we hear about when someone is taken for a ride by taxi we don't mean you don't come back you know from Logan and telephone you know what the taxi driver didn't take him for a ride he took me right to my dorm room you don't say that but if you go on holiday and someone takes you for a ride that's you mark do you know what happened to me went out so what do we hear about the bad news and then we get a heuristic in our mind that people cannot be trusted most people want to do good most people can be trusted and again there is a lot of research starting with atoms in 65 people want to reciprocate goodness I trust you taxi driver I will be trustworthy back to you fun research this was done at one of the leading universities and what the researchers did through psychologists or three psychologists what they did was they went to an incoming class first-year PhD students master students in economics and first year students in humanities and what they did was the following they had them play the prisoner's dilemma those games and they tested how benevolent they were in the game how generous they were in the game they tested how much they cared about the other person how self-centered and selfish and self interested in the narrow sense of the word they were and so on and they measured the two incoming classes and they fared about the same in terms of generosity in terms of narrow self-interest just to maximize my own not caring about the other and the humanities and the economics were measured about the same and then they measured them again at the end of the year the first year of economics the humanities students no difference they were generous before they were generous after the Eck students changed they'd be more self-centered their self they became more self-interested in the narrow sense of the word it was more about win lose why what do you learn first-year economics especially in grad school what theories do you learn read theory write rational theory what is rational theory tell us human beings work to maximize their self-interest and it's not self-interest in I feel good when other people feel good its self-interest how can I maximize my profits myutils so to speak and that's what they learn this is what their professors their leaders are telling them and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy they actually behave more accordingly by the end of one year of studying that stuff psychological safety this is research done by Amy Edmondson from the business school here she's actually good is the one who's going to be speaking for the for the lik event that you'll get an email about and she she did her PhD here actually at the time when I was an undergrad and she was working with my thesis adviser Richard Hackman and the work that she was doing she was working in hospitals and she wanted to look at the rates of errors in the hospital and how that relates to Richard hangman's theory of creating the conditions for effective teamwork finally after years of studies one day on the 15th floor of William James Hall she runs into Richard Hackman's office and she says I have the results you recap and he says let's see it because he was waiting for these results also and he looks at them smiles and are you sure these are the results she said yeah yeah I just Calculon I checked he said go check it again she gets worried she goes back she checks everything again runs the statistics goes back to Professor Hackman and says yeah these are the results why he says it's in the wrong direction what do you mean and she looks at me she's oh my god the people who fulfilled the conditions of Professor hackman's for ideal team work for the best team work actually made more mistakes and this is kasnia talking about human lives in hospitals now this was a you know and his theory has been replicating it works and he didn't understand it and she didn't understand it so she went back to the hospital and started interviewing these units and what she found out very quickly was that it wasn't that they made more mistakes it was that they reported more mistakes in fact there was less severe errors made in these groups less loss of life and less mistakes made overall in hospitals were the people whether it's the doctors or the nurses the employees felt more comfortable reporting their mistakes in other words and this is a phrase she term there was more psychological safety in these organizations the environment that was created one was where people were afraid to make the mistake the other is whether they felt or to report the mistake rather they felt open they felt secure and when there was a mistake they talked about it and he didn't happen again they learned from mistakes what environment do you create as a leader so what do you want you want passionate employees give me two minutes not even because this is important you want passionate employees you create an environment who people can express their passion black in theory why do you want communication well you'll get it if people are not afraid you want them to be reliable build trust over time you want them to be honest don't shoot the messenger do you want them to take initiative remember what kills initiative is boredom and control create an environment where they feel psychologically safe as a leader very not hundred percent of the time but very often you will get what you expect good luck on Monday I'll see you then you

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Keywords: 12, March, 15, Leaders, Create, their, Environment, I, the, organizational, context, Psychology, of, Leadership, Tal, Ben, Shahar, eTati

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Length: 50min 32sec (3032 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 31 2012