What REALLY moves the needle in people change, part 2

In our last post we looked at how easy it is for people to get stuck in false paradigms and also, how these can seriously distort reality and prevent the outcomes we desire from happening.

Here, we look at what organisations practice and whether these practices can in any way, shape or form lead to those outcomes, with reference to the best evidence we have to hand. Is it possible that organisations no matter what they believe, might actually be doing more harm than good via their people practices?

We will look at the most popular approaches companies use to ‘move the needle’. What does the evidence tell us?

We will start with everyone’s favourite…

Performance Management

Performance Management has been the go-to tool for companies seeking to ‘motivate’ their employees to achieve organisational goals for over a century now. As a result, we have rich data on its needle-moving impact. How much of a difference does it make to organisational outcomes?

Studies into the difference of performance scores for high-performing versus low-performing Business Unit scores have consistently found little or no difference. For example, one notable study by the CEB found zero correlation between PM scores and profit goals. Have a look:

Yet it gets worse. This only looks at the output of the practice. To examine the real effect PM has, we need to consider the various inputs needed to make it work… like employee time… like the effect on motivation… like the effect it has on feedback-receiving… like the effect on people’s levels of stress… like the effect on workplace culture (all these will be part of another post — for now we can say negative effects are large).

On top, the vast majority of employees have for a long time been saying they detest the practice, and don’t think it adds any value anyway.

What happens then to our needle when we include some of these inputs?

In the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date on the practice, the doyen of Performance Management, Elaine Pulakos, concluded that ‘Formal Performance Management processes disengage employees, cost millions, and have no impact on performance’.

This is remarkable. Here we have someone who has dedicated her career to Performance Management saying, in effect, that Performance Management does more harm than good and makes our proverbial needle go backwards.

So if Performance Management doesn’t help move the needle towards, erm, business performance, why do companies continue to use a practice that 90% or more of employees when asked, say they dislike it and which erodes company value?

Perhaps everyone should be asking their HR Departments that question.

In Leadership Development, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been a long-time favourite, but has recently been displaced by the next fave in companies…

Mindset

Have a look at the graphic below. Looks nice doesn’t it? Like it? I sure wouldn’t want to be the bad guy on the right, would you?

Of course not. But that’s not the point. Anyone can create a graphic with a Hollywood-style good guy / bad guy dichotomy. The question is — is it accurate?

Meta-analysis after meta-analysis have found that the claims made by Carol Dweck - namely that if we just approach our goals with a Growth Mindset we can achieve them — to be wildly overcooked. Mindset has an effect, but it’s just not that big (about 0.03 in less collaborative academic settings, to be precise). Other things are going on and have much greater effects (hint: as a rule of thumb, start with the largest effects and work on those, first).

To put it in graphical terms, this is what needle-moving looks like in Mindset interventions:

I can hardly see that sliver of blue myself. It’s the equivalent of giving our employees a toothpick to shift a boulder, when a hoist and a lever are also lying around nearby (more in our next post).

Mindset is the #1 bestseller in psychology, has been adopted by numerous companies including Microsoft, P&G, Bloomberg and others (yay! a bandwagon!) But the question we must ask is… is it really going to move the needle?

Now, what about…

Grit

Grit has been popular because it tells another nice story, that if we can just be resilient in the face of adversity, we will achieve our goals. It plays nicely to the American Dream in a similar vein that heart-warming stories such as Forrest Gump, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Thelma and Louise do. Definitely what we need to be putting into our Leadership Development plans then.

The question we need to ask though is…

does. it. move. the. needle. ???

Unfortunately, Grit has come off worse when put to the experimental test than even Mindset.

One simple set of experiments conducted by the respected geneticist Robert Plomin found that Grit ‘adds little phenotypically or genetically to the prediction of academic achievement beyond traditional personality factors.’ Grit, in other words, is little more than trait Conscientiousness, which is heritable and can’t easily be changed.

So, far from being something any of us ‘can do’ or ‘change’, Grit is in fact a you’ve got it or you haven’t genetic trait (numerous other studies have reached the same findings but hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story).

What this means for you

In Part 3, we will look at the things that do move the needle and, most importantly, how you can move your teams forward by implementing them in your company.

Stay tuned…