Through reading a true story, learn how to create self-fulfilling prophecies with a positive effect. Then consider how prophecies can make a positive difference in your organization. Begin to examine challenges that you confront in your workplace from an uncommon lens, as potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy of a different type, one that has a negative effect.
Have you ever considered how self-fulfilling prophecies impact your organization? Are you aware of how your knowledge and beliefs and knowledge and beliefs of your leadership team can unintentionally create an environment where self-fulfilling prophecies with a negative effect occur? Do you know how to intentionally create a context where self-fulfilling prophecies with a positive effect can occur? In this story, Mike illustrates how easy it is to unintentionally create a self-fulfilling prophecy with a negative effect. You will learn how a useful assumption can disrupt a self-fulfilling prophecy with a negative effect.
I knew of Mike long before I ever met him. Mike was a client within Indiana’s welfare system, and I was the county director, a middle manager, in that system where Mike lived. Over the course of multiple years, I had received dozens of complaints about Mike, more than any other person receiving public assistance. The complaints were always the same. Angry residents would call to report that Mike was bragging “Why should I work when I can get Food Stamps.†Residents always wanted the same solution; they wanted Mike to be taken off of the Food Stamp Program. Because Mike met the eligibility requirements for Food Stamps at that time, I had no authority to remove him from the program. I used to think that 10% of those receiving Food Stamps were the reason everyone receiving assistance were critically judged by the general public. I remember believing that if we could get rid of that 10% then the welfare system could really work for the rest. Mike at that time was #1 on my list, the very worst of that 10%.
Everything that I had ever heard about Mike was negative: he once attacked a police officer from behind with a knife; he spent time in prison for a felony conviction; he was so volatile that law enforcement always dispatched two cars whenever a domestic disturbance involved Mike to reduce the risk of an officer being injured; and he was heavily involved in alcohol and illicit drugs. Mike was built like Popeye and had a reputation for being one of the toughest, most dangerous county residents.
During the first three working days of the month, the lobby was full of people lined up to pick up their monthly Food Stamp benefits, when I met Mike in person for the first time. He was angry and creating a scene. As county director, it was my job to step in, intervene, and address the source of the problem. Typically, out of respect for authority, people would calm down as soon as the county director stepped in to intervene. When I got to the source, I found myself face to face with an angry, hostile Mike. When I asked him what the problem was, Mike did not calm down. He said with hostile aggression “Either you are going to give me my Food Stamps or I am going to kick the shit out of you.†While Mike’s hostility caught me off guard, I did have the common sense, or perhaps lack thereof, to invite Mike to accompany me to my office to address the problem. When I got him into my office I closed both doors to protect other clients and local office staff from Mike. I also put myself into a much more vulnerable and dangerous situation because I had no-one to intervene if he acted on his threat.
I found myself sitting across from Mike with only my desk in between us. We spent 90 minutes together in my office that day with much of the conversation going something like this: “I can’t give you Food Stamps because your benefits have expired. You need to schedule an interview first†“Either you give me Food Stamps now or I’m going to kick the shit out of you.†“If you knock the shit out of me, I am going to have you arrested.†“If you have me arrested, I am going to bail out and come back and knock the shit out of you again…†I still remember feeling the sweat pouring like a stream from my arm pits down either side of my body, soaking my shirt. At times he would lean forward in his chair with muscles tense and ready to fight. I knew he was dangerous and capable of hurting me. I was scared. I used every ounce of persuasion skills that day. Finally, after 90 minutes, we reached a compromise. He did not get his Food Stamps that day, and I was not harmed. He returned later the same week first for an interview to re-establish his eligibility and then again to pick up his Food Stamps.
At that time I had recently completed an 8-day course titled “Mastery in Psychotherapy”. Because the people we served were not fulfilled by the programs and services we provided, I was contemplating changing my career. In this course I learned that the masters in psychotherapy shared an uncommon set of useful assumptions. I learned to interact with people acting as if a set of useful assumptions were true. Then, I started contemplating what might be a useful assumption about people who receive public assistance. The first useful assumption I created was: Each person is interested in and capable of becoming self-sufficient. I started contemplating what highly effective, results oriented welfare would look like.
The next month when Mike returned to pick up his monthly Food Stamp benefits, I bumped into him in the lobby. I was amazed by how friendly we were with one another. Somehow, through that incredibly stressful experience we had formed a bond with one another. I remembered that useful assumption that I had created. I could think of no better person to test how useful that assumption was than Mike. Was it possible in spite of his comments that Mike really wanted a job? I popped the question, “Would you want me to help you get a job?†His response to my question was rather lengthy. He did not want to do janitorial work because that was beneath him. He did not want to work in a factory because “that was too sweaty and dirtyâ€. Finally, he said that he would like for me to help him get a job driving a bread truck. I still remember him saying that he “thought it would be pretty cool†to drive around town in a step van delivering bread.
Mike returned to pick up his Food Stamps the following month. We again bumped into each other in the lobby, small talked and were friendly with one another. This time he popped the question to me. “How are you doing with my job search?†I told him “I haven’t done anything.†To which he responded “Why not?†I told him “You’re too picky.†“What do you mean I’m too picky?†“You won’t work in a factory.†Without hesitation, Mike responded with sincerity “I’ll work in a factory.â€
I did not get him a job. I got him an interview. I called an HR manager I knew, and she set him up for an interview with a line foreman who was hiring. Mike won the job opportunity. Then each week, I received a telephone call from the HR Manager. “This guy is shining on the job.†“He’s outperforming everyone else.†“He is really impressing his supervisor.†Thirty days later when I ran into Mike I told him how proud I was of him and his accomplishments. I told him that I wanted to take him to lunch as a way of letting him know how impressed that I was.
For the first time, I then saw a very different side of Mike. This tough guy was totally uncomfortable at the thought of going into a restaurant. He was self-conscious. He told people were always staring at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. While I was able to persuade him to let me take him to lunch, he was definitely paranoid during lunch, constantly darting his glance to people sitting at tables around us to see who was looking at him. He had no idea that the way in which he shifted his eyes to see who was looking at him actually caused people to stare at him. Mike showed me the power of self-fulfilling prophecies, how anticipating how others will react to you and reacting in anticipation actually caused others to do the very thing that he was concerned that they would do.
Mike kept that job for a year and then I heard that he lost his job. Interestingly, he never returned to apply for Food Stamps again. Then ten years later, I was working in another county and commuting to work. It was 6:00 a.m. and I was picking up a cup of coffee at a local convenience store to stay awake for my two hour commute. Mike was in the convenience store, dressed in regular work a day clothes. I asked him where he was going. He responded that he was on his way to work at a local factory. Mike had changed his life. He was a regular workaday Joe.
Thanks to Mike and many others, I now see the welfare system completely differently. Those who get stuck on assistance are not there because they want to be. They are there because they have become stuck in a rut, reacting in a dysfunctional way to the way in which they are treated. Mike’s reaction of anger and hostility is the less common one. He used to drive those he thought were critically judging him crazy with his comment “Why should I work when I can get Food Stamps!†The other more common reaction to critical judgments is to withdraw, lose their self-esteem and self-worth, and become depressed. While both patterns of behavior are dysfunctional, they are reactions to how people are treated in the world. The general public’s critical judgments of those receiving assistance can be seen as self-fulfilling prophecies with a negative effect. I am reminded of the biblical quote “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.†Perhaps like in the times of Jesus we also frequently do not “know†what we do.
Leaders, their companies and their employees would benefit from leaders learning how to intentionally create self-fulfilling prophecies with a positive effect and how to prevent or disrupt those with a negative effect. For companies with an employee engagement problem, this is a benevolent way for a leader to elevate employee engagement and performance.
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