If you have high expectations for someone, they will work hard to achieve it. If you have clear expectations for them, they will comply. An example of this in the workplace would be telling Fred and the other members of your team that you know Fred will make a fantastic company newsletter and that it would look amazing since he is so skilled at that kind of thing. You can be sure Fred will do all in his power to make that newsletter appear absurdly fantastic in order to live up to the accolades he’s gotten. It is imperative that you take an interest in those around you if you desire a group of committed followers. Setting high standards for other people is comparable to this tactic, although it is far more subtle. In the experiment, participants are given a job to accomplish using rats. Rats are given to half of the subjects; the other half are informed that they are receiving stupid rats. Since the rats are all the same, you would think that their performance would be the same as well. Nope. The “smart” rats outperformed the “dumb” rats by a significant margin. The smarter rats were treated more gently, which led to higher performance. It turns out that the subjects were handling the rats differently because of their expectations.
