Figure 2: The four elements of psychological capital
Self-confidence refers to one’s belief and level of trust in oneself and one’s abilities. Confident people are more likely to work hard and keep going; achieve behavior change; react positively to training; and learn practical and complex interpersonal skills.
Self-confidence is directly related to internal locus of control – when something goes well, a person believes it is because they have done well, rather than attributing their success to pure luck or to others, as those with an external locus of control tend to do. Building self-confidence means increasing internal locus of control, which makes behavior change last longer.
Managers can help their subordinates build confidence in several ways, through:
- Guided mastery, helping them achieve success by, for example, ensuring they understand what they need to do, by planning with them how they will practice a new behavior, and highlighting progress and praising them for it.
- Wisely identifying a role model, not to showcase perfection but to illustrate that progress is achievable. The role model should be reliable and easy to relate to (e.g. same gender, ethnicity, age).
- Persuasion using the Pygmalion effect, i.e. expressing confidence in their abilities, reminding them of their strengths, publicizing achievements.
- Physiology. It is possible to reduce anxiety and stress via deep breathing, mindfulness or high-power poses.
Optimism is a mindset that focuses on positive thinking, taking credit for good events and viewing bad events as temporary. Pessimists tend to over-generalize, personalize and have an “all or nothing” attitude. Optimists cope better with setbacks and are more likely to sustain change, yet there is a danger that they might underestimate risks and not prepare enough for setbacks.
The best way a manager can help increase employees’ optimism is by reinforcing their true self-concept, helping them frame things positively – “I messed up that presentation” rather than “I’m useless, I never present well.”
Willpower is the capacity to exercise self-control, to start, continue or stop doing something. Willpower can be built by encouraging people to look after themselves (enough sleep, healthy eating, less stress), to practice simple self-discipline (keeping a diary, good posture, developing the non-dominant hand) and to stop distractions and build focus (via positive, motivational or instructional self-talk and mindfulness).
Resilience is the ability to cope with adversity and grow stronger, to develop alternative ways of doing things when faced with difficulties and failures. Resilience in the workplace can be built in three ways by:
- Promoting a growth mindset by praising people for hard work and improvement; asking what they learned; and pointing out fixed-mind tendencies.
- Cultivating self-compassion by comforting people, helping them depersonalize the issue and be more objective about themselves, rather than being totally driven by perfectionism. Resilience without self-compassion is much more fragile.
- Planning for setbacks by identifying problems that might arise with the desired behavior change, and how to respond to each one – what are the options, how effective is each likely to be?
Together, willpower and resilience provide the inner steel, or grit, to see things through.
Building a supportive environment for behavioral change
The final element in the MAPS model for sustaining changed employee behavior is creating a supportive environment at work in terms of physical environment, team dynamics and organizational culture. A supportive environment can be built with three levers – social support, habit structure and choice architecture. The first two are not largely influenced by managers, whereas the last one is easily controllable and more efficient in terms of helping employees change their behavior.
The art and science of choice architecture is based on nudges – a term that comes from behavioral economics, referring to a feature of the environment that influences the choices people unconsciously make, without coercing them. Managers can influence employees’ behavior by paying attention to the following five nudges:
- Information framing. The same fact can be presented in ways that will lead to different reactions (“1 in 10 people die five years after surgery” vs. “9 in 10 people are alive five years after surgery”). Experts, more confident people and those who are close to achieving their goal respond best to criticism, whereas beginners and unconfident people react better to praise and positive comments.
- Priming is widely used in different areas and settings. Priming commitment can be achieved by having employees sign their development plans. Priming openness can be achieved by using more comfortable chairs, whereas harder chairs lead to tougher positions in negotiations. Priming confidence can easily be achieved by using more positive words in conversation or written feedback.
- Loss avoidance. People are more motivated by the thought of losing something than of receiving a reward. Losses are perceived as around 2.5 times more powerful than gains, so instead of promising gains set the goal to avoid losses. For example, give a prize upfront and say the person can keep it if certain conditions are fulfilled.
- Decision economics is simple: In order for change to happen, the costs and benefits of the change should add up and be clearly communicated.
- Social influence. Making people aware of social norms (desired or actual) changes their behavior (especially telling them in as personal and meaningful a way as possible, for instance “most of your colleagues do…”). As people care about their reputation, peer pressure and accountability can also help to influence – for example, by making a development goal public or creating visibility on performance levels.
Key learnings for managers
- The right context is one of the most important yet undervalued factors in sustaining behavior change. Managers can bring out the best in people by paying more attention to the recruitment process and making relationship a priority during onboarding.
- Be careful with labels, including inherited labels, as they can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Managers should solidify their own opinion about their direct reports and be careful about intuitively deciding on high vs. low performers.
- Hold positive expectations about employee performance, since in most cases this helps them deliver more.
- The MAPS model – motivation, abilities, psychological capital and social environment – provides a systematic approach to changing employee behavior sustainably.
- Appealing to individual preferences for autonomy, mastery or connection can increase intrinsic motivation, which is vital for sustaining behavior change.
- Managers can strengthen employees’ psychological capital – self-belief and grit – by support and the type of work environment they create, which includes physical environment, team dynamics and organizational culture.
- Tackle problems as they emerge, by asking not telling – “How do you think the presentation went?”
- Actively nudging employees to manage their choices is gaining traction.
1- Manzoni, J.F. and J.L. Barsoux. The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail. Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
2- Kinley, N. and S. Ben-Hur. Changing Employee Behavior: A Practical Guide for Managers. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
3- Driver, M.J. “Career Concepts and Career Management in Organizations.” Behavioral Problems in Organizations, 1979: 79-139.
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Every individual sets certain professional goals for themselves which they want to achieve in their careers. Individuals want to constantly rise into positions of power and authority in their organization and want their work to be recognized. Every employee has his way of contributing to the organization in their best possible way and expect to get rewards for their hard work. However, every person in the organization wants to perform with the best of their ability. This leaves a difference in the amount of perceived contribution that every employee gives towards the organization, and this is where employees feel the pressure of work when compared to their peers. But does peer pressure intensify competition amongst employees or does it somehow motivate employees?
Employees feel peer pressure under various circumstances which pressurizes them to give more than they are giving. Employees can be forced to perform things out of their comfort zone when they are pressurized by their fellow colleagues in office. Peer pressure can be primarily classified as professional and personal.
Professional pressure is when employees tend to be overwhelmed by the quality or amount of work which is done by other fellow colleagues in the office. Sometimes when certain employees perform better in office, it leaves other co-workers with an inferiority complex. Since the performance of some employees at office work is better as compared to others, the management too starts developing an inclination and bias towards them. Hence the other employees feel neglected and sometimes this employee competition has ill effects on the functioning in team work. Also, professionals, most of the time bad leaders, tend to take away the credit for a particular task which has been successfully completed and blames others when something fails. This peer pressure can often demotivate employees and can cause a turbulent workplace.
However, if this peer pressure is understood from a positive perspective, it can motivate employees to perform better by trying to work on their skills and giving a better performance. Instead of succumbing to these pressures, employees must try and learn the positive aspects of their colleagues and see I they can improve themselves and match their skills. This positive competitive scenario within an organization helps the organization as all employees tend to perform better by giving more than their abilities.
Personal peer pressures are something which are however very difficult to cope with. Since people are social animals, they tend to form ‘groups’ or ‘gangs’ in the offices, which are closed groups, who do not accept other employees easily. Employee groups tend to go out for parties, outings etc which on one hand creates a strong bond amongst the group members, but the other employees tend to drift apart. Over a period of time, these groups within an organization tend to disrupt the flow in an organization as employees tend to have a feeling of inhibition when working with them. Personal peer pressure forces employees to change their attitude and behavior, which in the long run creates problems in the functioning of the organization. However, employees must be sure of what they are comfortable with and must not fall for peer pressures as some people feel that certain activities like smoking, drinking etc by the groups are unethical or simply that they are uncomfortable with it.
Competition amongst individuals in a company will keep on intensifying. Every employee must face professional and personal pressures of working in an organization and must try to ‘fit-in’ the work culture. Peer pressure would always be a challenge for employees, but it is up to the individual to either take it up as a struggle or as an inspiration.
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