TELLING PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE SMART WHEN THEY PERFORM WELL CAN BE DETRIMENTAL TO THEIR LONG- TERM PERFORMANCE IF IT PRODUCES AN ENTITY VIEW.
stereotypes more than incremental theorists do. In our studies, 5 we have found that entity theorists are more likely to believe that stereotypes are accurate descriptions of people in general and even of specific individuals compared to incremental theorists. When assessing a new member of a group whom entity theorists knew little about, they were more likely to characterise the person as either very competent or very incompetent, depending upon whether the person agreed or disagreed with the group. Incremental theorists were more likely to take other explanations into account, such as the new member might be nervous or have a different understanding of the task. These considerations lead incremental theorists to make more middle-of-theroad, provisional judgments of the new member’ s competence. Their judgments were not affected by whether the new member agreed or disagreed with the group. When the new member was someone well known to them, resulting in less novelty or challenge in the situation, both entity theorists and incremental theorists made less extreme judgments about the person’ s competence.
Entity theorists pay less attention to information that is inconsistent with their judgments. Therefore, in situations where there are competing points of view and inconsistent information, entity theorists make the quicker judgments and are more confident in their judgments than incremental theorists. Whether this is a good or a bad thing depends upon how correct they turn out to be and the costs and benefits of a quick decision.
Incremental theorists are more exploratory and more likely to experiment when considering different options, compared to entity theorists. 6 Because entity theorists view a drop in performance as indicative of a lack of ability, they tend to look for a strategy that works and stick with it rather than experiment widely. Incremental theorists are more likely to experiment with a range of strategies, which can undermine their performance in the short term. However, we have found it also leads to greater learning and more effective responses to sudden changes in a complex task. This finding provides some support for the logic behind a slogan I saw recently on the T-shirt of a Kellogg student, which read:“ C students make the best CEOs”. The argument is that if you have learnt how to cope with the ups and downs of failure, you are better prepared for the realities of senior management.
A third finding from our studies 7 is that implicit theories have an impact on group decision-making. Again, when working on challenging managerial problems, groups that include entity theorists become more discouraged by setbacks, develop a negative tone and are less engaged on the task. When given an option, groups in which members share an entity theory will get the task over with quickly by taking the first option that seems satisfactory. They then go on to talk about other matters, unrelated to the challenging task, and which do not involve the risk of making mistakes in front of one’ s peers. Groups of incremental theorists are more engaged in the task, they speak more, take more turns at speaking and engage in more open disagreement about the issues. In this process, incremental groups evaluate more options than entity groups.
WHERE TO FROM HERE? When McGregor outlined his arguments, he made the point that managers would only shift from a Theory X to a Theory Y approach if organisations reshaped their managerial practices and policies to support Theory Y assumptions. That has not changed. There are many potential transmission mechanisms for implicit theories in organisations, including leadership, training programs, performance appraisals, rewards, recruitment and induction programs. However, one problem in building a change strategy around such HRM systems and processes is that they are often not deeply embedded in daily management practices. One strategy that colleagues and I have been testing in Australian organisations is to introduce more disciplined problemsolving processes by having individuals and groups using simple problem-solving tools in their daily work practices,
MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE
The quality of knowledge that is available to managers is underpinned by research conducted by management academics. However, we can only conduct management research if managers participate. If you would like to contribute to our studies or help us to get your colleagues to participate, please contact me at the e-mail address below. Most of our studies are computer-based and we can come to you and your colleagues with a laptop or deliver the study materials over the Web. Being overseas or interstate may not be an impediment to participation. Studies typically take between one and two hours. Everybody who participates receives feedback on his or her responses and decision strategies used.
Contact: rwood @ agsm. edu. au.
particularly group work. By using these tools we are hoping to create a stronger task focus, provide the means for experimenting, encourage more research and information analysis, and foster the testing of multiple strategies. ✪
* Robert Wood is professor of management, AGSM. Since July 1999, he has been visiting professor at the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, Illinois. He will return to the AGSM in July 2001.
FOOTNOTES
1 McGregor D., The Human Side of the
Enterprise, McGraw Hill, NY, 1960.
2 This work has been done in collaboration with AGSM PhD students Mike Higgs and Tracey Pillinger, and with colleagues at the University of Salamanca( Dr Carmen Tabernero) and Kellogg( Dr Kathy Phillips).
3 See Dweck C. S., Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality and Development, Psychology Press, Philadelphia, 1999.
4 Tabernero C. and Wood R. E.,‘ Implicit theories versus the social construal of ability in selfregulation and performance on a complex task’ in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78, 104 – 127, 1999.
5 Wood R. E., Higgs M. and Tabernero C.,‘ The impacts of implicit theories on stereotype formation and endorsement’. Working paper, 2000.
6 Wood R. E. and Bandura A.,‘ Impact of conceptions of ability on self-regulatory mechanisms and complex decision making’ in Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 56, 407 – 415, 1989. Pillinger T., Study 1, PhD Thesis, 2000.
7 Wood R. E., Tabernero C. and Phillips K. W.,‘ Personality composition, processing dynamics and performance in self-managed groups’. Working paper, 2000.
www. agsm. edu. au AGSM | 15