9

Social Psychology and Coaching

Social psychology is the study of interpersonal influence—how people influence one another. Although we like to think of ourselves as autonomous and independent, humans do not operate in a social vacuum. The real and imagined thoughts and behavior of people around us have a powerful impact.

The topics of social psychology are directly relevant to executive coaching and the process of influence. This chapter describes how coaches can effectively learn social psychology’s lessons and apply them to coaching. Social psychology has contributed much to what we know about leadership, persuasion, conformity, influence, decision making, coercion, and cooperation, and has added concepts like groupthink, field theory, and cognitive dissonance to the management consulting vocabulary.

A Brief History

Social psychology is a young science, and its origins are in events related to the Second World War. Most of the early studies were motivated by a desire to avoid another fascist catastrophe, and people who escaped the horrors of Nazi Germany conducted many of those studies. The father of social psychology, Kurt Lewin, came to the United States in 1933, the same year that Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Lewin used his research skills to study the consumer behavior of American women to help promote the success of rationing. His mother and most of his relatives perished in a concentration camp. Lewin’s protégés studied autocratic and democratic leadership and the authoritarian personality, and they generally came to the happy conclusion that democracy was the most effective way to run an organization. However, Stanley Milgram’s (1963) controversial experiments demonstrated that the majority of people would follow simple orders to administer strong electric shocks to others, even when it was clear that their obedience caused serious pain. Solomon Asch (1951) showed that people can usually be convinced to conform to the opinion of others, even when it is clear that the opinion is wrong. Philip Zimbardo and his associates (Haney, Banks, &Zimbardo, 1973) created a fake prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology department and in an experiment that got completely out of control, ended up with prison guards (who had been randomly chosen) behaving quite brutally. Zimbardo himself began to act like a prison warden before calling the experiment off. Social psychologists, like many people in the 1950s, had suspected that there was something faulty about the German character, but they learned from laboratory studies that most of us could fall prey to the worst kinds of human impulses if the conditions were just right (or just wrong). Gordon Allport (1954) and Gunnar Myrdal (1944) undertook a comprehensive description of American racial attitudes and prejudices. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) unearthed the “self-fulfilling prophecy” and showed that teachers can virtually create performance levels in children based upon the teacher’s predisposed expectations for those children, even when expectations were randomly assigned. David Rosenhan (1973) took a group of mentally healthy researchers into a mental hospital, got them admitted, and then could not convince authorities that they really were not mental patients. One researcher was stuck there for 7 weeks, because hospital staff interpreted everything he did as confirmation of his mentally ill status.

The Power of the Situation

The main finding that ties together all of these strange and interesting forays into conformity, obedience, and social perception is that situations are much more powerful than character, even though we rarely acknowledge that fact. Social psychologists refer to this as the fundamental attribution error. Humans tend to overestimate the importance and power of individual personality and underestimate the influence of the social situation. We attribute things to internal forces such as personality or character instead of social forces in our surroundings. But Milgram’s subjects could be made to shock others, Asch’s subjects could be made to endorse the obviously wrong opinions of others, and Zimbardo’s students could be turned into brutal prison guards by the power of the social situation. Social psychology teaches us that we must pay attention to social influences if we are to effectively lead, manage, and change. Coaches must remember the power of the environment, as clients and the bosses of clients are likely to focus too much attention on personality and character. Often the reasons for the success or failure of a client can be found in the way that the culture or situation is structured.

Advertising professionals and organizational consultants use the lessons of social psychology seamlessly and regularly. This chapter applies some of those important lessons to executive coaching.

Field Theory

One of Lewin’s many contributions is field theory, and it represents a way to help coaching clients cope with the social environment. Instead of focusing on personal qualities or shortcomings, it forces coaches to pay attention to the immediate social surroundings and associated pressures.

Lewin’s basic theory was that behavior is a function of the person and the environment, or B = f (P, E) as he coded it. In Lewin’s view, action and research were one and the same, and he called his change projects action research. Each change project was conducted as a research project. The usual research steps were taken, and this is a great way for coaches to work with executives. The steps are as follows (Krupp et al., 1986):

1. Identify the Problem—For coaches, this means identifying one discrete aspect of a client’s behavior or skill set to work on. It is best to choose a “problem” that seems especially fixable at first. Start with the low-hanging fruit.
2. Gather Data and Analyze It—Feed data back to the client.
3. Make an Action Plan—Create a plan that has a high likelihood of success. Get “buy-in” from all parties involved.
4. Implement Your Plan—Take action; put the plan into effect.
5. Collect More Data—Monitor the situation to evaluate how you are doing.
6. Problem Redefinition—Using the data you have collected, make necessary changes in your definition of the problem. Data are used throughout the process to track progress and change or adapt the approach. The question is always: “How are we doing, and how do we need to adjust our focus?” The process is cyclical, and it is important, at the onset, to view the cycling as “normal” and expectable, not as a failure.

Lewin saw things systemically, and believed that in order to change, an existing system must be “unfrozen, moved, and refrozen,” and that involves the total picture of influences. Lewin invented the force-field analysis (1951), an assessment of all the relevant current social forces. The force-field analysis works like this: Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. This line represents the present situation and its balance between the forces of change and the forces that keep things the same. On one side of the line, draw arrows to represent the forces for change (driving forces). On the other side of the line draw arrows that represent the forces pushing to keep things from changing (restraining forces). This diagram tells you where you need to go to work. The forces for change must be strengthened and the restraining forces must be weakened. Lewin observed that it is often easier to decrease the restraining forces than to strengthen the facilitating forces, and the process of weakening the restraining forces is more likely to reduce tension, whereas a strengthening of enabling forces can increase tension, which makes everything harder (Segal, 1997).

For example, let’s say that an executive wants to become a partner in her firm. Table 9.1 illustrates how Lewin’s force-field analysis is applied. Once you have completed this analysis it is easier to construct an action plan. Forces for change must be strengthened and forces that tend to maintain the status quo must be weakened or eliminated.

Table 9.1 Lewin’s Force-Field Analysis: An Example

It must be noted that the force-field analysis is not simply a rehashing of the standard problem-solving steps, in that it focuses on the current equilibrium situation, and the present forces for and against change.

An alternative way (Silberman, 1986) to use force-field analysis is to simply list and address the following:

1. The situation as it is now.
2. The situation as I want it to be.
3. What will keep the situation from changing?
4. What is the most powerful obstacle?
5. Action steps.
6. Resources needed to make the change.

Cognitive Dissonance

A second major social psychology contribution was by Leon Festinger (1957), and it is called cognitive dissonance theory. This theory states that humans have a need to feel consistent. We are comfortable when our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are aligned, and we are uncomfortable when they are in dissonance. Dissonance happens when we think one way but behave in a way that conflicts with our thinking or our values. When uncomfortable, we strive to resolve the inconsistency, either by changing behavior or more typically, changing what we tell ourselves about the situation or the behavior. For example, when you do something that you believe to be wrong, dissonance theory asserts that you must either stop doing it or find a way to explain or rationalize it so that it seems acceptable. A classic example in social psychology research is from a study by Knox and Inkster done in 1968. They found that bettors at a racetrack were more confident in their horse after they had placed their bet than before. They had to make their thinking consistent with the action they had already taken.

Thus, you will be in state of dissonance when you snap at an employee if you generally think of yourself as a “nice” person. How could these two apparently conflicting things both be true? The tension created by cognitive dissonance must be resolved in some way, and if the event has already occurred, you cannot go back and erase it, so you tell yourself something that makes it all add up correctly: That employee deserved it. He did something so thoughtless that he required being snapped at. Or you could tell yourself that although you are actually a very nice person, you are under an enormous amount of stress right now and anyone would snap under present conditions. But you must do something to resolve the dissonance between what you think of yourself and your behavior. There are actually many ways to do this. For example, you could discredit a source of conflicting information, you could view problematic information from a different point of view, or you could use selective recall and leave out discordant aspects of the information. But you must do something, and what you do is often irrational or illogical. As Robert Cialdini puts it, “We all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided” (1985, p. 53).

Social psychologists also point out that there are two very basic human motives that often invite cognitive dissonance: (1) the need to feel that we have an accurate view of things (the need to be right) and (2) the need to feel good about ourselves. Although these two motives are sometimes naturally or easily satisfied, they often cause conflict. Sometimes, if we view things accurately, we must acknowledge that we have behaved poorly or stupidly or at least, suboptimally.

There are two divergent ways to deal with this problem (Aronson, Wilson, &Akert, 1997). The first is called the self-esteem approach. Using this approach, we distort things to feel right and feel good about ourselves. The desire to feel right is a powerful motive for humans. In fact, many people would rather feel right than happy. Depressed people hang onto their irrational thinking even though it causes them to suffer, and they do this to maintain the perception that they are “correct” about life. Sometimes this requires that we justify previous behavior even though, if we thought about it, we would realize how silly the behavior really was. Sometimes it means that we have to go on making the same old poor choices to justify decisions we made before. Sometimes it means that we must sing the praises of something we have suffered for in the past, like a fraternity or sorority that was difficult to break into. For example, companies have been known to continue to use poor software long after it has become clear that the software was no good, simply to justify the decision maker’s judgment. If you switch, you must acknowledge that your original decision was wrong, so you trudge along, trying to find something good about the situation and punishing those who criticize it. This is often the reason that people cannot change. If they did, they would be acknowledging that they had been wrong before. We often cling to our views way too long in order to protect our self-esteem and consistent view of ourselves.

This phenomenon causes us to rationalize and justify. Social psychologists have discovered unexpected patterns in this area. For example, they found that if you want someone to like you, it is better to get them to do something for you rather than to do something for them. Ben Franklin actually seems to have stumbled on this “trick” long before social psychology. He referred to it in 18th century writings (Aronson et al., 1997, p. 206). This seems odd at first, but cognitive dissonance provides the explanation. After someone has done something for you, he or she has to be able to explain that behavior. One way to make it all fit is for them to decide that they like you, that you are worth it. Otherwise, why would they have done something for you in the first place?

The second approach is called social cognition and it comes from the drive we have toward accurate social perception. Most humans possess the desire to get things right, to figure out what is true. We intuitively understand what is at stake, and we try hard to understand the social world around us. But we theorize imperfectly, and social psychologists have described several classic paths to self-delusion. This becomes a problem when we get stuck on being “right,” and being right becomes more important than being effective. Remember: Many people would rather be “right” than happy. To them, at the time, it just seems better.

Groupthink and the Abilene Paradox

Irving Janis was struck by the way that intelligent people made foolish foreign policy decisions at the highest level of American government in the 1960s. His study of four major blunders (Roosevelt’s failure to prepare for an attack on Pearl Harbor, Truman’s invasion of North Korea, Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs invasion, and Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War) led him to the conclusion that rational thinking had been hijacked by the commonly experienced group process dynamics of social psychology. He observed that judgment is impaired in those who become “more concerned with retaining the approval of the fellow members of their work group than with coming up with good solutions to the task at hand.” He called this tendency “concurrence-seeking behavior” or groupthink (Janis, 1972, p. iii).

Janis (pp. 197–198) concluded that several important symptoms of groupthink could be avoided by thoughtful executives. They are:

• High group cohesiveness and tendency toward agreement and conformity.
• Shared illusion of unanimity.
• Shared illusion of group invulnerability.
• Excessive optimism.
• Insulation of a decision-making group from outside influence or input.
• Persistent attempts by a leader to influence a group’s decision.
• Collective efforts to minimize or discount warnings or disconfirming information.
• Pressure against group members who disagree or offer discordant opinions.
• Self-censorship of members who have dissenting ideas.
• Emergence of self-appointed “mind guards” who protect the group from adverse information.

These qualities can cause bad decisions by limiting the information that is considered, limiting the number of alternatives considered, limiting discussion and formal evaluation, biasing available information, and failure to create contingency plans.

Jerry Harvey offered a similar view in his intriguing essay “The Abilene Paradox” (Harvey, 1988). He uses the story of how his family embarked on a long, uncomfortable day trip to Abilene in 104° heat to make his point. No one in the family actually wanted to make the trip, but all agreed because they felt that the others wanted to go. As a group, they did exactly the opposite of what each of the group members wanted to do. Harvey describes the paradox as follows: “Organizations frequently take actions in contradiction to what they really want to do and therefore defeat the very purposes they are trying to achieve.” He goes on to point out that “the inability to manage agreement is a major source of organization dysfunction” (p. 18). Harvey asserts that the failure to manage agreement is a more pressing problem than the issue of conflict management in organizations.

Janis and Harvey both offer advice and suggestions about how leaders can avoid or minimize problems related to conformity and excessive agreement. Coaches and consultants would be wise to study this body of work, because of their special outsiders’ role. Coaches are in an excellent position to help organizations avoid groupthink if they can avoid becoming too closely identified with insider status. It must be said that those who think they are immune from these dynamics are paradoxically the most vulnerable. We are all vulnerable.

Schemas and the Effects of Expectation

Social psychologists refer to the personal theories that we use to understand everyday events as schemas, and these schemas are both useful and treacherous at the same time. They are cognitive simplifications in the form of thought rules. We cannot live without them, but they routinely trick us, and we resist changing these harmful patterns when new information conflicts.

For example, we see things based upon how we expect them to be. If we have an expectation in advance of an event, we perceive it in alignment with the expectation. If you are told that someone or something is positive and special, you are likely to perceive any ambiguities in a positive light. First impressions work this way. Your first impression of someone has a powerful impact on how you evaluate him or her in the future. Reputation works this way. A person’s reputation precedes him or her and is a powerful influencer of how that person is perceived in the present moment. Recency also applies. Your most recent interaction with someone is also more powerful than your long-term opinion. The self-fulfilling prophecy is another example of a problematic human tendency. We treat people in line with what we already think of them, and they behave in alignment with expectations. Often those expectations serve as a kind of tunnel vision in that we herald new bits of information that confirm our existing opinion and fail to notice data that would conflict. These judgmental heuristics are useful, as they allow us to avoid having to think through every step of a decision process hundreds of times each day. But they trick us, as well. The following subsections are some examples.

The Availability Heuristic

We use the availability heuristic shortcut when we make a judgment based upon how easily we can bring an example to mind. We tend to think something is truer if we can bring to mind a good, clear picture of it. After seeing photographs you might think that earthquakes are the most dangerous aspect of life in San Francisco even though car wrecks kill far more people there. This is the reason that the drunk (in the joke) looks under the street lamp for his keys, even though he lost them across the street: “The light’s better here!” he notes. It follows, then, that if you want to make a good point or you want your view to seem true to others, you would do well to paint a picture, use a metaphor, or connect it to something recent or well known.

The Representative Heuristic

The representative heuristic mental device checks to see if a new piece of information matches information in a category and then assumes that the new information is like all the other cases in the category. For example, you are much more likely to be hired as a CEO if you look and act the way that people think “typical” CEOs do. That is why you sometimes get the advice to “dress like the people who already have the job you want.” A recent advertisement by the American Civil Liberties Union makes the disturbing point that Martin Luther King Jr. would have been “75 times more likely to be stopped by the police while driving” than Charles Manson.

Anchoring and Adjustment

Anchoring and adjustment causes us to stick close to the first estimate of a situation. For example, in negotiations, the first offer or bid on the table is a powerful one, because it “anchors” all subsequent perceptions, which must “adjust” from it. If the first offer is in the $500 range, it is very hard to move perceptions into the $5,000 range, even though others may actually be willing to pay $5,000. This phenomenon is also called the dominance of first impressions, and it means that executives must get feedback about how they present themselves and pay attention to the first impression that they make. It also means that if you are negotiating a fee it is important to set the starting offer at the optimal level, not too low and not too high.

This heuristic has many other implications. For example, if a real estate agent wants you, a potential powerful buyer, to favor an $800,000 house, she might walk you through a more expensive home first and talk about million dollar homes in the neighborhood.

The Perseverance Effect

Numerous studies have documented the tendency for most of us to think in the same ways, over and over again, even when there is no benefit to the tried-and-true thought patterns. A simple story about this phenomenon, Who Moved My Cheese? (Johnson, 1998), sold millions of copies. We think the same things in the same ways as a style, not because it is an effective way to process information. We even continue to think in the same way after receiving contradictory feedback. This is an area where a persuasive coach can really earn her fees. If you can bump a client out of an old, worn-out cognitive rut, you will have made a significant contribution, indeed. People can rarely do this for themselves. Change often requires a dramatic event or significant loss.

Lessons in Leadership

Social psychology has been interested in leadership since World War II, particularly in regard to the devastation caused by tyrants and dictators of that era. The first major studies in leadership and group dynamics demonstrated that, when compared to autocratic and laissez faire leadership, democratically led groups were superior. They resulted in higher productivity overall, less in-group conflict, more on-task behavior when the leader was absent, and more creativity (Lewin, Lippitt, &White, 1939). Humans generally do better when they feel that they have a role in the decision making.

Leadership research has often centered on the great person theory, which wonders if great leaders possess certain personal qualities that enable them to excel. Not surprisingly, the fundamental attribution error applies here, too, in that no personality or character or intelligence factors have been consistently associated with great leaders. Leaders are only modestly more intelligent than nonleaders, only a little more charismatic, and not consistently more driven toward accumulation of power (Aronson et al., 1997). In a large study of American presidents, one hundred personal factors were matched with historical effectiveness, and only three factors stood out and only one was something that the person had influence over himself (Simonton, 1987, 1992). The factors associated with great leaders were height (tall is better), family-of-origin size (small is better), and number of books published before becoming president. Leadership research is reviewed in more detail in Chapter 15.

Contingency Theory

Of greater importance is the match between the leader and the situation. Some kinds of leaders are ideal for certain times, whereas others are a better fit during other conditions. Some situations call for a certain kind of bold charisma, whereas others require cautious leadership and a focus on the details. Sometimes task-oriented leaders (those who tend to pay the most attention to getting the immediate job done) are best and at other times a relationship-oriented leader is better. Prospective leaders would be well advised to look carefully at situational demands to determine what kind of leadership to apply. Many people are simply not flexible enough to make the changes that a difficult leadership situation requires. A coach might be able to guide a leader through a difficult period or even advise a change of leadership or organizational structure to take advantage of an executive’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to the current context.

Emotional Intelligence

Any modern discussion of coaching, leadership, and executive effectiveness must include the work of Daniel Goleman who points out that IQ and the usual technical ingredients are insufficient for lasting success (Goleman, 1998a, p. 93):

This body of work is mandatory reading for the executive coach. Goleman asserts that it is emotional intelligence (EQ) that makes or breaks leaders, that EQ is the sine qua non of leadership, and that it is possible (albeit difficult) to learn the component skills. Goleman defines emotional intelligence as follows (1998b, p. 317): “The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” He claims that his research demonstrates that emotional intelligence is twice as important as IQ or technical skills and most executives are quite bright. Intellectual skills and technical expertise are important, but they are only threshold skills. They get you in the door and onto the playing field. It is EQ that enables you to survive and thrive. The basic components of Goleman’s (1995) version of EQ are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. These are all natural areas for coaches, and, in fact, Goleman specifically recommends coaching for those who want to enhance their emotional intelligence. Goleman also notes a coming crisis for American corporations and an opportunity for coaches: As IQ continues to rise in children, EQ is on the decline (1998b, p. 11). Coaches are often called on to help executives who have made a name for themselves through years of hard work in front of a computer screen and are now asked to manage or lead people. Goleman provides an Emotional Competence Framework for assessment of just such a person (1998a, pp. 26–27). Goleman’s claims, the work of other important researchers, and the extensive literature on emotional intelligence are reviewed and evaluated more thoroughly in Chapter 11.

Cooperation and Competition

There is a body of work in social psychology that strives to determine the best ways to enhance cooperation when cooperation is appropriate. Competitive or aggressive reactions are sometimes called for, but more often than not, a potential win–win situation is completely missed because one person behaves competitively when a cooperative response would have been far better. When trust has not been established in human relations, people think in terms of a zero-sum game or condition. They figure that any piece of the pie for others means one less piece for them. This is a condition of scarcity, meaning that there is not enough for everyone. The win–win viewpoint is quite different, and it is predicated on the idea that if we communicate what we desire, there may be a happy fit between what you want and what I want; we might both be able to get much of what we each desire, or we may be able to create more of everything by working together. Such a happy outcome requires honest and open communication, as well as some level of trust. When the chicken arrives, before you start to fight about how much you can actually have, figure out who likes white meat and who likes the dark. Maybe you can actually have it all (all of what you want).

Social psychologists have extensively used a game called the Prisoner’s Dilemma to test how people cooperate or compete (with competition referred to as defection in the literature). In this simulation two people are arrested and held for interrogation. Each is told that if he will testify against his partner, he himself will be set free. A scoring system is set up to highly reward cooperation (i.e., not defecting or ratting on the partner); to reward competition modestly; and to subtract points if one cooperates but one’s partner rats on him. The dilemma is called a mixed-motive situation, because participants must decide between total self-interest, trust in others, and benevolent interest in the well-being of others. In this game it is risky (but potentially very rewarding) to look out for someone else. Hundreds of studies indicate that people are inclined to become locked into an escalating series of competitive moves, especially if they feel that their trust has once been violated or that they have been taken advantage of. Trust might be easy to establish, but it is also easy to damage, and it requires ongoing attention. One cannot simply assume that existing trust is stable. It must be monitored and nourished.

It turns out that a strategy called tit-for-tat is ideal when tested against all comers in a computerized prisoner’s dilemma tournament (Axelrod, 1984). In this strategy, the player begins with a cooperative response and then simply chooses the same option that the other player chose on the previous move. This begins by communicating a willingness to cooperate along with an unwillingness to be taken advantage of. Most people probably respect such a strategy, a cooperative stance by someone who is not willing to be exploited.

In any case, the social environment must be examined along the cooperative–competitive spectrum. Competition is best for some things, but cooperation is essential for others. It is ineffective to compete when cooperation would be better, yet this happens all the time.

Interpersonal Influence

Cialdini (1985) essentially “wrote the book” on influence. He reviewed the available literature on interpersonal influence and conducted participant observation studies in which he and collaborators studied influence in real-life situations. Here is what he learned.

Reasons

First, if you want someone to do something for you, it is best to supply a reason. The reason need not be particularly impressive or compelling. In fact, there is research evidence that the simple inclusion of the word because will often do the trick. The nature of the reason does not seem to matter much, but the fact that you gave a reason will greatly increase the odds of compliance. Cialdini points out that children discern the power of the word because early on, and they often use it to justify behavior. “Why did you do that?” Answer: “Because!”

Repetition

Second, if you really want to accomplish something, repeat a constant and consistent theme. Say it over and over again in a consistent manner. As long as you do not overdo it, this creates the advantage of making what you are saying familiar, and because of the availability heuristic (we tend to believe that which comes easily to mind), what you are repeating eventually gets attention and credibility. The best way to take advantage of the power of the human urge toward consistency is to combine it with commitment. First, get a commitment to do something, then all subsequent behavior must conform to that commitment. This works for self-change as well. Make yourself state a commitment to something clear and measurable, so that there is no way to weasel out without (you or others) noticing. Then make your behaviors line up with your commitment. This solves the problem of cognitive dissonance.

Owing Favors

Third, the rule of reciprocity calls for us to repay favors. If you do a favor for me, I should try to repay that favor to balance things out. We are obligated. It may well be a good idea to keep everyone in your organization in debt to you for something or another. Powerful political figures are well aware of this phenomenon. Cialdini uses the example of the Hare Krishna’s gift of a flower in airports in the 1980s. Many people felt woefully indebted, in spite of themselves, after accepting that simple gift. This tactic is used effectively by time-share companies that provide free ski tickets or free stays at a condo as long as you are willing to sit for their sales pitch. People feel indebted. It is important to note that once you have given a gift you must allow the opportunity for the return of the favor. People deeply resent being put into the position of having received a gift that they are unable to repay in some way. (Everybody’s doing it.)

Following the Crowd

Another, extraordinarily powerful source of influence is the principle of social proof. This principle states that, as social animals, we watch one another to see what the trends are, and then we follow them. We use the mass behavior of others to determine what is true, valuable, and important. It is like the zebras on the Serengeti: When the other zebras run, you’d better run too, just in case, even though you have no idea of why you are running. The human tendency to follow prevailing social trends and patterns is profound, and it explains things like the Jonestown massacre, fashion trends, tattoos, and suicides and homicides subsequent to other suicides and homicides in the news. It also explains why television sitcoms still use laugh tracks, even though everyone says that they hate them. In spite of our expressed dislike for the phony yuks, it works. Crowd behavior is especially important in times of uncertainty and ambiguity, and it is most powerful when the people we observe are similar to us. Keep this in mind next time you find yourself laughing at something that is actually not very funny or clapping for something you do not actually find impressive. Keep this in mind when you are making difficult decisions at work. Guard against mindless conformity and what Cialdini calls pluralistic ignorance. Trend following has its value—it tends to keep us safe—but it has many more liabilities, and helps to explain much strange human behavior. Pay attention to the trend, but do not trust it implicitly. Check things out for yourself. On the other hand, when you need to influence someone else, you may want to point out the prevailing trend in the direction of the point of view you advocate.

Similarity and Other “Like” Factors

It is not surprising that we tend to like people and things that are similar to us and familiar. We like people who look and dress like us, and people who are physically attractive have a great edge in life: We tend to believe them and we tend to think all sorts of positive things about them, including the fact that they are “good.” This trend is called the halo effect in the psychological literature. We also tend to attribute positive qualities to people we like, and people who can make themselves liked in the workplace have a clear and powerful advantage. Although this may seem obvious, this interpersonal liking is often overlooked as a career force. We tend to like people who have a similar background to our own, and it pays to find something in common with someone you are trying to influence.

Choosing Models

The power of similarity is also important in the use of modeling. Modeling is typically found in the repertoire of the behavior therapist or behaviorally oriented consultant (see Chapter 4), but it clearly involves interpersonal influence. When your client wants to change or learn something new, one great way is to find someone who already knows how to do it, to observe that person carefully and to copy them. The best kind of model for your clients is someone similar to them. Similarity makes for a more efficient modeling process. Do not choose someone who seems perfect or who is in total mastery of the sought-after skill. Rather, pick someone who obviously had to work at learning it and is in the process of improving. This tends to make the skill more accessible to the learner and the learner more open to the new skill. Research indicates that it is better to choose a role model from the same gender and ethnic group of the client, and someone at roughly the same prestige level in the organization. It even helps if the model occasionally has to struggle with the learning process, has to work at it, and it is terrific when the model can talk about the process to your client. It is difficult to identify with a flawless model. If you intend to learn golf as a beginner, Tiger Woods may not be the best model for you. It helps if the model has overcome the same obstacles faced by your client and better if they have similar concerns. Multiple exposures to the model and multiple models make for the best learning experience. And remember to encourage the client to adapt the model’s approach to his or her style; that is, to do what the model is doing in the client’s own way (Cormier &Cormier, 1985, p. 311).

Compliments are powerful. We tend to believe praise when it is lavished on us, even when we should know better, and we tend to like the person who is lavishing it.

The phenomenon called killing the messenger has its basis in social psychology, as any television meteorologist can tell you. They often get blamed for the bad weather they announce. One must be careful about taking the role of bad-news messenger, especially if called upon to do this regularly. It can lead to trouble, for you will become associated with the badness of the events communicated. If there are layoffs to be announced, think carefully about who will be the one to break the news.

Social psychologists have even provided data for the luncheon technique (Razran, 1938). A series of studies have demonstrated that subjects were more likely to give approval to topics when they were presented along with food. It seems that tax deductions for business lunches actually have a basis in scientific research.

Compliance

Milgram’s obedience studies, conducted in the 1960s, placed participants in a situation where they were told to shock other people. The shocks were not real, but participants thought that they were. The subsequent embarrassment and trauma thought to be experienced by those subjects were partly responsible for enhanced protections and increased restrictions on subsequent experimentation using live subjects in psychology. Jerry Burger (2009) recently conducted important partial replications of Milgram’s research using added safeguards and limiting the range of subject behavior. His research attempted to determine whether people would still obey at the same rates that Milgram found in the 1960s. Burger included women to see if there would be gender differences. He also studied the effect of several personality variables on obedience. The results of Burger’s studies indicated that modern participants were just as likely to obey authority figures—even when it involved hurting other people—as were participants in the 1960s. He also found no significant gender differences, even though he speculated that women might be more concerned about hurting someone else. He reasoned that any such concern was overwhelmed in his study by a lack of assertiveness by women in the face of authority. He found that people who scored higher on empathy scales did express reluctance to continue to shock others, but they did not refuse to continue to obey when told to do so.

Social psychology has carefully studied other ways that people tend to be susceptible to influence. One of the most useful findings comes from a series of studies by Rule, Bisanz, and Kohn, reported in 1985. They created a hierarchy of preferred strategies used to get compliance, and aside from methods that might be called dirty tricks. They found the following:

1. A simple request is the most preferred tactic, for example, “Would you please …”
2. A reason is compelling, and personal expertise or a role relationship makes a request more powerful. For example, “We’ve been friends for a long time now …” or “I really need this because …”
3. Horse trading is useful. “If you would do this for me, I will be glad to do that for you.”
4. Invoking a norm or a moral principle or altruism works. “Everybody else is doing it” or “It’s the right thing to do” or “Other people are depending on us …”
5. A compliment tends to get compliance: “You are so good at this type of thing …”
6. Negative, deceptive, or threatening approaches are at the bottom of the list, along with the use of force. These should be used only as a last resort, if at all.

The optimal way to ensure compliance with your requests is to allow the targets of your request to save face and to help them feel that they are doing a nice thing of their own volition.

Social psychology has also identified the sources of power that clients possess in the workplace (French &Raven, 1959), and it may be useful for coaches to review these sources outlined in the following with clients. How is the client doing in each of these areas of influence? Does he or she rely on one to the exclusion of others? Are they happy with the compliance they get?

Sources of Compliance Power

1. Coercion—Based upon the agent’s ability to punish or withhold rewards.
2. Reward—Based upon the agent’s ability to provide rewards.
3. Expertness—Based on the target’s perception that the agent has important knowledge or ability.
4. Legitimacy—Based on the target’s belief that the agent is authorized by a recognized power structure that the target answers to.
5. Referent Power—Based on the target’s identification with and attraction to or respect for the agent.

Ideally, coercive power is minimized in a modern organization, but clients must be willing to judiciously use that source if necessary. The use of referent and expert influence, however, is likely to create the optimal working environment, along with productivity and creativity.

The Authoritarian Personality

One last social psychology topic deserves mention, even though it is controversial. At the end of World War II Theodor Adorno and several colleagues at University of California, Berkeley (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, &Sanford, 1950) approached the problem of Hitler and other demagogues from a slightly different point of view. They described a type of personality that was especially susceptible to authoritarian submission and called it the authoritarian personality. Their original ideas derived from psychoanalytic theory, but were grouped with social psychologists who were studying the same problem at the same time. Adorno’s team developed a brief questionnaire to use as a screening device—the F scale (F is for fascist)—for people highly susceptible to group influence and excessive conformity to authority. The first question, for example, is “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues that children should learn.” Adorno’s work was criticized as an attack on conservative thinking. The authoritarian person is portrayed as one who values conformity to prevailing social norms (and is likely to insist that others conform as well); is submissive to authority; intolerant of difference; places a high value on security and stability; and is rigid in his or her views (new or disconfirming information is not welcome). Canadian psychologist Robert Altemeyer (2007) has recently taken an intriguing and more social view of authoritarianism and applied it to current events. The question of interest to coaches seems to be this: Is there a personality type that is authoritarian, and if so, how do coaches recognize and deal with it in the work setting? What if your client seems authoritarian? What if your client has an authoritarian boss? Adorno’s and Altemeyer’s ideas are engaging and worthy of review.

Summary

1. Treat each “case” and client as an ongoing field study. View coaching as research. Lewin’s action research can be described as “research on action with the goal of making that action more effective” (Witherspoon &White, 1997, p. 19). Talk about it that way. Let your clients in on the research, get them involved. Create an optimistic, nonpunitive atmosphere of curiosity. Together, you and your clients commit to study a situation or “problem” so that you can understand it and influence it. Expect that the first interventions will be instructive but will not “solve” the problem. Expect a few iterations of the cycle of assessment, brainstorming, intervention, and evaluation. It’s all good.
2. As a coach, remember the power of the situation. Social psychology research makes it quite clear that the situation is more influential than personal qualities or individual character. Do not allow your clients to become self-blaming and punitive (but do not let them off the personal “hook” either). It is possible that you could plug almost anyone into certain situations and he or she will behave in roughly the same way as anyone else would. Examine the social environment as it pertains to the question at hand. Explore the possibility that some aspects of the environment should be adjusted to help clients grow. Teach your clients’ organization, if possible, about the organizational climate and culture. Make it open to examination and discussion.

   Help your clients examine social situations and how these influence them. Help your clients discern which aspects they are reacting to and why. Explore the ways that your clients are influenced by prevailing social trends and help them think through which trends make sense and which do not. Provide a safe, sane place for your clients to think and talk about these things outside of the social situation that normally influences their behavior.

3. Remember that we all suffer from self-delusion. It is virtually impossible to live in the real and accurate world. It is too much mental work to think through every situation independently from scratch, so we are forced to use mental heuristics to economize and survive. These heuristics are vital and useful, but they often trick us, and cognitive dissonance causes us to make mental adjustments that are inaccurate but comfortable. Help your clients sort through the ways that they are tricking themselves and ways to get back to more accurate thinking. Help clients notice when they are stuck or when they are trapped by their own ideas. An outside view is essential sometimes.
4. Assist your clients with self-presentation. Reinforce the importance of first impressions and physical appearance. Coaches are a crucial source of feedback. You can point things out to clients that others cannot (because of prohibitive social mores or role constraints; for example, how do you tell your boss that she has bad breath?). Your role as coach requires that you do just that with your clients. You have a special kind of permission that is extremely valuable. You must skillfully call attention to how your clients present themselves and brainstorm for adjustments. This includes the way they dress, the way they speak (in person and on the telephone), their e-mail messages, the way they stand and sit, the way they make eye contact, the way they listen, and even the amount that they smile. These are all examples of the kinds of self-presentation feedback that coaches are expected to provide to clients. According to social psychology research, it is invaluable.
5. Assess and teach Emotional Intelligence. Goleman’s materials are quite useful in selling this concept. Goleman’s books, articles from the Harvard Business Review, and cassettes are available to help you and your clients. Technical expertise and intellect are important, but they are threshold skills. They are expected, and they get your clients in the door. Social factors are more important to your clients’ long-term success than are the technical factors. These include empathy, self-awareness, self-regulation, and social skills (such as the ability to accurately read the emotions of others). These skills are the bread-and-butter skills of the executive coach, and they are often the reason that coaching is requested in the first place, whether your clients acknowledge this or not. The emotional intelligence format provides a vehicle for the sale of soft skills in the corporate world. EI is described in detail in Chapter 11 (“Emotional Intelligence”).

   And remember: Do not believe everything that you think.

References

Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D., & Sanford, N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Altemeyer, R. (2007). The authoritarians. Available from: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/.

Aronson, E., Wilson. T., & Akert, R. (1997). Social psychology. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership, and men (pp. 177–190). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie.

Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

Burger, J. (2009, January). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64(1), 1–11.

Cartwright, D. (1979). Contemporary social psychology in historical perspective. Social Psychology Quarterly, 42, 82–93.

Cialdini, R. (1985). Influence: Science and practice. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.

Cormier, W., & Cormier, L. (1985). Interviewing strategies for helpers. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.

French, J. R. P., Jr., & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

Goleman, D. (1998a, November–December). What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review, 93–102.

Goleman, D. (1998b). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

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Harvey, J. B. (1988, Summer). The Abilene Paradox: The management of agreement. Organizational Dynamics, 17–43.

Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

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Krupp, S., DeHann, R. F., Ishtai-Zee, S., Bastas, E., Castlebaum, K., & Jackson, E. (1986). Action research as a guiding principle in an educational curriculum: The Lincoln University Master’s Program in Human Services. In E. Stivers & S. Wheelan (Eds.), The Lewin legacy: Field theory in current practice (pp. 115–121). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York: Harper & Row.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271–279.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 67, 371–378.

Myrdal, G. (1944). An American dilemma. New York: Harper & Row.

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Razran, G. H. S. (1938). Conditioned response changes in rating and appraising sociopolitical slogans. Psychological Bulletin, 37, 481.

Rosenhan, D. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250–258.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and student intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston.

Rule, B. G., Bisanz, G. L., & Kohn, M. (1985). Anatomy of a persuasion schema: Targets, goals, and strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1127–1140.

Segal, M. (1997). Points of influence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Silberman, M. (1986). Teaching force field analysis: A suggested training design. In E. Stivers & S. Wheelan (Eds.), The Lewin legacy: Field theory in current practice (pp. 115–121). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Simonton, D. K. (1987). Why presidents succeed: A political psychology of leadership. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Witherspoon, R., & White, R. (1997). Four essential ways that coaching can help executives. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Recommended Readings

Benjamin, L. (2009). The power of the situation: The impact of Milgram’s obedience studies on personality and social psychology. American Psychologist, 64(1), 12–19.

Deaux, K., Dane, F., & Wrightsman, L. (1997). Social psychology in the ’90s (6th ed). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole.

Gilbert, D., Fiske, S., & Lindzey, G. (1998). The handbook of social psychology (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hayes, N. (1993). Principles of social psychology. Hove, UK: Erlbaum.

Janis, I. (1986). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Stivers, E., & Wheelan, S. (1986). The Lewin legacy: Field theory in current practice. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Taylor, S., Letita, A., & Sears, D. (2000). Social psychology (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.