When Pygmalion Met Galatea

First off, welcome to the new newsletter! I've migrated from Substack, for reasons you can read there. Today, an allegory...

Pygmalion had an unusual name. It was one of the many things he felt judged for, and had begun to think people may be right about. As he walked to the cafe, he repeated in his head, over and over, how his boss had given his name a disappointing intonation. Oh, Pig-mawleeyawn, she’d say, drolling it out slower and longer than anyone else’s name. The first time she’d done it was after he’d walked her through the Postmaster presentation. He’d spent so much time after work hours, enjoying digging into the intricacies of the project, studying the ins and outs of the competition, preparing and proposing what he thought would be ironclad tactics.

Pygmalion sighed deeply. If he was so wrong about things he invested deeply in and cared about, what else was he wrong about? And how long would his boss put up with his stupidity before they let him go? Could he even find another job if he clearly didn’t know his stuff anymore?

He rounded the corner and could see Galatea sitting at the cafe, talking to Dee and Kay, over the patio railing. They must have been walking by.

“You gonna join up this weekend?“ Dee asked.

“I’ve never mountain-biked before, but I’m excited to try it!” Galatea replied.

Kay jumped in, nearly cutting Galatea off, “You can join me; I’m gonna hit all the jumps, moguls, and switchbacks on that Teutoburg Forest track!”

“Oh, you’ve been before? I thought you were new at this, too!” Galatea replied.

Kay smiled and did a slight eye roll. “I’ve been once before, but I’m a natural at things like this.”

Pygmalion didn’t recall Kay being particularly athletic, but thought nothing of it as he walked up, waving and joining Galatea at the table.

“Hey Pygmalion!” They all said in unison. He liked how they said his name. His friends always seemed to think so highly of him, but he hadn’t seen much of them recently. His eyebrows raised, and he smiled happily in return.

“Hey! Going biking this weekend?”

Kay touched his shoulder over the patio barrier as she spoke, “Hell yeah. You coming? Would love to see those moves!”

“Ahh, I don’t know,” he replied, his demeanour shrinking back in on itself.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re rad! Who else is gonna teach this goof what real talent looks like?” Kay gestured toward Dee, who rolled his eyes again and scoffed.

“Haha, thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll think about it.”

“Alright, well, we'd better get going and let you two catch up. See you later!” Kay said as they all instinctually started waving at each other in broad, exaggerated motions only long-time friends would use.

Pygmalion smiled at Galatea, but she watched his expression fade as he glanced down at the cafe menu.

“Still having trouble at work?” She asked.

“Yeah, you could say that. I keep letting my boss down. I don’t know what business I have even being there.” His knuckles whitened as he gripped the table in frustration.

“That’s an odd take.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got a reputation in the community. People know you’re an expert in your field. You’ve got the portfolio of successes to prove it.”

“Maybe I was just faking it till I made it or whatever they say.”

“Come on, P, you know that’s not true.”

The waiter came, and they both ordered. Breakfast parfait for Galatea, with a maple latte, and pain au chocolat with a chocolate ganache latte for Pygmalion. He could almost taste it already; his mouth began salivating, and he closed his eyes momentarily to escape into a moment that wasn’t even there yet. Then his mind shifted back to work, and his brow furrowed. He looked around sheepishly and started to open his mouth.

Knowing him too well, Galatea cut him off. “Not letting you escape that easy, bud.”

“The evidence speaks for itself, Gal.”

“Does it?”

“What do you mean? I’m doing awful at everything there.”

“And, to use your words, what evidence do you have for that?”

“My boss, she says…” and he began to rattle off the last ten times his boss expressed disappointment in his performance, outputs, or striking down his ideas as ridiculous.

“I see. What. A. Jerk.”

“What?!”

“I asked you for evidence, but all you provided me with was wild opinions from your boss. Not only that, but it sounds like she belittles you in front of others, doesn’t completely hear you out, reframes your ideas as her own, and then bashes you. So, I say again: What. A. Jerk.”

Their orders came, but instead of revelling in his pain au chocolat, he thought distractedly to himself before Gal continued.

“Now. What other evidence might you have? How have your projects actually performed? Do you have any measurements? What have your colleagues said?”

“Well. Come to think of it, Rad said my numbers on the Han project were really good. And Teller and a few of the other PMs said really nice things about the Postmaster presentation. They said they used a few of the tactics I outlined for them—things they’d never thought of trying before—and it’s completely reframed their thinking in the positive. Teller’s team was struggling pretty hard before.”

“I’m not surprised to hear it.”

The two of them chatted more, as Pygmalion began to savour the remains of his pain au chocolat. Pygmalion could feel some kind of resolve forming. He wished he could be more like Galatea, always able to talk herself up. They made plans to meet up again in a few days.

-

“Hey!” Pygmalion exclaimed to Galatea. She was walking up the block, smiling at him. He had beaten her to the cafe this time. Galatea began to sit down across from him, and he continued, “Thank you.”

“For what? I haven’t volunteered for the bill yet!”

“No no. For last time. You got me thinking. I went back to work and started digging in on how my work has performed, as well as any other evidence for how I’ve been doing.”

“Oh, nice! And?”

“Well, lately my numbers have been going down…”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. It makes sense. It’s only recent, and it’s because I stopped putting in the same effort I had been before. I had started doubting myself and I guess it showed up in my work. But up until that point… everything I had been doing was checking out. I mean, as much as it should be.”

“There he is! Tell me more, buddy.”

“I think I really let my boss get to me. I don’t know why she has it out for me, but maybe I need to stop doing what I do specifically for her. I can’t escape her being my boss, sure, but I mean, if I know I’m doing a good job, and I enjoy the work, maybe I track the evidence,” he winked, “and not let her get to me.”

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that!”

“Well, I needed a kick in the butt. Thank you, again.”

“Any time, buddy.”

-

It was two weeks before Pygmalion could meet up with Galatea again. This time they arrived at the cafe at the same time. She hugged him since they were both standing, and then they took a seat.

“How’s it going, bud? Still kicking ass and taking names?” Galatea asked as she perused the menu.

“Ahh, I mean…”

“Oh, no, P, she’s not getting in your head again, is she?”

“Well, maybe. My work has been picking up great, and I can see everyone else responding positively to it, but I don’t know if I’m meant to be there.”

“Aw, man, I thought your outlook had changed?”

“On my own performance and how I let her get to me, yeah. But now that I’ve considered what I’m worth, what I can contribute…”

“You deserve a better boss,” she cut him off.

“Yeah! I want to have someone who believes in me and encourages me, builds me up, as you do, you know.”

“I do. Everyone deserves that, but especially you, buddy. So, you gonna start looking?”

“I think so, yeah! And I’m going to pay extra special attention to the leadership at the next place I go.”

“That seems really smart!”

They put in their orders: a breakfast parfait and a chocolate ganache latte for Pygmalion, and a fruit custard tart with a maple latte for Galatea. Just as the waiter turned to walk away, they saw Dee and Kay approaching.

“You guys like this place or something?” Kay joked. Everyone knew it was P and Gal’s favourite cafe.

“Haha! What happened to you?” Pygmalion asked, gesturing at Dee. He had a cast on his left arm and looked pretty upset about it.

“Not my fault, man. They changed the track or something,” Dee replied.

“Oh, riiiiight,” Kay badgered. “It couldn’t have possibly been that you tried a new move after completely ignoring the instructor, what everyone else said about the weather changing the track, or that you charged ahead saying you knew best, like always.”

They all smiled and laughed at his expense. They knew he’d never learn.

The Pygmalion effect is when others’ expectations about you change their behaviour toward you, which then alters your performance.​ You begin to believe what they say, or otherwise allow it to influence you.

The Galatea effect is when your internal self‑belief and self‑expectations drive your own performance directly., usually improvements.

I’ll leave you to guess what Dee and Kay could have stood for.

The first time I noticed the Pygmalion effect in action was with a guy we’ll call Ambrose. When I first met him, he was a hard worker, loved his job, put in extra time all on his own because he was engaged, and was a natural leader on the team. He’d teach others new methods, and did some really cool stuff.

For some reason, Ambrose’s manager didn’t care for his approach to work. He would criticize him constantly, often in front of others. I remember Ambrose suggesting some out-of-the-box thinking and problem-solving for a new initiative. Something no one had tried before on the team. The manager hated it, and despite having no evidence for why, he wouldn’t let it move forward. This affected Ambrose a lot, and the effects started to compound from that point forward. We’d hear that manager talking about how disappointed he was with Ambrose quite often.

Soon, Ambrose had stopped suggesting new and innovative solutions to problems, or even voicing his opinion in group meetings. He slunk into the background, his perfomance dropped drastically, and eventually he was let go. By the time he lost his job, he was a shadow of the person I had originally met, and many people now felt his dismissal was justified. They couldn’t see, or had never seen, the person I had known for a time.

I think about this a lot.

The difference between a bad manager and a great leader couldn’t be a larger chasm. But one thing any leader needs to do is build their people up, not strike them down. People need meaningful feedback, based in reality, with subjective opinion and emotion left out of it as much as possible. We owe it to our people to leave them better professional versions of themselves than we found them.