BOOK

Pygmalion in Management by J. Sterling Livingston
Harvard Business Review
Reprint 88509
Harvard Business Review Subscription Service P.O. Box 52623 Boulder, CO 80322-2623
Telephone: U.S. and Canada [phone] Outside U.S. 44-85-846-8888 Fax: [phone]
American Express, MasterCard, VISA accepted. Billing available.
Harvard Business Review Operations Department Soldiers Field Boston, MA 02163
Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Inquire about HBR 's custom service for quantity orders.
Imprint your company 's logo on reprint covers, select articles for custom collections or books. Color available.
Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
For permission to quote or reprint on a one-time basis: Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
For permission to re-publish please write or call:
Permissions Editor
Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation Soldiers Field Boston, MA 02163
[phone]
HBR CLASSIC
Pygmalion in Management by J. Sterling Livingston

A manager 's expectations are the key to a subordinate 's performance and development.

In George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle explains:
"You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she be­haves but how she 's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you because you always treat me as a lady and always will."
Pygmalion was a sculptor in Greek mythology who carved a statue of a beautiful woman that subsequently was brought to life. The notion that one person can transform another is the basis for this "classic" article. At the time he wrote it for the fuly-August 1969 issue, J. Sterling Livingston was a professor of business admin­istration at the Harvard Business School. He had found­ed the Sterling

References: 1. The Rosenthal and Headstart studies are cited in Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, Pygmalion in the Classroom (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1968), p. 11. 2. See John W. Atkinson, "Motivational Determinants of Risk-Taking Be­havior/ ' Psychological Review, vol. 64, no. 6, 1957, p. 365. 6. David E. Berlew and Douglas T. Hall, "Some Determinants of Early Managerial Success," Alfred P. Sloan School of Management Organization Research Program #81-64 (Cambridge: MIT, 1964), p. 13. 8. Alfred A. Oberlander, "The Collective Conscience in Recruiting," ad­dress to Life Insurance Agency Management Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, 1963, p. 5.