There’s an old saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This is big in business, and even bigger in life. There was an Australian group that conducted a survey a long time ago, where they took 772 suicide patients who were admitted to the hospital, and later released. They split those released patients into two groups. In one group, over two years, they sent postcards just checking up to see how they were doing, how they were feeling, and if they needed anything, with an invitation to reach out. The other group, nothing. Over the next two years, the group that was sent postcards was readmitted half the time that the other group was. So, just by checking up on these people and asking, “How are you doing?”, that group felt better about themselves and proceeded more harmoniously.
There was another study back in 1965, where Harvard ran a one-year study predicting first and second-grade elementary students of which ones would be the overachievers. They took the statistics and shared the names of the students with the teachers. The following year what they found were the students’ names that were given to the teachers that they predicted based on this study to be the overachievers, the first-graders IQ results increased by 27 points versus 12 of the ones that were not in the study. The second-graders increased 17 IQ points versus 7 of the students that were not in the study. The teachers mentioned that the students who were predicted to be overachievers were more engaged and excited about learning. Because of this, the teachers liked working with them so much more. They spent a little extra attention with them. And because of that, they achieved better results. Everybody was happy until it was discovered and delivered that this whole study was a hoax. Harvard picked children at random, gave the names to the teachers, and the teachers just happened to treat them differently leading to higher results.
In my book, Chapter 8 Human Capital Value the caption quote is “Treat your team like they make a difference and they will.” What that Harvard study revealed was when you give people advance notice of people that they feel will be overachievers, those overachievers, will just happen to be treated differently because we expect them to get better results. And because we treat them differently and accordingly, they achieve those superior results. Interesting study. Something to think about.
So, I leave it to you, the business owner, the manager, the CEO, and the parent, to see how this works with you and those around you. Remember, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And most importantly, treat your team like they make a difference, and they will.
COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud Action Coach Franchise partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice. Businesscoachmichaeldill.com
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