As I was eating breakfast this morning, I happened to be listening to Robert Schuller and thought I'd pass on to you his closing illustration. To the best of my recollection, it went something like this.
"I recently met a professor in physics who told me that he taught at a university where he was told he needed to flunk 50% of his students each year. And each year, that's exactly what happened—50% of his students failed. Then he started attending a church where the pastor kept preaching on being positive and believing the best about others. Finally, over time, he bought it all—hook, line and sinker. The next fall, he began his class with the following statement.
'Class, in previous years, 50% of the students have failed this course. But this year, I have a feeling, that this year is going to be different. I've checked your records and you are a special group of students. So this year, I'm confident that none of you are going to fail. And to that end, I'm going to help you succeed.'
At the end of that semester," Schuller said, "not one student failed. One got a C+, another one got a B-, but the rest of his students got B's and A's—and the professor concluded with this statement, 'And I didn't change my grading criteria one iota'"
Incredible! You know that the intellectual capacity of students didn't change (it was just a normal distribution of students). You know that content didn't really change. And you know that the grading didn't change. There was only one thing that changed. And that one thing was the attitude of the professor toward his students. Just by raising his expectations from failure to success, 50% of the students who would have failed in previous years didn't. That is simply incredible.
But it happens all of the time. The most famous experiment about this in education happened in the '60's in San Francisco and you can read about it in "Pygmalion in the Classroom." It that study, a normal distribution of students increased their IQ's by 15 to 30 points in one year simply because the teachers believed they were the best teachers and that they were given the best students (neither of which was true). Expectations drive so much of what happens around us.
So, as you look around you, what do you expect from those who are around you? Who do you expect the best from? Mediocrity from? And the worst from? And how much do you think your expectations play a role in how they perform? It could be your staff, your board members, your small group leaders, your ministry leaders, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your in-laws, your neighbors, your team members, or even yourself. For example, when I talk with pastors, they'll often say, "Well, no one can hit a home run every week. Sometimes you're going to hit a single and sometimes you're going to strike out. But you just keep getting up to the plate and every now and then you get to hit a home run." No! What a terrible expectation. I say, you go to the plate expecting to hit a home run every week. And if you expect that you'll hit a home run every week, you'll hit a whole lot more home runs (and an occasional triple or double, but no singles or strike outs).
So please, never underestimate the power of your expectations—on the people around you—or on yourself! In fact, why don't you raise them right now. You just might be surprised by the difference!
