management blog

All managers will have come across employees who believe their achievements deserve more credit than they merit. They are also likely to have worked with someone who thinks their every mistake is logged by superiors with dreadful efficiency.

The science of psychology is well aware of these traits. In fact, both can be linked to a phenomenon known as “the spotlight effect” explains Nick Epley, a professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Prof Epley says the tendencies to claim too much credit or to fear that the world notices all our imperfections, however small, are both reflections of a basic psychological failing.

Because we are always conscious of our own thoughts, we wrongly think that others are paying us as much attention as we are ourselves. As a consequence, we expect too much praise in the workplace – or too much blame.

This phenomenon has been illustrated by an experiment in which people were told to don Barry Manilow T-shirts. Afterwards, they massively overestimated the extent to which others noticed their questionable fashion statement.

The spotlight effect is just one of the psychological insights that Prof Epley applies to management in three video lectures for FT Business School.

In ‘Making unbiased decisions’, he shows how managers unconsciously distort or omit vital information when choosing what to do. In ‘Mind reading at work’, he explains why it is so difficult to intuit what bosses, colleagues and underlings are thinking. Finally, in ‘Motivating staff’, he says cash is overrated as a way of firing up employees.

Previous FT Business School video lectures include Iese’s Pankaj Ghemawat on the limits of globalisation and their impact on corporate strategy, as well as Insead’s Herminia Ibarra on moving up to a leadership role – or moving out to a new career.