In 2001, Science magazine published an intriguing experiment into the workings of the human mind. It posed the following two hypothetical scenarios:

  1. "A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one?"

  2. "As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this scenario, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge, onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death?"

Mathematically, the two situations are the same: sacrificing one person to save five. Yet most people answer yes to the first dilemma and no to the second. When we have presented these two situations to an audience, the options elicit groans as people struggle to rationalize their different answers. Essentially, the rational part of their brain argues against the emotional part of their brain.

It would be easier if workers could restrict their need for bonding to home, church, and neighborhood, but they can't turn off the reflex that easily.

"When the victims are just statistics somewhere down the track, as in the first situation, the areas of the brain associated with social intelligence and emotion stay quiet, and we seem to look at the problem rationally," wrote author Richard Conniff in his book The Ape in the Corner Office. "But our emotions kick in when the connection is personal."

Employees understand the difference and want to work for a manager who cares and in a workgroup where they have a personal connection. Someone who believes she is just a number, just another "full-time equivalent" or "FTE," will not go out of her way to sacrifice for the company.

One of the crucial questions for a team leader trying to get the most from his people is whether they form a cohesive, cooperative, self-sacrificing, motivated crew -- in short, a tribe. Such attitudes are the essence of the Fifth Element of Great Managing. It is measured by an employee's reaction to the statement "My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person." All organizations inevitably depend on their employees' psychological commitment to their immediate manager and colleagues.

Personal connections

The fact that being a great manager requires a special ability to influence emotions makes many supervisors uncomfortable. American industrialist Henry Ford is reputed to have once remarked, "Why is it that I always get the whole person when what I really want is a pair of hands?"

It would be easier if workers could restrict their need for bonding to home, church, and neighborhood, but they can't turn off the reflex that easily. Those who see the "cares about me" statement as more worthy of a discussion on The Oprah Winfrey Show than in the vernacular of a results-driven manager need a deeper understanding of human motivation.

The trolley experiment is just one of many showing that people treat each other differently when they form a personal connection. Experiments conducted after the Holocaust found that subjects told to administer what they thought was a painful shock to a stranger were more willing to do so if a barrier separated them from the other person. And something as simple as knowing the name of the person with whom one is playing a strategic game of dividing a pie makes the players more generous.

A mere "pair of hands" will be reassigned, neglected, laid off, or considered interchangeable much more easily than will a "whole person." Perhaps the HR executive who complained layoffs weren't happening fast enough -- "I want to stand at the door and count crying faces go by," he said -- would have been more humane if he knew those workers personally. Employees recognize the difference and give more effort in a group when they feel they are more than just a number.

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Article from The Gallup Management Journal