Unit 4 Pygmalion【美文阅读】 Pygmalion EffectA team can do as well as you and the team think they can.This idea is known as “the selffulfilling prophecy( 预 言 )” ． When you believe the team can perform well，in some strange and magical way they can.And similarly，when you believe they can't perform well，they can't. The selffulfilling prophecy is also known as the Pygmalion Effect.This comes from a story by Ovid about Pygmalion，who created an ivory statue of his ideal woman.And he immediately fell in love with it.He begged the goddess to breathe life into the statue and make her his own.She granted Pygmalion his wish，the statue came to life and the couple married and lived happily ever after. The story was also the basis of George Bernard Shaw's play “Pygmalion” ． In Shaw's play ， Professor Henry Higgins claims he can turn a Cockney flower girl ， Eliza Doolittle ， into a duchess.But ， as Eliza herself points out to Higgins' friend Pickering，it isn't what she learns or does that determines whether she will become a duchess，but how she's treated. “You see，really and truly，apart form the things anyone can pick up，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.” The implication( 运 用 ) of the Pygmalion Effect for leaders and managers is massive(巨大的)．It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you.The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect，which...
