TITLE: Reaping What You Sow
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 03, 2005  1:57 PM
DESC: People become what you treat them to be.
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BODY:
I ran into this quote over at
<A HREF="http://enthusiasm.cozy.org/archives/2005/05/it-comes-around/">
   Ben Hyde's blog</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Customers have a tendency to become like
the kind of customers you treat them.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ben related the quote as a commentary on trust in commerce.
(Trust and social relationships are ongoing themes of his
blog.)  He notes that he has observed this truth in many
situations.  I have, too.  Indeed, I think this truth
applies in almost all human relationships.

(Like all generalizations, this one isn't foolproof, so
feel free to prefix each of the following claims with
"by and large" or your favorite waffle words.)

<EM>Parents and Children</EM>

Children grow into the people you expect them to be.
The best sort of discipline for most children is to
create an environment in which children know what your
expectations are, and then live consistently in that
way.  Nagging youngsters doesn't work; they come to
expect you to nag before they know you care about
something.  Yelling and screaming don't work, either;
they come to think that you don't believe they can
behave without being verbally assaulted.  If you simply
set a standard and then live as if you expect them to
meet the standard, they will.  When they don't, don't
resort to needy negative reinforcement.  Usually they
know they've fallen short and strive to do better the
next time.

<EM>Teachers and Students</EM>

Students become what their teachers expect of them,
too.  If you act as if they are not trustworthy, say,
by creating elaborate rules for late work, cheating,
and grading, they will soon look for ways to game the
system.  If you act as if they don't respect class
time, say, by wasting it yourself through lack of
preparation or rambling digression, they will soon
come not to value their time in class.

If you set a high standard and expect them to learn
and achieve, they usually will.  If you
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-05.html#e2005-05-23T13_50_59.htm">
   trust them with masterpieces</A>,
they will come to value masterpieces.

<EM>Developers and Users</EM>

The quote applies to all sorts of developer/user
relationships.  If software developers don't trust
their clients, then their clients will start to
look out for themselves at the developer's expense.
If an API designer acts as if programmers are not
smart or reasonable enough to use the API wisely,
and so creates elaborate rituals to be followed to
ensure that programmers are doing the right thing,
then programmers will look for ways to game the
API.  The result is hacks that confirm the API
designer's expectations.

Agile methods place a high premium on developing a
mutually beneficial relationship between the client
and the programmer.  The result is that programmers
and clients feel free to be what they should be to
one another: partners in creating something valuable.

<EM>Managers and Team Members</EM>

This truth is a good thing to keep in mind for someone
embarking on an administrative or managerial position.
When "bosses" treat their "employees" as adversaries
in a competition, the employees soon become adversaries.
They do so almost out of necessity, given the power
imbalance that exists between the parties.  But if
a manager approaches the rest of the team with
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-05.html#e2005-05-20T10_59_39.htm">
   openness, transparency, and respect</A>,
I think that most members of the team will also
respond in kind.

<EM>Husbands and Wives</EM>

All of the relationships considered above are
hierarchical or otherwise imbalanced.  What about
peer relationships?  I think the assertion still
holds.  In my many years of marriage, I've noticed
that my wife and I often come to behave in the way
we think our spouse expects.  When one of us acts
as if the other is untrustworthy, the other comes
to protect his or her own interest.  When one of us
acts as if the other is incapable of contributing
to a particular part of our lives together, the
other stops caring to contribute.  But when we act
as if we are both intelligent, trustworthy, caring,
and respectful, we receive that back from each other.

----

Given its wide range of applicability, I think that
the truism needs to be restated more generally.
Perhaps:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
People tend to become like the kind of people
you treat them to be.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or maybe we can restate it as a new sort of Golden
Rule:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Treat people like the kind of people you want --
or expect -- them to be.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or perhaps "Do unto others as you expect them to be."
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