American Idol is an interesting little program. And an interesting study in performance evaluation.Each week, as contestants perform their hearts out in hopes of earning viewer votes, four judges wait to
rip apart provide input on the contestants’ efforts. It’s a rather humbling experience for many.
But the real study for me as a performance professional is what I’ve dubbed the Cowell Corollary.
The Cowell Corollary
The Cowell Corollary is defined like this:
The value and the importance of the negative review provided by Simon Cowell increases relative to the few number of previous positive reviews offered by Cowell and the total number of average reviews by the other judges.
What this means is that if a performer receives a great number of positive reviews from the other judges prior to a negative review by Cowell – the negative review seems to have more value and is seen as more important than the previous positive reviews. And, Cowell’s own positive reviews carry more weight due to how few of them there are relative to the other judges’ reviews.
The Corollary In Action. How it looks…
Performer does song, finishes and waits for reviews. Starting with Randy and working their way through Ellen, Kara and then Simon, we can usually see something like this…
Randy: “ Yo, yo, yo…… yo - y’know – it was okay. Not your best performance but I’m feeling you t’night. It wasn’t great – but it was just a’right k’now. Keep it up dog – I know you got it in you.
Ellen: “I do like the shoes. I almost bought them once, but then I saw them on someone else. I love you and think you should be the winner but tonight it was like what Randy said… just okay. Not your best but then again – I’m a comedienne, so what do I know.”
Kara: “Wow. Just wow. You know I like you right? I think you connected with the audience on that one – I think you made it your own and that is what separates the winners from the non-winners. I think you need to work on your range a bit – that song stretched you a bit so I’d try something different. Not the best song choice but okay.”
Now… before we get to Simon Cowell’s review there is a noticeable pause in the action.
The audience goes quiet. You can see there is a physical change in everyone in the theater. They lean forward a bit more to listen more intently. They shush those sitting around them. They wait for the Cowell to speak. And just before he opens his mouth… the boo’s start. They don’t even know what he’s going to say but they can’t wait to disagree. The chances he will come up with something that is A. Funny, B. Mean C. Insightful and D. All of the above; is better than 50/50 (closer to 90/10.)
Back to the action…
Simon Cowell: “Well, I did like the ending. Not the notes you hit at the end – just the fact that it ended. That was good. Probably the best from you tonight was when you stopped. Look, I’m not trying to be mean but, don’t think you picked the right song, Ellen’s right, the shoes are ridiculous and what’s with the white v-neck t-shirt – that’s my look and I’ve trademarked it. So not only did you sing like my English bulldog, you’re going to get a call from my lawyer. Not a good night for you I’m afraid.”
The crowd goes crazy.
Too Much and Too Soft
Here’s the thing I take from that exchange (and all of them after it) – the fact that Simon provides the most negative and the least positive reinforcement than the other judges – and does it in a VERY direct way decreases the value of the other judges positive responses and increases the value of his positive reviews. He has created a “scarcity” of praise – yet increased the value of his praise to the point that the other judges may be irrelevant.
What’s up with that?
Not Your Normal Best Practice
Most recognition professionals and best practices tell you to recognize often, specifically and sincerely. But it would seem from the Idol vignettes we get every week this would devalue the recognition. It seems to me that the contestants value the limited praise from Simon BECAUSE of the very negative input he provides more often.
Do you agree – stingy good reviews sprinkled on a ton of negative mean more than a plethora of good reviews?If there is no negative, is there a positive or does it all end up being so average as to not matter? What say you?
i haven’t watched american idol for several seasons, but i imagine it’s largely the same as before, if not more so. simon is like that teacher you had that was tough as nails and you knew it. praise from her meant more because you knew she didn’t give it away carelessly. and when she did praise or criticize, it was always delivered with specifics. putting aside the ridiculousness that is reality tv, this is what i think drives simon’s value. he’s that mean teacher who you know is right.
thanks fran. but what is bugging me is that best practices in recognition say to do more often (although specific) – i just wonder if scarcity of praise is good too…. how do you balance or reconcile the best practice to what we can see each week on idol (and we all know idol is a microcosm of society no?)
thanks for weighing in! (lower case in your honor btw.)
i’m starting a lowercase revolution. it’s so quiet, nobody feels it coming.
what you’re saying is along the lines of what we’ve learned with praising kids, right? praise needs to value effort, not just the pretty picture. and maintain internal motivation. i can’t see how scarcity of praise is good, unless we’re talking about not praising for every little thing. at that point, praise is so frequent and so bland that it registers no more than the “how are you?” we ask people without even waiting for an answer.
I think from a spectator point of view, a plethora of negatives with a little positive makes those positive sprinkles stand out. However, how well would you enjoy working for someone day to day like Simon Cowell? In a normal work environment, I don’t think the Cowell recognition system would be very effective long term.
Thanks Mr. Hinda
You bring in a very important point I didn’t address. The Cowell situation is short term – not something any of the contestants have to deal with over the long haul. Thanks for bringing that up.
I do think if you have a very big goal (ie: super-stardom) you probably would welcome the criticisms in the short run. But over time it would get tough to put up with.
Thanks again!
So Paul, my hypothesis here is that the Simon Cowell method may be more effective at directing people’s behaviors or making them give a shit about what’s being said, but not at actually improving performance. Does anyone actually sing better because Simon tears them a new one? Usually not. They just try to avoid things that would bring his wrath.
That often means not stretching themselves into, as Simon puts it, “song choices that don’t work for them,” out of fear of failure.
You also pointed out that the other folks comments become less important. I think that doesn’t show the effectiveness of Simon. It shows the negative effects a toxic person has on a culture.
Everyone else’s positivity doesn’t matter, because Simon’s negative brings down the whole team.
Chris – super super points – especially about the issue of “fear”. You’re probably right – they adjust behavior to “avoid” a bad review but do nothing to get a good one. Smart – very smart. Appreciate the comments.
I absolutely agree with @Hinda_incentive and @Chris – “Simon” is not good for the long term and will bring down the whole team!
We’ve had these performance/praise discussions here before – don’t celebrate mediocrity by awarding or praising for something that is expected. Point out and recognize the things that are truly worth recognition.
Regarding negative feedback? I don’t see why people need to provide negative feedback to the average person who is doing their job, doing it well the majority of the time, and trying. What’s wrong with simple constructive criticism? You are not making anything better for anyone by drawing a likeness between a person and your english bulldog. “Simons” are good for entertainment, but I don’t believe they have a place in the business world. For every “Business Simon” there are probably 30 other employees with ulcers.
It seems that Randy, Ellen and Kara look for the good in every performance no matter how bad and feed that first which is what is taught by HR. But everyone knows this is just the line and the bad will follow (i.e. Simon). Like an annual performance review. Good for structure, not good for improving performance or changing behavior.
What is also “work” like is that there is conflicting advice from week-to-week…make it your own…don’t mess with a good song, which happens in the workplace. No one really knows what is the “right” thing to do.
Honesty with the intent to be helpful provides real value no matter how frequently delivered. Delivery with crassness or cruely has no place in the workplace.
A point I would like to make is that Randy’s, Ellen’s and Kara’s view on performance evaluation (an indeed it is an actual performance) is also one of the things that is wrong with the way many managers deal with PE. They are afraid to offend, so they soft sell the criticism and in many cases so much so that the opportunity to learn is lost. Simon on the other hand is not afraid of that and the few times I watch Idol I agree with his honesty, albeit sometimes it is brutal. And his critique does work, he often comes closer to picking the winners than do the others. But he also praises. To Chris’s point of the singers just working to avoid critism.. I am not so sure. I interpret that as getting them to work to their strengths and if not selecting a crappy song makes them sound better then he has accomplished his goal.
I agree – the insults don’t help and it is there for entertainment. I don’t think I was hitting on the crassness angle as much as the honesty and scarcity of his praise.
When done incorrectly frequent recognition is no better than none at all.
Interesting, Paul. My ears perked up when you referenced the phrase “scarcity of praise.” Last summer I read a wonderful little book from Steve Kerr, former CLO at GE. In “Reward Systems: Does Yours Measure up” Kerr writes about the “irony of scarcity” — precisely because praise and recognition are seen as unlimited in their availability, we are more likely to under use them in our managerial approach. The irony lies in the fact that we deem to be valuable only that which is scarce. But in the case of recognition, the reverse is true — the more you receive it, the more you crave it, not the reverse.
I wrote a review/summary of the book on my own blog here, referencing “irony of scarcity” in it: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/07/measuring-reward-systems-driving-change.html
I knew you’d weigh in!
I know that we crave recognition and the more we get the more we want. But I still have to ask – is there a point where it becomes too often, too much? I think you could make the argument for crack too… the more we get the more we crave it and the less impact it will have.
An interesting mind exercise.
You have to trust the person giving feedback. This means you have to trust them to give negative feedback when it’s earned and positive when it’s earned.
If Simon only gave negative feedback, or his positive feedback seemed out of touch (ie he gave false positive) then he would be just as pointless as everyone else.
These are judges, not drinking buddies, and it’s a competition. His exact style would be difficult to handle in a manager-employee relationship but I think the principles are valid.
It’s trust. Trust that what he says reflects reality. This is why subordinates who are either always positive or always negative aren’t valued much either.
Interesting post Paul.
I think it’s because I am currently reading Switch http://heathbrothers.com/switch/ – but too much negative just focusses on the problem. The positive on the other hand reinforces good behavior and I think will do more to get the desired behavior than negative feedback.
With that said… I suppose it would be possible to have too much positive feedback – but I don’t think I have EVER seen a manager do that. I’m betting it’s far more likely that managers give little to no feedback – and when they do it’s rare and negative. How about the “Reverse Cowell Corollary” – lots of positive feedback makes the negative feedback more powerful. If it’s almost all negative I’d say most would just be defensive and not really consider it.
Bohdan – great comment. Trust is a big issue here. One thing all the judges have – mostly Simon and Randy – is they have a vested interest in the best performer winning since they get a piece of the action when they hit it big. The feedback they are giving helps them in the long-run. No reason to give false positives or false negatives.
Very interesting point. Thanks.
Sean – Switch is a very good book. I highly recommend it. Hmmm…. reverse Cowell Corollary – I’ll have to put on my thinking cap!
But would the negative get lost in the positive?
Paul,
I don’t think so if it was done right. That means the positive feedback was non-trivial as well as immediate and specific. As long as the manager isn’t “blowing smoke” as it were, I’m thinking folks would pay attention even more as they would actually value the feedback from that manager.
It’s tough to judge since it would be so rare to see a manager give too much feedback!
Maybe the Powell corollary is that Simon’s feedback is honest. He delivers it nastily (for entertainment value, perhaps), but one gets the sense that he’s not pulling punches. That said, there is a distinct difference between praise and recognition or appreciation. Every effort is worthy of recognition, but not every effort warrants praise. If Simon’s feedback, insulting though it may be, carries more weight, it’s because he is careful to give praise only where praise is due.
We often fall into the trap of confusing appreciation and recognition with praise. When we keep them straight – and in the proper, honest proportions – they’re a powerful motivating force. Simon could offer a little more recognition and appreciation, “It’s obvious you put a lot of effort into this performance…” without changing his praise-only-when-earned approach one bit. It might not make for great television, but for long term performance, it would make sense.
Hmmm…I can’t tell a C from a P apparently, but I’ll take that as a minor manifestation of my genius (skewed though that perception may be). In my previous post, I really am talking about Cowell, not Powell.
I’m not sure I agree that Simon delivers it “nastily”. You have to also consider context. Those individuals vying for a spot in the entertainment limelight have got to get used to the harsh reality of criticism. Geez, the rags alone can shatter a person. If they can’t take the criticism in the manner in which it’s given this early in the game, they won’t survive for the long haul. Most individuals would prefer honest feedback. I’m also betting that in a different environment, Simon might provide feedback in a much different way. One more observation – I can’t recall Simon being “wrong”. There’s a reason he’s wealthy and a reason he’s made others that way.
Linda – what a great comment – a difference between praise and recognition. I do think that is a very key element and understanding. Praise is very different than recognition – recognition infers validation – that someone noticed and appreciated the effort. Praise on the other hand has “judgement” attached to it (IMHO.)
Thanks for that – I’m sure it will stay with me a while.
I think it’s a matter of not creating a formula for praise. When work is good and deserves good praise, praise it. When it’s bad and deserves negative feedback, give that negative feedback in a constructive way. The set up in Idol and in most workplaces is this artificial and forced feedback dynamic. The judges can’t say “no comment,” they have to give feedback. Work is like that too, you have to get feedback, but a “thanks” should be all that’s required for most work. Only the excellent or the dreadful should be met with a more direct critique, positive or negative, and in the context of creating a better and more productive environment for everyone.
For instance, if I complete a project without feedback and I’m met with criticism, e.g. a judgment, that’s not helpful to me, nor is it helpful to the person who needs my work. Feedback is a necessity in day to day life, whereas praise or critique has its place but shouldn’t (and really can’t) be forced.
Hi,just found your posting while i google something and wonder what hosting do you use for the blog,the rate is much more faster than my website, i really want it.will returning to look it over,i enjoy it!