The results of Stanley Milgram’s experiment on authority can help teach managers how people respond to authority and how to become better managers as a result.
In Stanley Milgram’s experiment, conducted in 1974, he investigated the degree to which individuals would respond to authority, even if they were asked to do something that would harm another person. In the experiment, the subjects, called “volunteer teachers,” were told that a student was supposed to remember pairs of words and that they were to use a machine to give him a shock of increasing levels of intensity, which was supposed to help the student. to better remember the pairs of words. While the volunteer teachers used the machine, a researcher sat next to the volunteer. Although the student was not actually being harmed, the student acted as if he was experiencing increasing pain as the intensity of the shocks increased, and the teacher was led to believe that these shocks could even threaten the student’s life.
The results of the experiment were shocking because such a high percentage of the subjects continued to deliver the shocks, even when it appeared that a shock could be lethal. Although some volunteers initially resisted, they complied at the insistence of the investigator supervising them. Therefore, the subjects accepted what the researcher told them to do, even though they believed that what they were doing was wrong and some wanted to stop the experiment. Furthermore, the few subjects who dropped out of the experiment initially cooperated as the electric shocks and pain continued before they finally resisted.
There are many parallels to this experiment in the real world, such as the general acceptance of Hitler’s increasing attacks on Jews and other targeted people by the German people. Another example is that the soldiers of the regime forces in Libya have been willing to shoot innocent civilians, although a growing number of soldiers have deserted as the regime has weakened. In corporations, many employees have followed internal corruption rather than leaving or becoming whistleblowers, until a government crackdown has toppled company bosses and then they have become witnesses, as in the Eliot Spitzer crackdown in Wall Street, when he was the Attorney General of New York.
What this experiment, as well as the real-world parallels, teach us is that people will generally follow orders that come from someone who is perceived to be in a position of authority, even if those orders are detrimental to others. Although people who follow orders may feel that orders are unwarranted or harmful, they will commonly follow them, as long as they feel that the person giving the order continues to be in a position of authority over them. Therefore, they are willing to go against their own moral compass in response to the demands of authority.
While this willingness to follow such instructions may seem shocking to those who have a strong sense of right and wrong based on the morality they have learned from their parents, teachers, the church, and other authority figures growing up, Could be it. seen as a survival mechanism. That’s because those who conform and follow the rules may be more successful in surviving and thriving in what is often unfair survival of the fittest kind of world. They can move on to get along, and this often works as a survival strategy in society, commonly rewarding conformity.
As a manager, the results of this experiment mean that employees will commonly accept orders, even when they disagree with them or feel that the instructions may have negative consequences, because they are afraid to say something or question authority. Thus, employees may carry out policies and procedures that are counterproductive, interfere with operations, or are detrimental to the organization, because they are doing what their manager has told them to do, as they feel that it is safer for them to do so.
Given the circumstances, knowing this experiment, managers should ensure that employees ask questions about any order that they feel uncomfortable with, as it could have negative consequences or go against their feelings about what is right and what is wrong. . To this end, managers must implement certain procedures so that they feel safe expressing their concerns, such as being able to come to me privately to discuss a concern or being able to message the manager anonymously to share a concern if they feel more comfortable sharing it that way. Another alternative would be to have an opportunity during a staff meeting for employees to raise concerns, confident that there will be no negative consequences for doing so. Managers can even offer a reward as an incentive for employees to raise concerns that result in positive changes for an improved workplace.
