# Smart Rats or Not Participants complete a brief collaborative problem-solving task, learn about Robert Rosenthal's research on expectation bias, and identify team habits that counteract unexamined assumptions. **Time:** 15 minutes. UWT suggested 15-minute standard workshop format. Source notes an intake intervention under 5 minutes. **People:** 4 to 24. Pairs or small groups of 3 to 4 participants. ## Choose this exercise **Purpose:** Examine how assumptions about competence influence collaboration, team expectations, and participation. **Use it when:** Use during leadership or teaming workshops when examining unconscious bias, expectations, and feedback loops. **Skip it when:** Skip when the group has low psychological safety, fragile trust, or when running high-stakes evaluative sessions. ## Materials and tools - One printed Team Problem Card per group of 3 to 4 (or per pair) - One pen per in-person group - One sheet of scratch paper per in-person group - Timer - Flip chart or digital whiteboard for debrief notes ## Before participants arrive 1. Print or prepare digital copies of the Team Problem Card. 2. Set up a flip chart or shared whiteboard with the heading Countering Expectation Bias. ## Say this to open We will spend five minutes on a quick problem-solving challenge in small groups. As you work, pay attention to how ideas get offered, who takes the lead, and what assumptions we make about each person's skills. ## How to run it ### 1. Set up the challenge (2 minutes) Read the opening script. Form participants into pairs or small groups of 3 to 4. Distribute one Team Problem Card, one sheet of scratch paper, and one pen to each group, or display the prompt on screen. Explain that groups have 5 minutes to agree on 3 operational adjustments. ### 2. Run the work session (5 minutes) Groups work on the problem card. Circulate neutrally without offering hints, preferential feedback, or extra encouragement to any single group. Provide a 1-minute warning before calling time. ### 3. Present the research framing (3 minutes) Call time. Introduce Robert Rosenthal's experiments: teachers told random students were intellectual spurters produced higher gains, and lab researchers told ordinary rats were bright produced faster maze times. Explain the Pygmalion effect: expectations alter how leaders and peers interact with others, creating self-fulfilling outcomes. ### 4. Facilitate debrief and list habits (5 minutes) Pose the debrief questions. Collect 3 to 4 verbal comments from the room. Then ask participants for concrete habits that counteract expectation bias on teams. Record 3 actionable habits on the flip chart or shared screen. ## Debrief questions - When you enter a project assumed to be an expert versus a beginner, how does that expectation change your contributions? - What subtle signals communicate that a team member is viewed as high performing or low performing? - What concrete habit ensures good ideas get heard even when the speaker is not viewed as the primary authority? **Finished output:** A documented list of practical team habits that counteract unexamined expectation bias. ## Remote Place participants into video breakout rooms of 3 to 4. Provide the Team Problem Card text in a shared document or virtual whiteboard where each group types their 3 operational adjustments. Provide time alerts via broadcast chat. Reassemble in the main room for the research framing, conduct plenary debrief, and capture agreed habits on the shared digital whiteboard. ## Hybrid In-person participants form table groups of 3 to 4 using printed cards, scratch paper, and pens. Remote attendees join dedicated virtual breakout rooms of 3 to 4, accessing the card in a shared document and typing their adjustments directly into it. During plenary debrief, alternate between in-person speakers and remote chat or voice contributions. The facilitator records all shared habits onto a single shared digital document projected in the room and visible on the meeting screen. ## Access and participation choices - Participants may choose whether to speak, write notes, or observe during the breakout challenge. - Anyone may pass on contributing to the whole-group debrief without explanation. ## If the session gets stuck **Participants become defensive about how they treat colleagues.** Refocus the discussion on systemic team defaults and environmental cues rather than personal blame. **Groups get stuck arguing over the logistics scenario instead of discussing expectation dynamics.** End the scenario work strictly at five minutes and clarify that the scenario was a neutral backdrop for observing group dynamics. ## Terms used here - Pygmalion effect: A psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance, while lower expectations depress it. ## Participant material: Team Problem Card Challenge: A distribution warehouse must reduce package routing errors by 40% in 30 days without purchasing new software or changing headcount. Identify 3 concrete operational adjustments the team can implement immediately. ## Sources and adaptation Observed in Relationship Makers Handbook, pages 364-365, citing Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's research on expectation bias. The source record describes an intake trick: dividing participants covertly, marking a clipboard, and secretly telling half the room they were proven top performers to induce the Pygmalion effect. UWT replaced covert deception with a transparent, ethical simulation: running a brief neutral problem-solving task, presenting Rosenthal's historical findings, and facilitating an open debrief that produces actionable teaming habits. Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/smart-rats-or-not/