For those who haven't heard of it, "The Hawthorne Effect" is the name given to a phenomena where when a person or group being studied is aware they are being st

For those who haven't heard of it, "The Hawthorne Effect" is the name given to a phenomena where when a person or group being studied is aware they are being studied, their performance goes up but as much as 50% for 4-8 weeks, then regresses to its norm. This is true if they are just being observed, or if some novel new processes are introduced. If the new things are beneficial, the performance rises for 4-8 weeks as usual, but when it regresses it regresses to a higher performance reflecting the value of the new process. But when poor management introduce a counter-productive change, the Hawthorne Effect makes it look like a resounding success for 4-8 weeks. Then the effect fades, and performance drops below the original level. Sufficiently devious managers either move on to new projects or blame the workers for failing to maintain the new higher pace of performance. This explains a lot of the incentive for certain types of leaders to champion arbitrary changes, take a victory lap, and then disassociate themselves from accountability for the long-term success or failure of their initiative. (There is quite a bit of controversy over what the mechanisms for the Hawthorne Effect are, and whether change alone can introduce it for whether participants need to feel they are being observed, but the model as I see it fits my anecdotal experience where new processes are always accompanied by attempts to meet new performance goals, and everyone is extremely aware that the outcome is being measured.)