Half of winning is just showing up, repeatedly
Back in 1968, Robert B. Zajonc (University of Michigan) published a paper called "Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph Supplement. Since then there have been increasingly sophisticated studies and experiments but the underlying principle continues to re-enforce itself: repeated exposure to some random meaningless thing creates a positive impression of that thing.
He cites experiments in which test subjects were exposed to nonsense words, real words, and pictures or pictographs on a controlled basis, under various circumstances, and then later asked to rate their positive or negative impressions of the items. Regardless of whether they were exposed to something meaningful or not, there was a ridiculously high correlation between the words/pictures a particular subject was more frequently exposed to, and their eventual positive impression of the same things. I mean a lock-step correlation.
As he says in his paper, this contradicts the old idea that "familiarity breeds contempt." Four decades of studies and experiments in this area since Zajonc's original paper have shown this effect across every conceivable area of social and psychological investigation, even as far as afield as stock ticker symbols, company names, etc.
What does this mean for the workplace? At least two things:
First, an important way to create a positive impression on those one works with is to be present. I know, you've probably heard this before. "Be visible." But this is something slightly different, and perhaps even troubling. In addition to providing value over time, merely "showing up" and "being visible" improves the positive impression of your performance. In fact, the cynic might say that the studies undercut the idea that actual performance is what matters most, and that the frequency with which people see and hear from you is more important than what they see and hear. I wouldn't go that far with the idea, but the fact that the test data suggests that might be true should give you some idea of the power of meaningless, perfunctory, frequent presence.
Second, for managing and evaluating talent, there is a very important implication: There is a strong attitudinal effect of mere exposure (hey, isn't that the title of Zajonc's paper?). It is very easy to have far too positive an opinion of talent you see and hear from frequently, regardless of their direct value contribution. I'm not saying that visibility and communication are unimportant aspects of a person's performance. For leadership positions, these are attributes we select for. But I am cautioning against allowing unintended, undue weight to be given to these factors when assessing performance -- which the studies of this effect indicate are pervasive and unconscious. Here's the good news: Merely being aware of this common bias, and then making a strong, conscious effort to counter it, can go a long way toward mitigating any unintended impact of mere exposure to a person, or idea, on your judgment.
Source: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic472736.files/Zajonc.pdf
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Addendum with further implications I'll let you ponder, taken directly from the original paper, touching upon how this may work from a evolutionary/biological standpoint, which has been supported by testing on non-human subjects:
"The first encounter with the novel stimulus produces fear reaction. If no negative consequences are associated with this first encounter, the avoidance reaction upon the second encounter will naturally be weaker. If such encounters continue, and if no other events—negative in their consequences for the organism—accompany these encounters, then the organism's attitude toward the stimulus must improve. To be sure, the hypothesis does not deny or preclude the effects of reinforcement. The exposure of a stimulus coupled with reward will strengthen the animal's approach behavior; and the exposure of stimulus coupled with a noxious event will strengthen his avoidance reactions. But in the absence of reward or punishment, mere exposure will result in the enhancement of the organism's attitude toward the given stimulus object."