One of the most peculiar effects in teams is social loafing. I don't know if you're going to be surprised by this, but our levels of individual effort consistently drop when we work in group settings. We just don't work as hard individually in teams. This is what's known as social loafing, colloquially it's referred to as free riding. Now this effect was first discovered as early as 1913 by Max Ringelmann, who's a German agriculture engineer. He designed a series of rope pulling exercises, and he found that when working alone, an average individual exerted about 63 kilos of force. In groups of three, the level of individual effort dropped to about 53 kilos of force. And in groups of eight, the level of individual effort dropped even further, all the way down to 31kg of force. Now, subsequently, these results were replicated in settings where there are absolutely no coordination issues, such as clapping and cheering. Believe it or not, the sound pressure per person we generate when we clap or cheer, decreases significantly with the size of the group. We find similar effects when teens work on complex reasoning tasks and intellectual puzzles. So why do we see this effect? You know, the major reason is diffusion of responsibility, our hiding in the crowd. We expect somebody else to pick up the slack. So what can we do about this effect? Well, the first insight comes directly from studies, which is we create greater possibilities for social loafing in larger teams. So manage the size of the group and use smaller teams. You want to address social loafing early, before these dysfunctional norms set in which are then very difficult to reverse. Assign meaningful tasks. Recall from our discussion in course one on motivating and inspiring individuals, that one of the most powerful ways to infuse a particular task with meaning, is to show your team mates how what they do makes a difference in the lives of others. And recall a particular set of experiments by Adam Grant, that we discussed, where Adam Grant studied university fundraisers, these offices that are responsible for raising funds for scholarships. And it turned out that a lot of them didn't view their jobs as being particularly meaningful. And so what Adam Grant did, is that he allowed some of these fundraisers an opportunity to meet the students who were the recipients of the scholarships for which they raised the funds. So imagine the student walks in and says, look, the only reason I can afford to go to college is because of the work that you've done. The performance effects were stunning. Those fundraisers who got an opportunity to meet a student spent 142% more time on the phone and raised 171% more money. But the especially stunning effects, especially powerful effects, were on the earlier free riders, who nearly quadrupled funds raised. Assign unique roles and teams. It turns out that we're less likely to free ride if we perceive that our outputs are going to be non-redundant with respect to our outputs team mates, and assigning unique roles in teams creates that expectation on our part. Make individual contributions identifiable. There's research showing that in brainstorming tasks, people generate up to 26% more ideas if their names are attached to the ideas they submit. Use hybrid team and individual reward structures. If I'm just assigning a team level reward, a team level bonus for team level outcome and then I equally distribute that bonus among the teammates, I create the most fertile ground for social loafing. If on the other hand, I give out only individual level rewards, for individual performance, I create no incentives for team collaboration and cooperation. So use hybrid blended reward structures and team and individual rewards. And finally, invest in relationships in your teams. Because if you do invest in relationships, I do what I do not because I have to or because of the external incentives, but because I like and respect my teammates and have a sense of social obligation to them. So joint educational activities, off sites, retreats, social activities, all these initiatives help build and maintain relationships among your teammates.
