Motivating teams - The basics of committed teams (Part 1)

Somewhere in the world, ambitious and motivated teams are working to change the world by linking animal brains to computer chips (they do for real). Other teams, probably most, are sitting in lazy meetings at the same time, waiting for time to pass.

If you feel that your team is more in the second category, we have a few tips on how to steer team dynamics in the right direction and motivate teams. We build on two classic phenomena: Social Loafing and Risky Shift (also called “diffusion of responsibility”).

(1) Social Loafing

Why 8 tug-of-war are not 8 times as strong as a single one

Assuming a horse has 1 HP (fun fact: a horse can actually achieve a peak performance of even 20 HP), then a carriage with 2 horses should have 2 HP. Examined exactly this fact Ringelmann At the end of the 19th century and discovered that this is not the case: the performance of several horses, oxen and also humans was always less than the sum of the individual performances measured.

When examining tug-of-war participants, Ringelmann found that an individual calls up 100% of their performance, but in a pair this drops to 93%, in a group of three it’s 85%, and with 8 people it’s only 49% of the original performance - although this was also the low point.

This phenomenon has been repeatedly observed by various researchers and was eventually called “Social loafing”Or“ social laze ”known.

Of course, there are also effects that counteract this phenomenon (see below) - otherwise large corporations, in which thousands of people work together, would hardly be possible. Nevertheless, social loafing remains a key blocker to good team dynamics.

(2) Risky shift (responsibility diffusion)

The larger the management team, the more risk-taking the decisions

Another effect that is also related to group size is the so-called “risky shift” (also diffusion of responsibility). If a person makes a decision, they are fully responsible for that decision. But if a group makes a decision, no one really feels responsible for the decision - after all, it was a group decision. 

The conclusion from this effect will seem counterintuitive to many, since nowadays the public opinion is rather contradictory: “It is best if everyone makes decisions together. Only old-fashioned companies have hierarchical decision-making structures. ”

There are certainly many advantages to making certain decisions together in teams. However, there are also situations in which, due to the diffusion of responsibility, consensus-based decision-making leads to excessive risk taking:

Pension funds in the financial crisis

There were many pension funds in the financial sector in 2008 that were hit hard by the economic crisis. In principle, however, you actually act more cautiously when acting on behalf of strangers, in this case the customers of the pension fund (see Reynolds, 2009). These institutions in particular should therefore act in a more risk-averse manner - so what had happened?

Many pension funds invested in so-called bonds that promised high returns. The pension funds knew relatively little about what was behind these bonds and invested large sums - oops. As it later turned out, the bonds were filled with bad loans that were increasingly struggling with defaults. In the end, pension funds and other financial institutions lost billions.

The boards of directors of pension funds are made up of smart people who would have been quite capable of correctly assessing the risk. However, if there are too many decision-makers on a committee, there is always the risk of diffusion of responsibility and decisions are made that probably no individual would have made on their own. (Source: “The art of clear thinking” Rolf Dobelli, 2011).

Motivating teams - Tips

Teamwork is not automatically “dream work”. If individual achievements in teams are not visible, the “social loafing” effect threatens, and “motivating teams” doesn’t work quite so well. Especially in situations with a lack of transparency, it is easy to secure personal advantages from this lack of transparency and thus work against the common team goal in the long term. Teams are also prone to taking high risks when decisions are made collectively as a group. How can these negative effects be prevented? Here are our tips:

Cross-functional collaboration

Are you organized in departments, each of which pushes packages together and is then distributed within the department? The risk of social loafing is particularly high here. Try to organize yourself in cross-functional teams so that everyone has a permanent contact person in the adjacent departments. In such cross-functional teams, it can be a great advantage that everyone has to do a clear part of the added value, that this is usually clearly visible and that everyone is solely responsible for their contribution.

Job rotation

Does everyone in your team have different tasks that are very similar? Try to regularly exchange your areas of responsibility. Here, too, the performance of the individual team members in their positions becomes clear, or at least easier to understand. In addition, a regular change has the advantage that knowledge is shared within the team - and this makes it easier to motivate teams.

Clarify commitment

This point is particularly relevant in projects that are promoted alongside your actual work. Of course, not everyone can do the same if one of the project participants has to look after a new customer and the other has been released from the daily tasks for the project. In order not to slip into a negative spiral in such situations, you should get a clear commitment in advance of the extent to which you can participate in the project. You can record this commitment together in writing so that you can refer to it later. Exactly this commitment level should then be demanded by every individual. Team members and teams may even motivate each other

Clarify areas of responsibility

Everyone should feel responsible for their decisions at 100%, not all at 10%. Even if all team members can bring in their perspective on problems, there must still be decision-makers who ultimately weigh up all the arguments and bear the consequences of their decision.

Motivating teams - How about you?

Have you had any experience with social loafing and responsibility diffusion? How do you deal with the topics or do you protect yourself against them? We appreciate your comments!