Metcalfe's Law describes the value of a shared resource (a network) when used by an increasing number of people.
The Ringelmann Effect descibes the productivity of an individual when part of a team.
According to these two theories, a shared resource becomes more useful when used by more people (e.g. the internet). People become less individually productive when part of a large team (e.g. a large corporate working group).
And this "effect" has to be fought because?
Explain to me that wringing the last bit of productivity out of the team is required when the team as a whole still is much faster than a smaller one.
Explain where the cutoff is for optimum team size to not actually lose productivity.
Explain what is the actual science behind those team interventions. Do they work, or do you just induce people to leave or burn out particular team members as the team becomes split between superloafers and superworkers?
The article also conflates bystander effect with (alleged) productivity loss. They are not unrelated, but interventions to either may be different.
Literally nobody benifits from someone sitting there doing nothing in work time. There is almost no philosophical argument that somebody should be doing nothing purposelesslessly. The only question is should you be actively working to better yourself/your community/something under your own judgement or someone else's.
During work hours as an employee, the agreement is that you are prioritising tasks based on someone else's judgement. But once that decision is made, it is still best if everyone is as productive as they can be.
Although I personally assume this effect it is probably not an issue of laziness but of organisational overhead in large groups - if it were easy to avoid people would do so. There are some unreasonably motivated people out there.
There are plenty of professions and occupations that are harmful to the rest of the world, and not always in an obvious way. We are facing unprecedented existential risks due to our production and consumption patterns. We don't even need philosophical arguments, there are enough practical examples that doing nothing is sometimes a good idea!
"Literally nobody benifits (sic) from someone sitting there doing nothing in work time."
Humans aren't robots. So... no 15 minute breaks? Just handcuff everyone to cubes with no ability to get up? Hall monitors and shitter stall monitors? Cubesitting syndrome for all!
Nah, keep that work "culture" ALLLLL to yourself.
Now, repeat this phrase to yourself:
NET NEGATIVE CONTRIBUTOR. There very much can be work someone does that is couterproductive.
> Literally nobody benifits from someone sitting there doing nothing in work time. There is almost no philosophical argument that somebody should be doing nothing purposelesslessly.
Breaks aside, thinking on a problem is indistinguishable from doing nothing purposelessly, and if you want me to report what I am thinking about then I'm out.
You make a fine argument for paying the same for fewer hours of quality work rather than more hours of mediocre or non-work. There is also some efficiency cutoff involved here to be investigated. Not sure if you realized it, but if the overall efficiency is not affected by you being in the office, there's really no reason for you to be there. Besides a poorly written contract, that is.
Unfortunately people are hired as pawns in corporate politics all the time, likewise cut.
Of course, in some cases reducing hours would require hiring an actually adequate number of workers rather than overloading a few. And actually paying people.
But is it simply a case that individual productivity looks lower because it's hard to attribute the team's productivity from its members'? After all the whole point of working together is so we can create more than we could individually.
One guy baking will mix the dough, pound it out, put it in the oven, and decorate the cake, filling up his whole day. A bunch of people baking can make more than they can all eat but the decorating guy is not doing much until it's his turn.
I'm not sure I like the framing in terms implying laziness. That's not the case in my experience. Usually inefficiency in individual productivity comes from communication overhead, lack of empowerment, increased complexity of problem domain, etc., which are legitimate issues of bigger organisations.
The Ringelmann effect was originally studied by having a team of people pull on a rope, measuring each individual's effort. Generally, people pulling the rope by themselves exerted more effort than when they were pulling with a team.
Later studies by Bibb Latane proved that the effect was not attributable to communication overhead: subjects blindfolded and fitted with sound-proof headsets were asked to shout and clap; people who believed they were performing in a group clapped softer than when they believed to be alone, even if there was no actual group in the room with them.
Generally, social loafing is attributed to the feeling that an individual's efforts make little difference to the end result, although I don't believe there are actual studies that could empirically back that up.
The article lists communication costs, the bystander effect, slack aping, and the perception that the employee's efforts doesn't count. But there is one additional crucial piece of the puzzle: the sense of being a stakeholder as opposed to a resource.
In fact the second part is somewhat ironic: the author switches to talking about employees as cattle that has to be monitored closely and culled if needed. This is of course logical in a structure whose goal is to make money, but also directly ties into the problem that author is trying to highlight, namely the lack of motivation or dedication. Even if the employee has 'knowledge about their importance to the company', that knowledge is that they are a well or not-so-well performing resource.
Why would an employee care (other than receiving their salary) about a structure that keeps an up to date document about the feasibility of laying off 10% of the workforce? And which furthermore couches that process in condescending language about roles, ideal engineers, and knowing your value?
I consider it morally wrong for a system (this system) to expect people who essentially embody a company to not be considered to own the company. This means that such people do not own what they do (and have done). I consider that if I do something by right it belongs to me.
I don't really buy into the idea that we are freely selling what we do to our employer company and that therefore the company gets to own what we did.
An employee and a company are two very different kinds of entities; a market transaction should happens between comparable kinds of entities, which a company and an employee aren't.
It would be as if your own organs and cells were not considered part of you and so you'd have to pay them for doing their thing...
Tangentially related: I once worked at a start up that went public. One of the big changes during this time was that they scaled the team substantially. The skill level per person went way down at this time. Eg it was not uncommon for an old timer to be replaced by a team of five when they quit.
I was always confused why they did this, but later it seemed to me the goal was to lower their “resignation risk”: rather than rely on hard to find talent (which they had achieved while a start up), they could hire many more “typical” workers that could be more readily replaced if they left.
Humans are social creatures. Perhaps the stereotype of the energetic and motivated individual is an anomaly of human behavior. Some degree of "loafing", to use the OP's word is natural and healthy for individuals and the group as a whole. Slack time allows recuperation, thoughtful planning, and enables available team members to unblock members that are stuck.
I say "some degree" of course. Pathological examples can be found.
I think there's a third obvious reason: large teams form later in the maturity of a project. When it's two or three motivated inventors it's easier to be productive and it's also easier to convince yourself and others that you're super productive. That becomes a lot harder when the more mundane tasks of scaling up enter the picture.
Is this just Amdahl's law? As you add more and more cores, the average number of idle cores goes up for any given task, even as total runtime drops- even if all the cores are good puritans who want to work all day.
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[ 182 ms ] story [ 927 ms ] threadThe Ringelmann Effect descibes the productivity of an individual when part of a team.
According to these two theories, a shared resource becomes more useful when used by more people (e.g. the internet). People become less individually productive when part of a large team (e.g. a large corporate working group).
Explain what is the actual science behind those team interventions. Do they work, or do you just induce people to leave or burn out particular team members as the team becomes split between superloafers and superworkers?
The article also conflates bystander effect with (alleged) productivity loss. They are not unrelated, but interventions to either may be different.
During work hours as an employee, the agreement is that you are prioritising tasks based on someone else's judgement. But once that decision is made, it is still best if everyone is as productive as they can be.
Although I personally assume this effect it is probably not an issue of laziness but of organisational overhead in large groups - if it were easy to avoid people would do so. There are some unreasonably motivated people out there.
Humans aren't robots. So... no 15 minute breaks? Just handcuff everyone to cubes with no ability to get up? Hall monitors and shitter stall monitors? Cubesitting syndrome for all!
Nah, keep that work "culture" ALLLLL to yourself.
Now, repeat this phrase to yourself:
NET NEGATIVE CONTRIBUTOR. There very much can be work someone does that is couterproductive.
Breaks aside, thinking on a problem is indistinguishable from doing nothing purposelessly, and if you want me to report what I am thinking about then I'm out.
Unfortunately people are hired as pawns in corporate politics all the time, likewise cut.
Of course, in some cases reducing hours would require hiring an actually adequate number of workers rather than overloading a few. And actually paying people.
One guy baking will mix the dough, pound it out, put it in the oven, and decorate the cake, filling up his whole day. A bunch of people baking can make more than they can all eat but the decorating guy is not doing much until it's his turn.
Later studies by Bibb Latane proved that the effect was not attributable to communication overhead: subjects blindfolded and fitted with sound-proof headsets were asked to shout and clap; people who believed they were performing in a group clapped softer than when they believed to be alone, even if there was no actual group in the room with them.
Generally, social loafing is attributed to the feeling that an individual's efforts make little difference to the end result, although I don't believe there are actual studies that could empirically back that up.
In fact the second part is somewhat ironic: the author switches to talking about employees as cattle that has to be monitored closely and culled if needed. This is of course logical in a structure whose goal is to make money, but also directly ties into the problem that author is trying to highlight, namely the lack of motivation or dedication. Even if the employee has 'knowledge about their importance to the company', that knowledge is that they are a well or not-so-well performing resource.
Why would an employee care (other than receiving their salary) about a structure that keeps an up to date document about the feasibility of laying off 10% of the workforce? And which furthermore couches that process in condescending language about roles, ideal engineers, and knowing your value?
I don't really buy into the idea that we are freely selling what we do to our employer company and that therefore the company gets to own what we did.
An employee and a company are two very different kinds of entities; a market transaction should happens between comparable kinds of entities, which a company and an employee aren't.
It would be as if your own organs and cells were not considered part of you and so you'd have to pay them for doing their thing...
I was always confused why they did this, but later it seemed to me the goal was to lower their “resignation risk”: rather than rely on hard to find talent (which they had achieved while a start up), they could hire many more “typical” workers that could be more readily replaced if they left.
I say "some degree" of course. Pathological examples can be found.