Better Together? Maybe Not.
Social Loafing: A killer of your team’s performance.
James Robbins

    There has been a lot of research in the field of sports psychology to understand the processes of group cohesion and teamwork. One of the largest factors that hurt a team’s performance is Motivation Losses. In one study originally designed by a guy named Ringelmann, He had individuals pull on a rope attached to a strain gauge to see how much weight they could pull by themselves. Then as he began adding more individuals to pull on the rope their sum totals were less than what they had done on their own. So lets say a guy pulls 100 pounds and another guy pulls 75 pounds on their own. Together they should pull close to 175 pounds when they work as a team. This however was not the case. The two working together pulled less than 175 pounds. What Ringelmann found which has been duplicated in other more controlled studies was that the more people you added, the more individual performance declined. Whatever happened to “we are better together than we are on our own.”  Although we can certainly accomplish more by working together than we can on our own, it seems that individually our performance goes down with the increase of more help. It places a new spin on the phrase, “Many hands make work light.”

    In Sports Psychology this is known as Social Loafing. Where individuals contribute less than 100% due to motivation losses.  This of course is a big deal and one that exists in any kind of team whether it your scoring points or making sales.

Conditions that increase social loafing are:
  • When your output cannot be independently evaluated.
    • “Why should I work harder than everyone else when we all get the same bonus on this project?”

  • The job you are performing has low meaning to you.
    • “Why should I try my hardest when this task is unimportant?”

  • When your personal involvement in the task is low.
    • “Why should I give my all when the bulk of this project depends on our sales team, not me?”

  • You are unable to compare yourself with group standards.
    • “I don’t know how I’m performing?”

  • The team members you are working with are strangers to you.
    • “I don’t care if these people think I’m lazy, I don’t really know them?”

  • Certain members on your team are the ‘Stars’ and much better at the task than you.
    • “Joe and Susan are the star players here, none of us here can really do this project better than they can.”

  • Your team is competing against a perceived weaker opponent.
    • "Our newest competitor has a lot of work to catch up to us, we practically own this market and our product is superior.”

As a leader or manager, one of your roles is to help work teams be as engaged and as productive as possible. You can help this by eliminating motivation losses caused by Social Loafing.

To eliminate Social Loafing you can:
  • Emphasize the importance of individual pride
    • This strikes a higher order value in most people. Personal pride in how one conducts him or herself can be a huge motivator.

    • “Even if our team is slacking off I am not going to allow myself to join them. I have a higher standard.”

  • Encourage unique contributions
    • Look for individual contributions to the team that may be going unnoticed. The more uniqueness, the more people feel they can get credit for their efforts.

  • Hold up exemplary individual performances
    • What gets rewarded gets repeated. When people see their efforts are noticed and appreciated the more engaged they are going to be.

  • Help your team appreciate each other’s responsibilities
    • Let people switch roles from time to time so they can see what their colleagues have to contend with. This increased understanding usually leads to a greater appreciation and cohesion.

  • Divide your team into smaller sub-teams
    • The smaller the group the harder it is to hide. Also the more your individual contributions make a difference.


Like any aspect of leadership, building team and motivating individuals is an ongoing cycle. Examine your various work teams and see if there is any Social Loafing going on. Come up with a few simple steps that will help reduce motivation losses because of the psychological reality of Social Loafing.