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ELBONOMICS - Rey Elbo - The Philippine Star
March 4, 2025 | 12:00am
Suppose you assign an ad hoc team of five workers tasked with solving the problem of your factory’s increasing operational costs. The members are Anthony, a consistent hard worker who has been a shoo-in as a possible line supervisor since he was hired more than five years ago.
Next is Bobby, an average but pioneering worker since the factory was established in 2001. His only bragging right is his seniority.
Another member is Charlie, a militant union officer and management critic who promotes the value of productivity gain-sharing. They were joined by Danny and Eddie, both temporary workers from a manpower agency who are hoping and praying that they will be absorbed as regulars by their principal.
Everyone knows each other’s capacity or incapacity to do what they’re known for.
Who do you think would make the best team leader? Your top choice is Anthony, right?
How about Bobby, who’s expected to continue banking on his seniority? Conversely, who do you think would make it difficult for the team to succeed?
Another informed guess – it could be the trade unionist Charlie with his trademark catchphrase: “What’s in it for us?” And what do you expect from Danny and Eddie, the agency workers with high aspirations but lacking the necessary skills?
In psychology, what we’re doing now is called “affective forecasting.” We do it all the time to manage our expectations, either by looking forward to the good things or planning for the bad things.
Social loafing
Affective forecasting is human nature. We do it all the time without knowing its name except to say that we’re either optimists or pessimists using our experience with people whom we know.
This is about team dynamism which means answering a familiar question in government bureaucracy:
“How many bureaucrats do we need to change a light bulb?”
In other words, how many signatories are needed to complete a simple transaction?
Given the team’s composition as described above, who do you think is most likely to withhold, if not delay, their full contribution for some malevolent reason? Such a phenomenon is called social loafing.
In street slang, it’s called “free riding.” It happens all the time within many teams, regardless of their composition and industry set-up. It happens because individual performance can be hidden by the team or overlooked by its leader who wants to avoid conflict with people.
Sometimes, a team leader plays politics with everyone by not blaming them for their poor performance, allowing laziness to rule the world. So, what causes social loafers to be lazy?
The reasons vary. Sometimes, managers call it ethnic jokes to allow people to show their true colors.
When I talk about “ethnic jokes,” I mean an old man’s strategy to help people understand their shortcomings.
Bobby thinks his average performance and seniority can speak for themselves. Charlie, however, may have a different perspective. Why should he contribute to the team effort when management continues to ignore his question about gain-sharing?
Assuming that management has appointed Anthony as the leader, who do you think would make it difficult for the team to succeed?
By process of elimination, it’s a choice between Bobby and Charlie. In a group setting, their contribution or whatever is left of it can be hardly visible, unless Anthony gives them specific tasks.
If Anthony does that, Bobby and Charlie have no choice but to perform. Bobby may be tasked to gather updated information from reliable sources and convert them into a quantifiable report detailing the number of losses that the factory is losing in real terms.
On the other hand, Charlie may be asked to find practical solutions for the factory’s excessive production costs. Fortunately, Charlie consulted me and I gave him a free truck load of ideas that could move their management to change their stand on gain-sharing. Before long, he was assigned to head another problem-solving team.
Big teams, big losses
Social loafing is more pronounced in big teams with at least ten members. That’s where lazy people thrive because it’s easy to hide their poor individual performance. That’s why I prefer teams to be composed of no more than five members – the ideal number, according to research by Wharton University.
If a team has more than five members, it would be easy to free ride, even if they’re given a specific task except that it can be cured by the principle of co-ownership. This can be done by listing down all specific tasks and allowing the members to choose their assignments.
The solution lies in making individual assignments interesting to do. And the members volunteered to make them happen, with certain exceptions like allowing Bobby or Charlie to be the team leader instead of Anthony.
This is an educated management decision. Let Bobby or Charlie take the lead and provide them with the opportunity to show what they can do. If they refuse, then you can’t be blamed for appointing Anthony, who is your first choice, anyway.
If you do that, you’ll promote meritocracy rather than seniority with actual examples known only to high achievers and their management.
In conclusion, take a closer look at your team’s composition. Someone may be hiding something.
Rey Elbo is a quality and productivity improvement enthusiast. Email your management story to [email protected] or via https://reyelbo.com. Anonymity is guaranteed.
