In addition, they found that the open-office configuration was particularly favored by the youngest employees, who believe open offices provide them greater access to colleagues and the opportunity to learn from their more seasoned senior compatriots. The small team, open-office configuration (desks scattered about in a small area with no partitions) to be significantly correlated with superior performance. Interestingly, cooperation can be encouraged by quite literally tearing down walls, or not building them in the first place. Comprehensive training in interpersonal skills can prevent many common teamwork problems.Ĭooperation is superior to competition in promoting achievement and productivity.Ĭooperation is superior to individualistic efforts in promoting achievement and productivity.Ĭooperation without intergroup competition promotes higher achievement and productivity than cooperation with intergroup competitionĬooperation can be encouraged by reward systems that reinforce teamwork, along with individual achievement. Failure is part of the learning process with teams, as it is elsewhere in life. Consequently, team members' expectations need to be given a reality check by management and team members themselves.Īlso, teams need to be counseled against quitting when they run into an unanticipated obstacle.
Important group dynamics and team skills get lost in the rush for results.
Problems for Team Members The lower-right portion lists common problems for team members.Ĭontrary to critics' Theory X contention about employees lacking the motivation and creativity for real teamwork, it is common for teams to take on too much too quickly and to drive themselves too hard for fast results. These mistakes generally involve doing a poor job of creating a supportive environment for teams and teamwork. On the left side is a list of common management mistakes. Both managers and team members can be victimized by unrealistic expectations. Frustration, in turn, encourages people to abandon teams. The main threats to team effectiveness are unrealistic expectations leading to frustration. Social loafing also was reduced in a recent study when a hybrid combination of individual and shared rewards were employed. Also, research suggests that self-reliant "individualists" are more prone to social loafing than are group-oriented "collectivists."īut individualists can be made more cooperative by keeping the group small and holding each member personally accountable for results. Group members expected their co-workers to loaf.īut social loafing did not occur when group members in two laboratory studies expected to be evaluated. Group members thought their individual output was not identifiable.95 The task was perceived to be unimportant, simple, or not interesting.94 Laboratory studies refined these theories by identifying situational factors that moderated the social loafing effect.
Among the theoretical explanations for the social loafing effect are (1) equity of effort ("Everyone else is goofing off, so why shouldn't I?"), (2) loss of personal accountability ("I'm lost in the crowd, so who cares?"), (3) motivational loss due to the sharing of rewards ("Why should I work harder than the others when everyone gets the same reward?"), and (4) coordination loss as more people perform the task ("We're getting in each other's way").