Team Work - THE RINGELMANN EFFECT

Mr Ringelmann was a German psychologist and did the following test. He let one person pull a rope and measured the force. Let’s express the force exerted by one person as 100. Then he asked 3 people (all had about the same strength and weight) to pull together at the rope. As there were 3 people pulling, you would expect the force to be 3 x 100 = 300, however the force was only 250. Then he asked 8 people to pull together at the rope. You would expect the combined force exerted to be 8 x 100 = 800, however in reality it was 400, i.e. only 50% of the solo effort.

Conclusion: It is very likely that some individuals spend less effort when working in a team than when working individually.

How do we manage that? Don’t allow team members to ‘hide’ within the team. Define clearly the roles and functions of each individual and means for identifying and measuring their work performance. Everybody must play their part to fulfil their role as an individual AND teamwork.

If your organisation provides incentives for the achievement of targets, allocate the bonus by finding a balance between team and individual achievements. Many organizations would go for a 50/50 split (50% incentive based on individual performance / 50% on team performance) or 1/3 each based on personal, team, and company performance