[HN Gopher] The Ringelmann Effect
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The Ringelmann Effect
Author : saikatsg
Score : 40 points
Date : 2022-09-27 10:46 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rnjn.in)
(TXT) w3m dump (rnjn.in)
| AstralStorm wrote:
| 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.
| roenxi wrote:
| 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.
| Bakary wrote:
| 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!
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > 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.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| "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.
| zwieback wrote:
| 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.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| gampleman wrote:
| 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.
| sushibowl wrote:
| 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.
| onos wrote:
| 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.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Aka social loafing
| intrepidhero wrote:
| 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.
| Bakary wrote:
| 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?
| throwie_wayward wrote:
| 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...
| intrepidhero wrote:
| That's an unusual and interesting take. Can you give an
| example of how you'd make the system more equitable?
| hackeraccount wrote:
| This seems like it's close to contradicting Metcalfe's Law.
| deweller wrote:
| 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).
| bdauvergne wrote:
| I think that both can be combined: people are less productive
| when they are part of the internet whose value is augmented
| :)
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