387. The problem with being a team player

Being a team player sounds like a good thing. Right until you understand the effects of social loafing at work. Let me introduce you to Max Ringelmann

Every sports team you’ve played on has that one person who won’t pass.

It doesn’t matter the sport. It doesn’t even matter the score.

You’re wide open. You can score if you just get the ball. But that person looks at you and, even though you’re clearly open and have a much better shot, they take it themselves.

Because if they don’t take the shot, they won’t get the credit.

The teams that actually win are usually the ones where nobody’s individual ego is more important than the team win.

That’s the whole idea behind one of the most quoted lines in leadership.

“It’s amazing what we can accomplish when nobody wants credit.”

There’s only one problem with it.
It’s wrong.

The Experiment That Changed How I Think About Teams

Max Ringelmann was a French engineer in the early 20th century. In 1913, he set up a little experiment.

It was a tug-of-war.

And I’m not saying “tug-of-war” like it’s some complex scientific process. I mean he put on a regular old playground tug-of-war, complete with rope, and people on opposite sides pulling it.

First he had one person pulling on either end. Then he turned it into groups.

In what seems a fairly logical move, Max assumed that a group of five people should pull the rope at the force equal to the sum of their individual outputs.

Imagine Ringelmann’s flabbergastedness when that didn’t happen.

In fact, he discovered that, as the group got bigger, each person pulled with less effort.

Egads!

It wasn’t because people were getting more tired. It was because something in their brain decided it just wasn’t worth trying as hard when they were in a group.

As I think back on my tug-of-war days, this all makes a lot of sense. I definitely didn’t pull as hard when I was on a team as I did when I was tugging solo.

But when we fast forward a few years from Max’s study, things got more interesting.

Multiple psychologists repeated his experiment, first with clapping and shouting, instead of rope yanking.

And they got the same results as good ole Ringelmann.

They even tried to be sneaky with it. They blindfolded people and told them they were acting in a group, when they were actually alone the whole time.

But their effort was still less than if they knew they were doing it solo.

In other words, Just believing you are part of a group is enough to make you try less hard.

That, my friend, is what is called the Ringelmann Effect - or, as you probably know it - social loafing.

And here’s where it gets complicated, as it relates to that idea of accomplishing more when nobody wants credit.

The idea of social loafing has proved that people lessen their effort when they believe their individual contribution won’t be seen or given credit.

The entire purpose of trying hard is to get recognized.

The Part The Quote Gets Wrong

Let’s read the quote again:

It’s amazing what we can accomplish when nobody wants credit.

But since Ringelmann discovered that people work less if they won’t get credit, it seems we’ve got ourselves into a little bit of a pickle.

There are two ways to hear this quote.

One is about humility. Everybody mutes their own ego, even the person who did most of the work.

The other is just confusion. Everyone’s effort is so tangled together that nobody can actually tell who did what.

Unfortunately, to the part of the brain deciding how hard to pull on the rope, both explanations sound the same.

And Ringelmann already told us what that produces. Less rope.

When nobody gets singled out, people won’t try as hard.

And that’s where the quote is wrong.
Kind of.

Somebody Was Always Watching

If you study every example of a team where something extraordinary happened without anybody looking for credit, they all have one thing in common:

Somebody was still watching.
And counting.
And giving credit where it was deserved.

The leader knows exactly who did what. Maybe they don’t say it out loud. They don’t always have to verbalize it. But they know. And everybody knows they know.

Just the belief that someone is watching is enough to change how hard people pull.

Team members won’t take personal credit as long as the person who matters is paying attention.

In other words, “nobody wants credit” is not nearly the same as “nobody is paying attention to who should get credit.”

That distinction is critical.
And this is the part where it becomes about you.

The Question You Actually Need To Ask

You’ve probably told your team, at some point in your career, that credit doesn’t matter.

That’s fine. Feel free to keep saying it.

But do you actually know who did what?
Because their effort was never about them getting credit.

It was about you paying attention.

And if you take that away, you don’t get a team full of selfless players. You get a bunch of people standing wide open, while the ball hogs try to take every shot they can.

That’s not a humble team.
That’s just a rope where nobody is going to try to pull hard.

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If you or your team are having challenges reaching your full potential — and you feel you should be pulling harder on the rope — you’ll find out the reasons why in the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop. It’s fun. It’s free. It’s proven to unlock your blockers. Reserve your seat now.

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P.S. Think about the last time your team delivered something exceptional. Do you know specifically who did what? If you’re not sure, neither do they. And that’s exactly why it won’t happen the same way twice.