Ringelmann Effect

French agriculturist Maximilien Ringelmann conducted a rope-pulling experiment in 1883. One end of the rope is a person and the other end is a dynamometer. He found 20 people to pull the rope individually and measured the maximum strength. Then he divided the rope according to the number of people and pulled the rope to test the strength. The experimental results are as follows:

Modern times Some scientists have repeated this experiment, and the results are not significantly different from before: the more people involved in pulling the rope, the less force each individual exerts. This is the "Ringelmann" effect. In team work, individual efforts do not significantly affect the overall result, so there is a lack of motivation to go all out; when individual contributions are not visible, it can easily lead to overstaffing.

When people feel that they are insignificant in the company and cannot see results or recognition from others for what they do, they will definitely feel frustrated and lost, and then question their own value and sense of existence, and how they can go all out to do things. So try to let everyone see the "achievements" of their work and the meaning behind it. Try to avoid making products that are ineffective and have no practical value. If it is a project that is important in the long run but will not yield results in the short term, you must clearly explain the intention and long-term significance behind it and gain recognition from others. Continuous tracking, and timely feedback to everyone if there is good progress, it is important to be able to see hope. Also, don’t be stingy with your praise. If you do a great job, you must say it and tell the other person.

Ringelmann did not effectively motivate the testers in the experiment. He just told everyone to pull the rope together, which could easily lead to sharing of responsibilities and fall into the trap of "egalitarianism". It doesn't matter whether you do good or bad, more or less, so why do you have to go all out? It is important to clarify responsibilities. For example, if the website is down, it is the responsibility of the operation and maintenance. If the interface is not good-looking, it is the responsibility of the UI designer. If the user complains that the product is difficult to use, it is the product manager's problem. Although the root cause of the problem may be complex and cannot even be specifically blamed, there must be a clear responsible person and someone to track and solve these problems. On the other hand, talking about responsibilities without talking about benefits is to be a rogue. Recently I often hear the saying that "talent is a power law distribution". Excellent people are always in the minority, but the value they bring is huge. Therefore, we must cherish the outstanding talents in the company, let these people assume more responsibilities, and obtain higher rewards and a sense of accomplishment.

The company can be very large, but for a specific project team, too many people is a disaster, and mediocre things can be produced with low efficiency. Sometimes we are too idealistic and think that adding more people will solve various problems. But in fact, when there are more people in the team, not only will there be a sharing of responsibilities, but management costs and communication costs will also increase significantly. Fred Brooks, a professor of computer science at the University of Northern Carolina, wrote in "The Myth of the Man-Month" written in 1975: "Adding people to a project that is behind schedule will only make the schedule even further behind." This statement is often cited by later generations and is called Brooks' law. Why does this happen? The main reason is the sharp increase in communication costs, which is proportional to the square of the number of people. For example, if there are 10 people in a project, and each person has to communicate with 9 other people, the communication cost is (10 9) / 2 = 45. The number of people doubled to 20, and the communication cost (20 19) /2 = 190 increased more than 4 times. An additional advantage of having fewer people to refine is that it forces you to improve efficiency, and you must use tools, third-party services, etc. to reduce costs and labor. For example, when Instagram was acquired by Facebook for US$1 billion, the entire team had only 13 people, and among the five technical staff, there were only two and a half back-end engineers. The secret is that they use Amazon's AWS cloud service, so they don't need to build their own data centers and hire a lot of back-end engineers. (

Reference: Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger’s experience sharing) There are also many tools to improve efficiency, such as team collaboration software, email systems, CRM systems, etc., which can be used to reduce It reduces its own R&D and maintenance costs while controlling the size of the team.

There are employees with different abilities in the enterprise, just like "engines" and "screws". Companies need to find people who are capable and self-motivated, just like "engines" and "pulling ropes". Without any incentives, people with strong self-motivation are more likely to find the meaning and meaning of the matter on their own. value. (Just like Xu Sanduo played by Wang Baoqiang in "Soldier Assault") Regarding high-standard recruitment, Airbnb founder Brian Chesky shared his experience in the YC entrepreneurship class. It took him 6 months to recruit the first engineer. His recruitment methodology: The first engineer does not just come in to develop certain features. When the team is extremely small, the earlier employees have a greater impact on the team culture. He will inject his own character and habits. and behavioral patterns. Once the company gets bigger, there may be Engineer No. 1,000 who is almost the same as Engineer No. 1. At this time, you need to think about: Are you willing to work with 1,000 such people? We made mistakes in recruiting last year. When we were growing rapidly last year, we started recruiting a lot of people. Because there are no strict recruitment standards, although relatively good people are selected from many interviewees, they are only "good" and cannot take on many independent and important tasks. Moreover, the recruitment is not for "engine" talents. Many tasks require constant promotion and arrangement, and the progress is slow and the efficiency is not high. It is necessary to cultivate talents and establish a leadership team, but for small entrepreneurial companies, people with a high sense of responsibility and strong autonomy are more needed.