As we've seen (see "Holding Back: I," Point Lookout for September 9, 2015), some team members voluntarily restrict their efforts for a variety of reasons. We can't always eliminate their holding back, but we can nevertheless act to reduce its effects.
Many strategies for reducing voluntary effort restraint entail arranging for members' contributions to be unique. When contributions are unique, holding back might be less tempting if people recognize that failure to contribute might be traceable. Perhaps more important, people feel more valued because of the uniqueness of their contributions. Clearly, this works only if they know that their contributions are unique, and only if they perceive that the group does indeed value those contributions.
But there are issues.
- Truly value team contributions
- Although making contributions traceable — and then tracking them — can be an important step in reducing the incidence of holding back, tracing the authorship of contributions can reduce the incidence of holding back only if the organization attaches value to those contributions. A more fundamental improvement might entail reviewing how the organization values every kind of team contribution.
- Have small and clearly defined teams and groups
- The larger the group of contributors, the more likely is holding back. Be clear about team composition and personal responsibilities. Any ambiguity can lead to holding back.
- Recognize contributions as contributions
- One kind of Many groups don't recognize
questions as actual contributionsvery valuable contribution is the brilliant question. In meetings, a brilliant question is one that brings a halt to the proceedings because it causes the group to recognize that it has missed something important. Yet, many groups don't recognize questions (of any kind, brilliant or not) as actual contributions. They regard answers to questions as more valuable than the questions themselves, even though discovering the question can be more difficult than finding its answer. Recognize all contributions for the value they do provide. - Create passion and involvement
- Stimulating passion and involvement can even more effectively limit holding back, because it introduces positive motivation to contribute, which can overwhelm any temptation to hold back. Challenging — but still achievable — group goals can help. A challenging goal is one that's far enough out of reach that achieving it is somewhat questionable, but not so far out of reach that inevitable failure is obvious.
- Create unique, positive group identities
- When group members can base their own self-esteem, in part, on the group identity, they're more likely to contribute passionately to group success. But because those outside the group determine, to some extent, the quality of a group's identity, image management strategies might be necessary.
Most important, intervene quickly when holding back occurs. If someone begins holding back, others who see it might also begin to hold back, too, because of the sucker effect, fatigue, performance matching, or other reasons. Early and effective intervention can limit holding-back contagion, and the damage holding back can do. First in this series Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- The Attributes of Political Opportunity: The Basics
- Opportunities come along even in tough times. But in tough times, it's especially important to distinguish
between true opportunities and high-risk adventures. Here are some of the attributes of desirable political
opportunities.
- Before You Blow the Whistle: II
- When organizations become aware of negligence, miscalculations, failures, wrongdoing, or legal infractions,
they often try to conceal the bad news. People who disagree with the concealment activity sometimes
decide to reveal what the organization is trying to hide. Here's Part II of our catalog of methods used
to suppress the truth.
- Impasses in Group Decision Making: IV
- Some impasses that develop in group decision making relate to the substance of the discussion. Some
are not substantive, but still present serious obstacles. What can we do about nonsubstantive impasses?
- Judging Others
- Being "judgmental" is a stance most people recognize as transgressing beyond widely accepted
social norms. But what's the harm in judging others? And why do so many people do it so often?
- Virtual Interviews: I
- The pandemic has made face-to-face job interviews less important. Although understanding the psychology
of virtual interviews helps both interviewers and candidates, candidates would do well to use the virtual
interview to demonstrate video presence.
See also Workplace Politics and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming March 20: Top Ten Ways to Make Meetings More Effective
- Meetings are just about everybody's least favorite part of working in organizations. We can do much better if only we take a few simple steps to improve them. The big one: publish the agenda in advance. Here are nine other steps to improve meetings. Available here and by RSS on March 20.
- And on March 27: Allocating Action Items
- From time to time in meetings we discover tasks that need doing. We call them "action items." And we use our list of open action items as a guide for tracking the work of the group. How we decide who gets what action item can sometimes affect our success. Available here and by RSS on March 27.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group