When the scale of the enterprise or organization is larger, the measurability of individual performance is smaller, and the sense of personal fulfillment is weaker, the individual or the organization within the enterprise loses "enthusiasm" and "ability", and social inertia will become more and more serious. Socialization often seriously affects the motivation of employees and reduces the efficiency of enterprises.
Source | Steamed bun hall essence private school
The earliest and most famous experiment on social inertia was the tug-of-war made by the Frenchman Max Ringelman. He asked the participants to tug of war in two situations, individually and in groups, and at the same time measure their pulling force with an instrument. It was found that as the number of participants increased, the average force exerted by each participant decreased. The average output is 63 kg for one person, 53.5 kg for a group of three, and 31 kg for eight people. This phenomenon of the larger the group size, the smaller the individual contribution when completing a task together, is known as "social inertia", and has since been confirmed in other people's experiments.
The phenomenon of "social inertia" is not only seen in the laboratory, but also in everyday life. There is a Chinese saying that "one monk carries water to eat, two monks carry water to eat, and three monks have no water to eat", which is also a concrete visualization of this social psychological phenomenon.
In enterprises, this phenomenon is also obvious. When the scale of the enterprise or organization is larger, the measurability of individual performance is smaller, and the sense of personal fulfillment is weaker, the individual or the organization within the enterprise loses "enthusiasm" and "ability", and social inertia will become more and more serious. Socialization often seriously affects the motivation of employees and reduces the efficiency of enterprises.
Managers or top managers of an enterprise should always keep in mind the three important tasks of management. Productivity and a sense of fulfillment are the basic conditions for the other two tasks. If this task is not done well, the purpose and mission of the enterprise and the social responsibility will become empty words.
Causes of social inertia
Generally, in the start-up stage, the staff is relatively small, and they are very familiar with each other. At this time, the main problem faced by the enterprise is survival, everyone's goal is clear, because of the ability to achieve a super level of performance, "heart, force and even life" to fight for the survival of the enterprise. But when the enterprise has developed, most enterprises face a problem, that is, the original passion and enthusiasm have weakened.
What is the reason for the emotionalization of society?
Businesses are on the right track. You don't have to feel the pressure to survive every day. At this time, the enterprise generally has a complete organizational structure, a smooth process, and everyone has their own fixed positions and responsibilities. You don't need to make great efforts to get the opportunities and achievements that other companies in the same industry want to get but can't. At this time, there is often a kind of empathy psychology of "sympathy for the weak" within the organization, and individuals are unwilling to make outstanding performances, generally speaking, it is "following the crowd". This state encourages the consistency of the behavior of members in the organization, as long as they complete the work of their own position, and inhibits individuals with outstanding performance. The sense of crisis in the company's founding period is lost.
When the social inertia of the enterprise is serious, the organization is often full of bureaucracy, people are worried about mistakes and good performance, and stick to the process, and even spend most of their time busy with planning, digital reports, and report perfection. When a company is faced with changes in the external environment, it can be severely delayed and sometimes even lost due to the isolation and complacency within the organization. The failure of the mobile phone clearly verifies the harm of corporate social inertia. When there is a huge market demand for smartphones, it is reflected in the internal reporting of the organization, or the improvement of its own Symbian system, and even the top management is still working hard for the perfection of digital reporting.
How to deal with social temperament
What should companies do when they are facing the crisis of social inertia?
Some companies use higher salaries and higher incentives to stimulate. However, people's satisfaction with money is generally short-lived. The more people get, the more satisfaction they have, the more they feel, or even the more they don't. When the momentary gratification wears off, they expect more money or material rewards. At this time, the cost of the enterprise has increased significantly, which has laid a hidden danger for the growth of the enterprise.
Maslow put forward the theory of human needs, which graded human needs and applied the concept of "marginal utility" to the study of human desires. Man's desire to survive is at the lowest level, and the desire for self-realization is at the highest level. Based on Maslow's theory of needs, Theory X was derived, and on the basis of the critique of Theory X, MacGregor proposed Theory Y. The study of human needs has been increasingly applied in the practice of enterprise management.
Today's society is a society with a strong economy, and most of the employees are knowledge workers. The management of knowledge workers cannot adopt the management method of "carrot and stick". It is even more difficult to understand whether the demand factors for knowledge workers are job performance, social status, self-fulfillment, or other factors.
Drucker cites two important practices to avoid social inertia.
First of all, employees should have a sense of accomplishment in the design of their positions. The premise is that the work is analyzed, and each job must be productive.
Secondly, managers must treat employees as resources, and promote communication between employees and management when performing their duties, promote each other and develop together. Managers should let their subordinates know that it is also one of the responsibilities of every employee to make managers perform better.
This article is for knowledge sharing only and does not constitute the provision or reliance upon as investment, accounting, legal or tax advice. Any investment decision made on the basis of this is at your own risk.