Social loafing is influenced by the quality of the relationships between co-workers: where there is group cohesiveness, social loafing isn't really that strong.
Social loafing is also influences by the size of the group: bigger groups dictate less individual effort. So if you're in a big company, you tend to believe that surely there must be someone else that will solve a specific problem.
"Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook," wrote psychologist William James. Unfortunately, if this is the case then few of us can honestly say we're wise. Knowing where to allocate our attention has become the great challenge of our lives. And we're not making it any easier by exposing ourselves to so many distractions.
Sensory distractions (External): The things happening around us, like colleagues talking, phones ringing, people moving around us, music playing, etc.
Emotional distractions (Internal): The thoughts that make our attention drift from what we’re doing. For example, remembering a phone call you need to make or thinking about a future meeting.
You put a lot of time and effort into succeeding in your job, education, and relationships. Since you dedicate so much time to these endeavors, you want full ownership of any success related to them. But when it comes to failures, you turn on your heel and run away from them at the speed of light.
It causes you to claim your successes and ignore your failures.
This means that when something good happens, you take the credit, but when something bad happens, you blame it on external factors.
Self-serving bias may manifest at work when you receive critical feedback. Instead of keeping an open mind, you may put up a defense when your manager or team member is sharing feedback or constructive criticism.
Since October 2011, Zapier has grown to over 200 employees. You can read previous versions of this chapter written when our team size was 20 and our team size was just 6 people, to get a feel for how our remote team has scaled.
In a remote team, you'll need the right tools to make sure everyone stays on the same page and can continue to execute without a physical person standing next to them.
You likely will need a tool in certain categories like group chat and video conferencing to make remote successful.