Mark Murphy shares research showing that as teams grow from 1 to 32 people, individual effort drops roughly 30% due to social loafing. The practical fix: invite someone to a meeting only if you can name a specific perspective, expertise, or influence they bring. Otherwise they'll just watch.
Adding more people to a team can make every person work less. Researchers tested teams ranging from 1 person all the way up to 32 people on a complex crisis mapping task. Bigger teams generally produced more, but as the teams grew, each additional person added less and less value, and individual effort dropped by about 30%. That's what's called social loafing. People put in less effort because they assume somebody else in the group is going to pick up the slack. So the question for your next meeting isn't, who else should we invite? It's, what will this person add that we don't already have? A necessary perspective, specific expertise, influence we need to make the decision? If you can't answer that, leave them off the invite. More people can create more output, but they can also create more spectators.
