Responses to this element are remarkably similar across industries and type of job. But like the other 11 elements, it varies dramatically from one team to another. There are plenty of workgroups in which no one feels their fellow employees are committed to quality and those in which everyone on the team perceives a kind of universal allegiance.

The consequences apply to more than just pulling rope. At an Australian bank, variation in the Ninth Element accounts for a 14% difference in profitability across its many branch offices. For a food manufacturer in Europe, assessments as to whether everyone is doing his part account for a 51% range in on-the-job accidents. The many companies' performance data matched to Ninth Element scores show that people who feel part of a solidly committed team are routinely safer, better with customers, less likely to quit, and more productive.

Precariously balanced

Law professor Dan M. Kahan illustrates the challenge facing managers with a large bell curve representing the typical team.

• On the far right are the most helpful of the group, those "dedicated cooperators" who by personal conviction will contribute their best to the common cause without worrying much about what the rest are doing.
• On the far left are a few "dedicated free riders," people who in almost any situation will let the others do the heavy lifting and keep their own resources for themselves.
• In between the extremes are those who reciprocate to various degrees. This majority of people will meet cooperation with cooperation and selfishness with selfishness.

Therefore, in the beginning, every team is poised to go into one of two cycles: one spirals downward into "every man for himself," the other spirals upward into "all for one and one for all."

In the lab, scientists have created the conditions and observed the consequences of rapid breakdown so often that the phenomenon is now axiomatic: Bring together a group of people and give them a chance to earn more by making contributions to the general welfare. If you do not incorporate any way of stopping the hitchhikers, more and more people will give up until almost no one contributes to the common good.

University of Zurich researchers Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter organized people in groups of four, then gave each some money and the option to keep it or contribute all or some to a pool of funds that would be increased by 40% and divided equally among the participants, regardless of whether they contributed some, all, or none of their initial stake.

At the beginning of the game, most players invested some of their money; the average was a little over 9 out of 20 points. But as the game continued, players who were contributing realized others were freeloading. "Subjects strongly dislike being the 'sucker,' that is, being those who cooperate while other group members free ride," wrote the researchers. The more helpful players gave up. Slowly and steadily, they reduced what they would put in the common pool until, 10 rounds later, the average contribution was only 3 points. The average participant, convinced he was being taken advantage of, kept nearly all his money to himself.

The researchers then added one condition. In the next set of rounds, players could spend some of their money on "punishment" points that would reduce the funds of the slackers. Even though spending money to punish another player reduced the punishers' own funds, they were quite willing to pay the price. At least now they could do something to counteract the free riders.

The desire for revenge is a potent psychological force, arguably more powerful than many incentives companies put out there to get employees to just get along or to overlook an associate's lack of work ethic. "Just pay attention to your own job" simply doesn't cut it in the mind of an employee who sees a bum in the office next door.

With the help of positron emission tomography to watch the workings of the brain, scientists in recent years have begun tracking the neurological mechanisms of revenge. One study found that the dorsal striatum, a portion of the brain that processes anticipated rewards, lights up when a test subject thinks of getting even. Although punishing someone else may be costly, many times it is psychologically worth it. Striking back "provides relief and satisfaction to the punisher and activates, therefore, reward-related brain regions," wrote seven researchers in the respected journal Science.

Adding the chance to even the score changed the whole game for Fehr and Gächter's subjects. Although the average contribution during the second set of interactions started near the same point where the first began, it grew from there until it sometimes reached 20. With accountability, "full cooperation emerges as the dominant behavioral standard for individual contributions." Average contributions reached 18.2, with 82.5% of players investing everything in the common pool.

Copyright Ó 2008 The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ.  All rights reserved.  Reprinted with permission.  Visit The Gallup Management Journal at http://gmj.gallup.com/

Article from The Gallup Management Journal