Team Production with Gift Exchange
Humans by nature are social animals. This means that we usually interact with other people on a daily basis in many aspects of our lives. Humans also work together in groups to achieve a common goal with the hope that the prize of the goal is equally shared. Like the articles mention, humans from a young age learn about sharing equal profits and equal treatment. These articles talk about different approaches to dividing work and sharing profits or prizes, from working together to share the marbles, to tit for tat, to exchanging currency and favors, and being altruistic.
I think a classic and currently relevant example of team production with gift exchange is the interaction of roommates in a shared living space, like in an apartment. Ideally, the roommates work together to clean and maintain the apartment's shared living spaces like the kitchen, bathrooms, and living rooms. This means buying supplies and sharing chores, whether you rotate the purchasing of supplies or split the purchases, or rotate a schedule of chores or simply clean after yourself. Different systems work for different type of people.
Last year in my apartment, we started out simply cleaning after ourselves. Every time one of us would use the kitchen or the stove to cook, we would clean after our mess. We would clean our own dishes in the sink. The idea was "you're responsible for your own mess". We would also clean when we felt it was necessary to clean. However, in our apartment of four, some of the roommates felt like they were doing more work than others because they spent more time in the apartment. We decided we would make a chore chart that divided necessary tasks among each of the roommates, and each chore would rotate every week. The chores were sweeping/vacuuming the floor, wiping the countertops, doing the dishwasher, and taking out the trash. Our patterns after the designation of this chore chart were much like what happened in "The Power of Altruism" article with the child care centers. Before, we were operating out of doing our due diligence and being altruistic when cleaning when we felt like it.
Now the only responsibility that came when cleaning was just to make sure we completed out chore by the end of the week. Since we all have different majors, different workloads, different outside responsibilities, and different social lives, the case was still there with how some of us spent more time at the apartment than others. Those of us who didn't spend as much time in the apartment couldn't complete their chores as often as those who spent a lot of time in the apartment. Like in article with the child care example of more parents picking up their children late rather than being altruistic, we would leave our chores to do towards the end of the week rather than how it used to be without the implementation of the chore chart.
Another example is the division of who purchases what shared products. Usually we'd all chip in to purchase different products when they ran out. These products are household items like dish soap, sponges, paper towels, Windex, toilet paper, etc. The expectation was that eventually the costs would end up being split equally. Our type of gift exchange was sort of "altruistic" in that we wouldn't expect the reciprocation immediately, but we would expect the favor to be returned eventually as other common products ran out. If I saw a product ran out and that I didn't buy it last time, I would take it as my turn to get the replacement.
I started out this year thinking the same way. I bought sponge, dish soap, garbage bags, and granite cleaner. The second roommate purchased the paper towels and dishwasher detergent. The two of us did this without asking to split the costs with everyone else because we had the expectation that we're all buying supplies. The third roommate, however, who bought more paper towels and toilet paper, asked us to pay her back our share of her purchase, splitting the costs amongst the three of us roommates. Her request took me off guard because I hadn't asked to split the costs of my purchases when I bought the supplies I mentioned above. I assumed that her purchase, like all of our purchases, to be a form of gift exchange where I'd "pay" her back by purchasing the next batch of new items. With her asking me to pay her back, she took away the "moral lens" and put on the "economic lens". Now when one of us purchases group items, we ask the others to venmo us back their portion of the costs.
Personally, I prefer to keep the "moral lens" on because I'd like to hope that people are altruistic enough to give back in other ways. This case is similar when you're driving and you're trying to make a turn onto a crowded lane, and one person decides to be kind and let you go ahead. This kind action from a stranger might encourage you to give back by doing the same to someone else by letting them pass, thus continuing a cycle of positive actions.
I think a classic and currently relevant example of team production with gift exchange is the interaction of roommates in a shared living space, like in an apartment. Ideally, the roommates work together to clean and maintain the apartment's shared living spaces like the kitchen, bathrooms, and living rooms. This means buying supplies and sharing chores, whether you rotate the purchasing of supplies or split the purchases, or rotate a schedule of chores or simply clean after yourself. Different systems work for different type of people.
Last year in my apartment, we started out simply cleaning after ourselves. Every time one of us would use the kitchen or the stove to cook, we would clean after our mess. We would clean our own dishes in the sink. The idea was "you're responsible for your own mess". We would also clean when we felt it was necessary to clean. However, in our apartment of four, some of the roommates felt like they were doing more work than others because they spent more time in the apartment. We decided we would make a chore chart that divided necessary tasks among each of the roommates, and each chore would rotate every week. The chores were sweeping/vacuuming the floor, wiping the countertops, doing the dishwasher, and taking out the trash. Our patterns after the designation of this chore chart were much like what happened in "The Power of Altruism" article with the child care centers. Before, we were operating out of doing our due diligence and being altruistic when cleaning when we felt like it.
Now the only responsibility that came when cleaning was just to make sure we completed out chore by the end of the week. Since we all have different majors, different workloads, different outside responsibilities, and different social lives, the case was still there with how some of us spent more time at the apartment than others. Those of us who didn't spend as much time in the apartment couldn't complete their chores as often as those who spent a lot of time in the apartment. Like in article with the child care example of more parents picking up their children late rather than being altruistic, we would leave our chores to do towards the end of the week rather than how it used to be without the implementation of the chore chart.
Another example is the division of who purchases what shared products. Usually we'd all chip in to purchase different products when they ran out. These products are household items like dish soap, sponges, paper towels, Windex, toilet paper, etc. The expectation was that eventually the costs would end up being split equally. Our type of gift exchange was sort of "altruistic" in that we wouldn't expect the reciprocation immediately, but we would expect the favor to be returned eventually as other common products ran out. If I saw a product ran out and that I didn't buy it last time, I would take it as my turn to get the replacement.
I started out this year thinking the same way. I bought sponge, dish soap, garbage bags, and granite cleaner. The second roommate purchased the paper towels and dishwasher detergent. The two of us did this without asking to split the costs with everyone else because we had the expectation that we're all buying supplies. The third roommate, however, who bought more paper towels and toilet paper, asked us to pay her back our share of her purchase, splitting the costs amongst the three of us roommates. Her request took me off guard because I hadn't asked to split the costs of my purchases when I bought the supplies I mentioned above. I assumed that her purchase, like all of our purchases, to be a form of gift exchange where I'd "pay" her back by purchasing the next batch of new items. With her asking me to pay her back, she took away the "moral lens" and put on the "economic lens". Now when one of us purchases group items, we ask the others to venmo us back their portion of the costs.
Personally, I prefer to keep the "moral lens" on because I'd like to hope that people are altruistic enough to give back in other ways. This case is similar when you're driving and you're trying to make a turn onto a crowded lane, and one person decides to be kind and let you go ahead. This kind action from a stranger might encourage you to give back by doing the same to someone else by letting them pass, thus continuing a cycle of positive actions.
First, let me say that when I was your age the living arrangement were different. Kitchen and bath were common facilities. The apartment was private - my first year I had a roommate, the second year I had a single. I seem to recall cheating on the common stuff. In particular, a physics grad student used to bake a lot of stuff and I would eat some of it (without his permission). But then we'd play tennis, where I was a good player and he was not, so that would be some form of reciprocation. The real point of the story is that reciprocation doesn't have to occur in the same dimension as the original gift. And quite often, efficiency dictates that it should happen that way. So you might consider whether rotating through tasks makes sense on efficiency grounds or not. It probably makes sense the most when everyone really dislikes the activity. Then it is a fair way to share the burden. If however some people actually enjoy doing some of the tasks, then equal division of labor per task may not make sense.
ReplyDeleteThe other issue that you might have considered in this piece is how friendly you were with your roommates before and whether such arrangements are best done with very close friends or not. I will say on this point that when I did go to grad school and had the option of having roommates, I opted for a single. I presume one reason to share with four others is overall cost. If that wasn't on the table, would there still be roommates. If so, how would it impact the situation?
So sorry for the late response. I've been jumbled up with so many assignments and exams in the past week that it completely slipped my mind with responding to your comment here. I only realized I forgot as I was going through my previous posts.
DeleteI think we've taken on the routine where certain tasks are done by different people just because that's what's convenient for them. For example, one particular roommate does the dishwasher and puts the dishes away because she cooks the most and she's the earliest to get up, so it's convenient for her to put the dishes away so they're available for the start of the day.
My roommates and I aren't as close as other roommates might be but our system works just because of the convenience of it. We all chose to live together because sharing between the three of us is more cost effective than living on our own. We also have same personalities, we're pretty quiet and tidy and don't have guests often. We're friendly and we get along but we're not super close and involved in each other's lives. So this type of relationship works for us because it satisfies our living requirements.
My advice is to always share your expectations because people act in different ways. I currently have a similar example as I live in a suite, but share bathroom with one other girl. At the beginning of the semester, I bought bathroom suppliers like tissue paper and air freshener. I didn't mind using my money to buy it because I expected my roommate to the same when the items finished. She didn't, I guess she was expecting me to again. I had to speak to her about it and she said that she prefers if we split the cost equally. I was expecting her to automatically reciprocate by buying the next time. As I familiarize myself more with the topic of gift exchange, I have realized that I don't always have to get what I give as some acts are not rewarded with reciprocation.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of expectations also applies in organizations as B&D's chapter 5 explains one of the six characteristics of high quality teams. "It states that high performing teams translates common purpose into specific, measurable performance goals". That is, if a team does not establish goals, then team members become confused. This could have been the case with both of our roommate. My roommate had told me that she thought I wanted to be responsible for buying bathroom suppliers since I didn't ask her for her share. Most times, it is better to be in the same page to avoid uncertainty.
I was also reading professor Arvan's comment on your post, and I found a piece he said interesting. He states that "rotating tasks equally does not always improve efficiency. I immediately applied this concept to group projects because some people. For example, in a group, one can have students that likes figuring maths calculations while prefers to read and write papers. If we try to share the work load equally, and assign people tasks they do not like, there might potentially be a problem of inefficiency. To be an efficient group members, we have to play to each other's strengths. I believe that is something we don't easily identify with until we start working with others and learning our strengths.