Contents
Representatives of 18 households sit together in a mud-brick house. It is December 1978, in the village of Xiaogang in Fengyang County, Anhui Province. One of them, Yan Hongchang, writes out a contract by the light of an oil lamp. The men press their fingerprints beneath it. What they are agreeing to is forbidden – and it will change the agriculture of an entire country. The story illustrates the Team Principle of Effort: where individual contributions disappear into the group, effort declines.
Where Even a Straw Belongs to the Group
Situation
Xiaogang is part of a people’s commune. Everything belongs to the collective. The farmer Yan Jingchang later said that even a single straw belonged to the group. Work is done together, and everything is shared out equally. Those who work hard get as much as those who don’t – that is how the farmers describe it in a report by the US broadcaster NPR. The village is desperately poor. In the famine of around 1958 to 1960, a large share of its inhabitants is said to have died; the figures are uncertain.
Connection to the team principle
The farmers of Xiaogang were not lazy. They lived in a system in which their own contribution never made it back to them. Whether a man hoed more or less, it made no difference to what he and his family got. His contribution vanished into the common pot. Under such conditions, effort declines – not among bad people, but among ordinary ones.
A Contract in a Bamboo Tube
Situation
The 18 households agree that the land will be divided among the families. Each family delivers its required quota to the state and the collective. Whatever it grows beyond that, it keeps. The signatories know what they are risking. They promise one another that if any of them is executed or imprisoned for this, the others will raise his children until they turn 18. Yan Hongchang hides the sheet of paper in a bamboo tube in the roof of his house.
Connection to the team principle
The contract changes neither the people nor the soil. It changes how output is attributed. From now on, it is clear what a family has produced, and the result goes to that family. The second half is remarkable: the same people who give up the common field take on the greatest obligation imaginable toward one another. They do not stop being a community. They simply make each person’s contribution visible.
The Harvest Gives Them Away
Situation
In 1979, by all accounts, the harvest is larger than those of the previous five years combined. The quantities cited vary considerably from source to source; the reported jump in per capita income – from about 22 to roughly 400 yuan – should also be taken as approximate. It is the very success that gives the secret away. Yan Hongchang is put under pressure at the party office. In spring 1979, the county party secretary lets things take their course.
Connection to the team principle
The same people, the same soil, many times the yield. Real life rarely comes closer to an experiment than this. Still, caution is needed: the numbers come from a story that later became an official success narrative. The direction is certain; the magnitude is not.
From Village to Nation
Situation
In 1980 the provincial leader Wan Li visits the village and praises the farmers. That same year, Deng Xiaoping throws his weight behind household farming. By 1983 collective agriculture has been abandoned nationwide in favor of what is called the household responsibility system. According to one of the sources, agricultural output rises by almost half between 1978 and 1987. Xiaogang itself later falls behind: in 2003, income there is below the national average. Today the village has a memorial museum.
Connection to the team principle
An honest reading includes two points. First, visible contribution raises effort, but it does not bring lasting prosperity – the fact that Xiaogang later fell behind shows as much. Second, the lesson is not “every man for himself instead of working together.” A meta-analysis by Yvonne Garbers and Udo Konradt (2014) finds that team bonuses do work on average, especially when they are distributed according to contribution. What matters is not whether rewards are shared. What matters is whether individuals can still see their own share in the result.
Key takeaways
Key Lessons
- Check whether anyone in your team notices when one person puts in extra effort – and whether it changes anything for that person.
- When effort is weak, look for the cause in the system first, not in people’s character. The farmers of Xiaogang were the same people before and after the contract.
- Make contributions attributable without dissolving the community. Clear responsibility for a “field of one’s own” and mutual obligation are not mutually exclusive.
- Expect visibility to give you a boost, not a miracle. It does not solve every problem.
Summary
In Xiaogang, everything belonged to everyone, and individual effort never made it back to the individual. Eighteen households secretly divided up the land, vouched for one another with a promise to raise each other’s children – and the following year harvested many times as much. The exact figures are uncertain; the direction is not. The Team Principle of Effort sums up what happened there: where individual contributions disappear into the group, effort declines. Where they become visible again, it returns.