What Is Social Loafing? Keep the size of small group conversations to 3 or 4 participants

20 years ago or so, when I first started running my Knowledge Cafés, I noticed that as the size of small groups increased, fewer people actively participated in the conversation.

As a result, I began to limit the size of small group conversations to no more than five participants.

Later on, I discovered that this phenomenon had a name: social loafing. I have written more about social loafing and how to mitigate it in my blook on Conversational Leadership.