First, let me start off by saying, that for as long as I can remember, I have had a rather negative view of group projects. From an early age, I’ve always wanted to do things by myself. I wanted things done the way I wanted them done, and who better to do them but myself? As a twin, I grew up wanting to be separate from my sister, so at times I can see that my need/desire to be independent is one of my faults. Needless to say, I understand that business is all about working in groups, and I have hoped that in the future, my pessimism regarding working in groups with other people will change.
Unfortunately, that time has not yet come.
I will try to be civil, as I have a reputation of being blunt, and occasionally rude when I talk about other people. So please bear in mind that I am trying to be not only politically correct, but constructively critical.
When we left last Friday’s BBL session, I had the emails of three other people in my group. One person hadn’t showup that day, so were already down in numbers, with only 4/5 people in communication. Soon after I got back, maybe a day or so after, I sent out a mass email asking when would be a good time that everyone could meet up so we could discuss the types of people we want to get for both events, how we are going to ask them, etc.
Only one person replied to my email.
And thank goodness for her, because I had expected that I was going to be doing the outline/write-up/action plan all on my own, but I was completely dreading it. But, we met up on Tuesday, and had a very efficient, hour long session in which we typed up our plans for the group. But, we were all alone, out of our five person group, so you can see why my frustration was building. I sent out the document to the other members of my group via email, finding that fifth person who hadn’t showed up on Friday, and sending it to him as well. Did I do these things because I am a group-loving person and I believe in sharing my work so that all can benefit? Honestly, no. I did it because it wouldn’t benefit me to keep the rest of the group members in the dark, even though I was clearly flexible enough to include them on our endeavors. I like pairings, because it’s just one other person to align yourself with, which is why it worked with that one other group member; but I really don’t think groups work very well when you don’t know the other members. I’m not saying that it wasn’t inevitable that we would all be randomly put together, but maybe, if we could have chosen who we wanted to be with, there would be more communication.
Communication, accountability, and commitment are the three things I believe my group will have difficulty with. To this day, I still haven’t gotten any replies from any of the other group members, despite having sent them a new email with the work we did. And that is frustrating to me more than one would think. I don’t like it when other benefit from my hard work; not only do I get nothing out of that, they ALSO get the glory and reward from my careful planning. If I wanted to continue carrying other people through higher-education, I would have stayed in high-school. I’m tired of being the only dependable person when it comes to groups, which is why I dislike them. Give me a group I can work with, then we can talk. And I’m not saying that all group work is categorically bad, I’m just more familiar with the bad because I’ve almost never experienced the ‘perfect’ group. I think our group will struggle with action; every member on Friday were on board with the emailing and finding another day to get together before the next Friday sessions, but none but one followed through. The fact that I don’t know them prohibits my ability to track them down or pester them about getting with the picture; I want full participation because the outcome will be better. That’s what group projects are all about, right? That one person can’t do it on their own? Well, I’ve had the mindset, for a pretty long time now, that I can do it by myself. And I know that personally, I need to get over that, because one person cannot accomplish everything; but the fact that it’s been my go-to for almost every situation, not to mention that it’s worked, leads me to believe that I don’t need to change.
But being a business leader is all about change.
So that will be my cross to carry.
How do I think I can address these faults?
This Friday, I’ll bring a hard copy of our plans, get everyone on the same page, and then maybe we can all get our shit together.
As for out action plan, I’ll simplify it a little bit. We had kind of talked to the presentations team last Friday, so we based our plan on that quick exchange of ideas to get a basic outline. Some things may no longer be valid since the presentations team came out with their outline after ours. And we kind of go hand in hand.
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Week In Term |
Done by this date for Professional Workshop |
Done by this date for Networking Event |
| Week 4 – 2/1 |
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| Week 5 – 2/8 |
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| Week 6 – 2/15 |
Professional Workshop
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9-10:50am
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| Week 7 – 2/22 |
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| Week 8 – 3/1 |
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| Week 9 – 3/8 Event TBD |
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– Ro