The other day I was talking to my oldest, high school age, nephew about working on group projects in school. Although there’s a bit of an age range between us, he described his group project experiences to be very similar to the group project experiences I had in high school. There was always at least one student who did nothing, another one who partially participated, and one or two who did most of the work.
That setup does not work well in the workplace because your colleagues do not want to pick up your slack, and your employer could possibly give you a poor evaluation or terminate you because of your lack of participation. Prepare to excel in group projects well before college and when you get into your career field.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, has his or her own particular strength. The leader of the group, which is usually obvious in the beginning of the process, should get each member of the group to write down what part of the project interests him or her most. If the interest in each person is identified, that’s usually also that person’s strength. People want to work on things they are good at doing.
Let each person create their own task list for their portion of the project. Set a deadline for the entire group to get together and present that task. These two simple steps will get the project completed without some people participating and others not.
In the workplace, everyone must participate. Employers notice if someone is slacking and who is apt to take the lead role in group projects. Practice being a good team leader now, so you’ll be an excellent team leader in the future.
Tonight, Lee Runchey, a very special guest is joining The Collegiate Career Coach from 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. EST. Click on http://www.ustream.tv/channel/create-the-career-of-your-dreams-phenomenon. For all of my Twitter users, you can access the show at http://ustre.am/hSvC. All guests will be able to type in to chat live during the entire show.
Runchey, a now successful publicist in LA, will talk to us about a time two years ago her and her mother were caught in the middle of a police shootout at a Detroit grocery store. This experience motivated her to pack up her car and follow her dream career.
Despite the hardships of the economy, Runchey landed a job with a PR firm that has represented 58 Oscar Winners since 1983.
Currently, Runchey is now working, for the second time, on Michael Moore’s film festival and recently won the Bulldog award (The Oscar of the PR industry) for best arts and entertainment campaign for the 2009 North American KISS tour. KISS is kicking off their 2010 North American tour in four weeks.
Join Lee Runchey and the Collegiate Career Coach tonight for a motivational and inspirational online discussion.
I recently overheard a work oriented conflict at the spa the other day. The coordinator of the spa was telling the owner that there was a conflict because the employees felt like it was unfair that they had to attend a meeting at the spa on a day it was normally closed.
The owner immediately got defensive and said, “Well, they are going to have to come whether they want to or not.”
As a business owner myself, I know that it’s sometimes difficult when someone does not agree with your plans or your ideas. Sometimes it’s just simply that a particular person doesn’t see the vision you have for your business. But when things are forced upon people, they usually show resistance. Let’s face it…no one like to be told what to do.
I thought about a possible solution. If the owner and the coordinator sat down with each employee and allowed them to give input, they would probably feel more included and want to be more productive. It might seem that this technique is putting all of the power in the hands of the employees. But it’s not. It’s creating a productive work environment where everyone is happy and everyone wants to participate because they felt included.
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