Changing Culture of the Team
 

Hello CD,
I am posting from an anonymous account so as not to reveal the identity of my team.

I have participated in 4 years of FRC, and in that time I've been witness to the decline of my team. We are a student-run team, and a very old and large one at that. Throughout our history we would field pretty good robots (10s and 20s seeding) and from what I hear from the alumni, we worked together and had better culture. Even in 2013 (my rookie year), it was not so bad- we could stick to a schedule, field a good robot, and overall the team was respectful to each other. The officers respected each other even when they did not agree, and although a few of the mentors were a little overbearing it was not unreasonable.

But 2014 and onwards, the team culture and atmosphere went way down. We fielded a terrible robot in 2014, the worst in team history. Prototyping was useless, the CAD broke (this was only the 2nd year we used it), and machining was slow. We bad-mouthed good teams ("mentor built" and all that), we lost all sense of strategy, the leadership couldn't keep us to a schedule and we did not bother to learn anything in the offseason prior. 2015 had drastically increased build quality but only because the CADders and machinists had improved, but the culture kept going downhill. People left because they didn't feel like they were doing anything (which they were unable to due to bad management). The mentors said that we should fix the team, but gave no advice on how to do it, or help with leading.

Then we reached an all-time low: screenshotting. Students now screenshot each others' conversations prolifically; nothing said via chat or email is private anymore. If you want to talk about sensitive material it has to be in person, which is often hard to set up due to school. Now students regularly bad-mouth each other via chat, those chats are shared with the person being bad-mouthed, and the whole leadership team hates each other.

As I said in the beginning, we are "student-run". But it stopped being true after 2014. Students manage other students, but have no power to make decisions on the team. If we want to make something, we have to have a full design review with all the "mentors". The reason that "mentors" is in quotes is because most of them are just parents who walk in knowing nothing about design. We waste days preparing for these things that only very infrequently provide good feedback, even from our own mentors (who lack FRC engineering experience). Then the mentors disparage students for poor design decisions, despite not actually helping them during the design process.
We recently had our post-season postmortem, and it was a trash fire. It opened with alumni and adults who barely showed up to help disparaging the leaders running it for not having a complete enough schedule (they had a more general one). Then the "mentors" just disrespected the schedule we had- they spent an hour talking about team communication and how it was the students' faults we screwed up (despite mentor involvement destroying the schedule we had). We were supposed to start with the regional we last went to, then talk about the season chronologically, but the first thing the adults made sure we did was change the schedule. The leaders had no recourse to deny them because to do so would be seen as disrespectful and lead to being chewed out later. They interrupted students when they tried to get a word in edgewise, did not raise hands or ask permission before speaking (as the students did) and would talk amongst themselves and snicker while students spoke. And then they brought up how they don't want to be a mentor-run team and made "mentors build the robot" comments, which was really ironic given the way they treated the students. We came out of the postmortem feeling like nothing was accomplished.

And to cap it all off, there is no way to convey any concerns to the mentors or alumni. There's a huge gap between the status of students and mentors. Any adult can get a vote in the officer selection committee, while only the HS seniors who are officers get a vote (this has led to poor officer selections in the past). Students are not allowed to name the robot. They cannot organize the tools how they want to. If any adult asks a student (officer or not) to do something, it has to be done. Students are fearful to even raise concerns because they don't feel safe talking to any of the adults. I've tried to get the students to talk to them before but it's never worked. I even went to the administration once but could not accomplish anything because the other students would not jeopardize their future officerships.

Some students want to start a new team just to get away from the toxic atmosphere and get new mentors- we are actually blacklisted by some of the local FIRSTers as possible mentoring material because the existing mentors have a reputation for chasing out new ones (and old ones, for that matter).

So, my question is: what can we do? Should we try going to the administration again? Stop doing FRC for a bit? Form a group and talk to the mentors (I dislike this one particularly because it has had negative effects in the past and would make the kids who participate sacrifice their political futures on the team)? Some of the mentors who have left have told me that dissolving the team for a couple years and restarting with new mentors would be the best bet, but I don't want them to lose the sponsors and resources they have now. I want to move to a mentor-run or at least an openly student-mentor partnership rather than the paper-tiger student run we have now.
Thank you for any suggestions you have.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

This is a tough situation. Obviously, you need SOME sort of overhaul, but who or what could do that seems unclear.

There are many resources online concerning team structure and organization. Many successful and long-lasting teams have been able to prosper as they have because of their strong leadership.

What I'd recommend is first making sure that your whole team can get on the same page in recognizing and identifying the problem. Next, I'd say to send a group of students (juniors and sophomores, those likely to be leaders next year) to another local team to learn from their successes.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

I feel for you and you are in a very bad position.
I have no way of being able to understand the dynamics of your team and every team is different. All I have is your account and based on that account I can offer a few possible solutions.


1. All students should get to vote for officers, or there will not be complete buy in. Adult mentors may or may not vote depends on your team dynamics
2. There should only be one adult mentor who is the "leader", the face of the mentors, so to speak. They should maintain the goals of the team which should be fun and learning, winning should not be a goal, it is a by product. The leader is responsible for the emotional health of the team as well as making sure that the team goals are maintained in a manner that compliments FIRST's Values. Too many cooks in the kitchen make a bad meal. This leader is ultimately responsible for what the team is. Where you find good teams, you will see one adult leader that stands out.
3. Create team standards for not only students but mentors as well. Mentors should not be able to just walk in.... there should be a process by which the mentor is selected and monitored. This again is the responsibility of the lead adult.
4. Lead adult makes all decisions with student offers. All communication about all team functions, financial, logistical, etc... should be communicated between the student officers and the lead adult. It should be transparent. Major issues should be taken to the team as a whole, presented and voted upon.
5. All team issues are communicated through group email so all can see
6. No disparaging comments or screen shoting, set guidlines for proper communication.
7. Unfortunately the thing you fear is probably what you really need to get all this in place and that is another meeting with the whole team and mentors as well as administration. The goal of the meeting to is correct problems or issues not pick or blame, that wont accomplish anything but get people mad or hurt.
8. You might reach out to a local team that you feel is running well and ask them to sit in on the meeting and give examples of what they do...
9. Lower team expectations about winning for a year to get everything functioning again
10. sounds like you need many team building activities not just for the students but the mentors as well. Movies, parties, hiking, camping etc....
(movie suggestions, Hoosiers, Breaking Away, McFarland, Spare Parts, Rudy, Blind side, October Sky, Tucker, Sea Biscuit)

Far be it from me to be an expert, these are just some of the things that popped into mind after reading what you wrote....Good luck

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

I sent you a pm, but it sounds a lot like mob rule in place on your current team. Instead of voting officers and making it a popularity contest, have them apply to their positions like a job with professional mentors making the decision on who to appoint as that student leader.

The adult leadership will work together better with a parallel student leadership chosen by a board of professionals than a student leadership voted on by the entire team (many of which who will not have leadership qualities).

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

Great answer!

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

With all of the mistrust and apparent antagonizing, I think the first thing you need to do is remember you're a team.

When you start out saying "student run," I don't think that label helps at all and really doesn't mean anything. Adult mentor-volunteers don't like to be told that you're in charge of them. So stop that. You all run it. You're a team. Not student run, not mentor run.

My next advice is you need planning. You have to plan who will do what jobs and by when. You have to plan how decisions will be made. And the plans need to be written down so there'll be no question when the time comes.

If you can't get CAD done, just do the important parts. If you can get students trained in CAD, no bigee--plenty of 'bots are build without it.

You probably need some democratic procedures to decide things so everyone will be included and expect what's coming before decisions are made. "We'll choose which regional to go to this way..." can be written down.

And I recommend you let your mentors know that you don't feel like your input is being incorporated. Democracy doesn't always work, but its important that everyone is at least listened to.

You mentioned that you had a bad robot in 2014. Bad robots happen. But you need a procedure where you can't blame each other for it. When you design the robot, you need to be all together. You need a process to pick the design of the robot that relies on fact and testing, not on one or two people (student run?) telling the rest what to do. Then you all hold hands and jump off the bridge together, hoping for the best.

If something fails badly, you discuss and agree and fix as much as you can.
You don't give up. And never mention that that other concept would've been better. You fix what you have. Mostly. Not many ways you can completely redesign after bag day.

You're all concerned about screen shots and privacy, but I believe being up-front, honest and in the open is way more helpful to your team. There is nothing I've ever said on my team that if someone 'screenshotted' it I'd be embarrassed about or have to back-pedal on. If you're all talking about each other behind backs, not GP.

So there's no value in blaming, private criticism, turf wars and decision dictators. You need to leave those things. If you have some unhappy people on the team--mentors or students--then they need to find out what they want out of the experience and work to make everyone get more of what they want. I think 'taking a year off' will kill any team, I don't recommend it.

As for officer selection, I don't think younger kids really need a say in this as they don't have the history in front of them...you're not having a popularity contest. Leaders rise, you don't have to pick them. Usually its pretty obvious who the leaders need to be.

We're not building robots here, we're building people. That's the focus. I don't care if your 'bot wins. I'm here to turn you onto STEM people. I want to turn you into successful people. I want to enjoy my time as a mentor and I want my fellow mentors to also.

You're at the first step--you care.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

Why are random parents running your team? Is there a teacher at the school helping to run the program? Please talk to them about it. It sounds like some dedicated mentors could help form a better culture within the student leadership but the people involved right now sound completely unqualified.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

Falconmaster covered a lot of the key points. A few others that come to mind:

The #1 problem right now (based on what you wrote) is trust. Team members should not feel the need to vent about other team members to third party team members very often. When they do, they need to know it's going to be in confidence. If you don't lick that problem, you'll never fix the others, either.

While your change may come from the "grass roots" (and that's probably the best place for this to start, with an off-site meeting of current juniors and sophomores and a few others), you have to have top cover (from your head coach/lead mentor/school administration) for your leadership structure to stick. Creating a team manual would likely be a useful tool for this process (though it is neither essential nor sufficient).

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

All of the above replies are very good. I'm going to go in a bit of a different direction.

I think that you need to reach out to people in your area for help. You can find RD's, Senior Mentors, and VISTAs here.

I completely understand why you feel the need to post anonymously on Chief Delphi. It's a bit like cruising WebMD when you think you're sick. The much more difficult thing to do (at least for me), is to actually face the problem in person and go to the doctor. They may not tell you what you want to hear. They will tell you what you need to hear.

I think that someone external to the team who has experience with teams that operate in many different fashions could come in and help.

Good luck!

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

^ Best Advice

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

If you're in the NorCal area, we'd be happy to help!

PM me if interested, we're invested in seeing FRC teams (especially local ones) thrive!

-Mike

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

This was my exact first thought. You need to draft a plan of action to help your team get back on track, and this is one big step of many to doing so. Colin listed some great resources as well.

It seems like your team would greatly benefit from having a dedicated teacher running the team, but a dedicated teacher that will come in and say "this is how we are doing things from here on out" and not slide back into some of the "nonsense".

Keep us posted and please let us know how else we can advise you.


Peace
CBJ

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

There are some good ideas posted here already. Clearly you are describing a crisis scenario, one where neither "side" is willing to yield and listen to ideas from the other. Unfortunately, this is a result of leadership, or lack thereof. I don't intend to disparage whoever is at the head of your organization, but the buck does in fact stop there. Some leaders simply haven't thought much about the importance of leadership or considered what their strengths and weaknesses are and how that affects the team. The good news is that it is not impossible to overcome the problems you are all facing.

My suggestion is come together for (you guessed it) one more meeting. Only this time, it is with specific purpose and can be brief, but everyone must be there. You can refer to the meeting as a State of The Team meeting if you like. The purpose of the meeting is to accomplish something which both sides can likely agree on:
1) Recognize the crisis. Call it what it is. Agree that it is failing all parties.
2) Agree that it is absolutely necessary to find a constructive path to resolution.
3) Commit to allowing a third party to facilitate a series of meetings (as necessary) designed to map out new team guidelines that everyone can support and abide by.

It will be necessary that the third party is someone who is not part of the team, someone not associated with the students or mentors. This person will guide the process toward building a team that everyone can find reason to support and be excited to be a part of. This person may or may not have FIRST experience, but they will know how to conduct a meeting between the factions of your team. This goes way beyond simply spending more time together.

One of the outcomes of this will also be to define and identify the leadership needs of the team as well as the responsibility of leadership. This sometimes takes times, after all, poor leadership is what allowed the team to get where you are.

Understand that this will be a challenge to all parties and that there is a chance that an individual may discover he or she isn't going to be compatible with the new team and dismissal will be necessary. That's okay, your team will be stronger for it.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

Thank you all so much for the suggestions, they have really opened my eyes as to what we can do. We'll contact our local regional director and look into meeting with the administration and mentors. Apart from that, I need to start talking to other members to see what we want to do from this thread.
The main thing I'm worried about is that the base mentors don't seem to think anything needs to change about them, but I'll see what we can do otherwise.

I do want to clarify a bit about the officer selection:
Students apply for the positions at the end of the previous year, with a resume and cover letter. They then go into an interview with the panel of people who'll be voting, which is made up of any mentors or alumni and officers who are seniors. The thing I am worried about right now is that students who are incompetent are elevated to high positions because they do well in the interview, and most of the people voting (some officers included) are not familiar with the applicant. I'm hearing both "total democracy" and "senior mentor vote" ideas, and again I need to talk to my team about where we want to go on that. I do agree that we don't need freshmen voting, but I do want to incorporate input from the people the officers will be leading somehow so we don't end up with incompetent leaders.

We do have a teacher sponsor/mentor, so to speak, but they only show up on kickoff, stop build, officer selections, and away events where a school faculty member must be present.

EDIT: One of my team members brought up an important point: how do we make things change? These are great suggestions but the more I look at them the more pushback I can think of from the mentors.

Re: Changing Culture of the Team
 

1. Make sure that your school's administration is present and open to hearing what you have to say. In the end, their goal is probably just going to be to end the conflict on your team. If they think that you are just coming in to complain with no good reason, they are probably just going to side with the mentors and treat the meeting as a session to try and calm you guys down. If they think that you have thought through what you are presenting and actually have good goals in mind, they will be more likely to try and end the conflict with a mutual agreement.

2. Make sure you have a clear goal in mind. Making the argument that everything is just bad because the team isn't happy probably won't get you anywhere. Before you go into the meeting, you need to decide what your team's goals are. Typically, for a FRC team, the 2 main goals are to inspire students to pursue a career in STEM and create a culture that embraces science and technology within your community. Some teams will have slightly different goals though, so its up to you to decide. A more concrete goal to talk about is building up a sustainable program that can eventually win the chairman's award (if you haven't already of course). Talking about building competitive robots isn't necessarily bad; the competition aspect of FRC is extremely important. But winning competitions isn't usually a good goal to talk about with the administration if you are trying to get them to approve of sweeping changes.

3. Come in with ways in which the team is specifically holding itself back from achieving those goals, and suggestions on how to improve. People normally aren't receptive if you are just complaining about the problem. They like to hear specific ways in which they could fix it.