[IKE]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Go for it, Ike. Teach us.

Jane

Don't say I didn't warn you....
****************************
If you are trying to get someone to change, then you have to have answers for some questions:

Influencer talks about targeting 6 key aspects:
Personal Motivation
-Overcome Reluctance and Resistance by Connecting with Values

Personal Ability
-New behaviours require new skills. Overinvest in how to master skills and emotions.

Social Motivation
-Enlist Leaders, Partner with Opinion Leaders, and become a Leader Yourself

Social Ability
-Amplify Influence through Just in Time Teamwork

Structural Motivation
-Modestly and Intelligently reward early success. Punish only when necessary.

Structural Ability
-Using Environment to Support New Behaviours

This is a really good read that talks about some of the difficulties of erradicating dangerous or unwanted behaviours.

************************************************** **
This thread is basically a call to action for the Social Motivation and Structural Motivation. Enlist opinion leaders, Punish unwanted behaviours. What it is not covering is Modestly and Intelligently rewarding early successes.
I would argue that in many cases telling someone they are wrong will be significantly less effective than embracing that group and engaging them. If you just berate the behaviours, then at best you will convince them to change. This will be a change due to fear of persecution rather than a change of willfully wanting to change. More than likely, you will actually may make a stronger foe now with justified reasons. There are a few teams in the area that have a rather low opinion of a great team I personally have a ton of respect for. I talk with their team leads on a regular basis about what their processes are like, and what we do. When negative talk comes up about the great team, I often ask where did that information come from? I explain that hasn't been my experiences with the team, and then sight specific positive interactions I have had versus the second stories they have been told. It is still a work in progress, but it is work that is progressing.
*****************************************
Another really good tool to use the anecdote that relates to that behaviour. The "i once felt the same way as you" is a very effective means of Personal Motivation and Personal Ability. Instead of directly telling someone they are wrong, sharing an anecdote of when you were a "hater" or how you have dealt with jealousy in the past in both negative and positive manners. Showcase how the positive jealousy response improved the situation and how the negative response did not.

There are a lot of great examples in this thread. The anecdote is powerful because it explains your motivation to make a change, and that you were able to do it.

*************************************
Another key aspect that we are getting here in Michigan is some Structural Motiviation, and Structural Ability.

If you are "moderate to low resource" team in the rest of FRC, you typically only go to 1 event. Going to 1 event does a couple things. It adds a lot of pressure to your performance and expectations. You have spent a lot of time, money, and effort to compete at this 1 event only to have your hopes and dreams shattered due to XYZ failure. When you look across the pits you see a team that rises above those issues and kicks your butt. What you don't know is they have already had those issues and fixed them.
The XYZ failure also gives you an excuse why you weren't better. If we hadn't had XYZ break, then we would have been really awesome. Of course we had a kid do XYZ, so we are better by having the kid do XYZ and it fail, then to have mentors make the same part/code, and it not fail. In reality it has very little to "who" did XYZ, and is more of a matter of when and how XYZ got tested and fixed (Build week 4, build week 6, on the practice field, in compeition...). Good teams break their season enders before they compete. They learned this by competing at multiple events and broke things at the first event, fixed them at the second, did better, and then vowed to test/break it before their first event next year.
Here, because every team has 2 events, this gets rid of the excuse, and you have to prove it. Yes teams still have a lot of trouble at their first event, but almost everybody improves by their second. Because of this, they have a better appreciation of what it takes to be really good. This has been an underlying "personal motivation" adopted by many teams to get better. They also have a better understanding of the difference between really good, and Great. Any team can be really good with modest resources, hard work, and SMART work. Greatness is much more difficult. Greatness does require more resources (than modest). These resources include experience, funds, and contacts mostly.
I cannot think of a great team that competes at only 1 regional. There are several good ones, but I cannot think of a single Great one.

The district sturcutre also has more events which allow for more teams to share in a win. There are certain regions that would be excessively difficult to compete in. Michigan was one of these. Even with 3 events, the same teams always took the top spots. Now with 9 events, there is more sharing. There are 27 event winner slots. There are 9 District Chairman's award slots.

The district structure is not a cure to this issue, but I do believe it helps quite a bit with the structural motivation and ability aspects.

Other Structural Ability/Motivational items would include teaming with young teams. Both rookies and other young teams. The Jealousy response is quite prevalent throughout all of humanity, so just assume it will be a natural response. Through partnerships and mentoring, you can work against these natural tendencies. You can also help make the teams stronger. Which reduces the jealousy potential.

***********************************************

The key to change is strict adherence to covering all 6 categories.

***********************************************
The reason I compare it to the "guinea worm", is the guinea work is a painful plague that has been around for a long time. The worm causes painful sores on the limbs that can only be soothed in developing countries by submersing yourself in water. Once in the water, the sores release tihe microscopic larvae into the villages water supply, and thus infect others, and so the cycle continues.

The comments made that originated this thread are a plague as well. Rookie teams tend to start out appreciate role model teams and the assistance that team may have given them. The assistance goes away (usually to support a different rookie), and the team is left on their own. The pain of not doing well is frequently soothed by mentors or parents explaining the reason that team is better is because the mentors do everything. This infects the students and spreads like the guinea worm among their team. Within a year or two, the plague matures into taunts, boos, and bullying statements. This is overheard by others. Some know to get away from that sort of behaviour, but others are infected. And so the cycle repeats. This isn't helped when teams that have a fair amount of success look down at other teams. Yes, it does happen that way too.

Please note, I am not saying that student-"only" teams are the plague. They are cool in my book. Teams that look down on other teams are the plague. This comes from any and all directions (up, down, left, and right).