Quote:
Originally Posted by marshall
How do teams deal with senior burnout? Strictly, I mean students who have been on the team for 2/3 years and make commitments to do a lot in their 4th year (either as student leaders or otherwise) but then fail to live up to the expectations they helped to set for themselves and for the team? They end up with the dreaded senior-itis and end up contributing very little to the team.
I'm curious how other teams deal with this issue.
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We really approach it two ways. First, we're very explicit with our expectations for every student. It's easy to go into a season thinking "well, she's been on the team for three years, she knows what to do", but if you do that then they probably won't live up to your internalized expectations. So, make it a habit to lay out all expectations as early as possible, spending more time with the people in higher leadership roles (which will tend to be your seniors!). Then reinforce that as the year progresses. It always comes back to communication!
The second way is to plan ahead for some senioritis. I try to position my seniors, as much as possible, in support roles - they essentially become a second layer of mentors for the team. Their job is to show up and pass on what they have learned, not to do everything themselves. We always have juniors and/ or sophomores in there helping to lead and get things done. I believe our design team (something new we're trying this year) has 1 senior, 2 juniors, 1 sophomore, and 1 freshman (although the freshman has really been involved with the team for 2 years already). Our subteam leaders are all sophomores and juniors. One of our co-captain's is a junior. Yes, senioritis can hit us, and yes having an experienced senior mentally check out early hurts, but if you organize your team to be constantly building Talent instead of relying on the ones about to graduate, then new people will be ready to step up when you need them to. You just have to support that and keep the team members from clashing over leadership when the people with senioritis see "their positions" being "usurped".