Changing Culture of the Team

[teamcrash]

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.

[Liam Fay]

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.

[falconmaster]

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

[OccamzRazor]

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).

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by OccamzRazor

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).

Great answer!

[connor.worley]

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.

[Dancin103]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

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.

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

[mcouture]

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.

[teamcrash]

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.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by teamcrash

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.

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.

[Ed Law]

There are many excellent suggestions already. I do want to add my perspective on this to may be help you and others in similar situation.
The chaos you are describing points to the failure of the team. Nobody should point fingers to who is at fault because it is the team's fault for allowing this to happen in the first place.
An FRC team is just like any organization. It must have a business plan that spells out the vision and mission, goals, organization structure, job description and responsibilities, contingency plans etc. This is the only way that the whole team will move in the same direction instead of in-fighting. There should also be no us versus them, students versus mentors etc. You are all part of the team and working side by side.
The next important thing is to have one effective leader, a CEO / coach or whatever name you want to use. This leader's job is to follow the business plan and take the team to systematically achieve the team's short and long term goals. There should be no personal agenda. A good leader will listen to all ideas, and make a timely decision to move the team forward. A team cannot afford to have too many cooks in the kitchen and allow any adult mentors or parents or student leader to change the course. The leader needs to make the final decision. A good leader also knows he/she cannot be the bottleneck so some delegations will be healthy and necessary.
Besides one leader, there are many ways to organize a team. Every team is different. Learn from other successful teams and find a structure that works best for you. It should be clear to everybody that the leader/coach and mentors are there to help the students and the team to succeed.
You have also expressed concern about selecting the right student leader. I will share with you how my old team does this. At the end of the season, graduating senior team captains propose a list of possible candidates that they feel is best for the team. Rising juniors and seniors indicate their interest to be a team captain to the team leader. We use a decision matrix approach. We list all the criteria/qualities. The importance of these qualities may change from year to year depending on what the team leader feel the team’s need is the following year. Then the team leader will consult with mentors who have worked directly with the candidates and also consult the current team captains to get their input. All candidates will be ranked on each of the qualities. Then you multiply the score with the importance and get the sum. This will usually narrow down to only a handful of candidates. We also take into consideration on balancing skills and maintaining gender ratio. It has worked well for us. It is a process we follow to be as objective as possible. This is an example of a process that can be documented in the team handbook so it will be followed in the future. This also prevents a new person coming in and completely changes how things are done.
You have also expressed disappointment of a previous year robot. Somebody else already addressed this. Design is also a process. If the whole team was part of that process and had regular review of the progress, then the robot is your team’s robot so not one person or group should be blamed for its outcome.
I can go on and on. PM me if you would like me to give any other suggestions.

[Road Rash]

^ Ed above is very wise along with a lot of other good information in this thread by others.

Your team is being severely mismanaged. One of the things I would do is try to find a mentor that is good at business management to try to set things back in order.

Changing a culture that has fallen apart is going to be a difficult task for the entire team. It can be done and I wish you luck.

[anontestasd]

I am fairly certain that I am also a member of this team. A lot of the issues that OP has described are correct, but I feel like this is important to put into perspective (or at least my perspective as a student).

This year has by far been the worst in terms of team cohesiveness and unity. Last year, our robot was quite good in fact, and while we didn't place too high anywhere, our officer team was pretty well functioning. The mentors were often very unhelpful and derogatory; the general political climate was frayed; however, the students who were in charge were pretty solid, with a few non-functioning officers.

I believe that a lot of issues arose with the choice of officers this year. Our president was quite poor (should never have been chosen), and eventually resigned mid season after receiving a college acceptance. We had other resignations as well prior to that (something that has never occurred before on the team).

Furthermore, there was one student in particular who was not allowed on the team due to school rules that caused a lot of drama and seriously messed with the way our build season was progressing. A lot of the screenshotting and even bullying was instigated by him.

Overall, the mentors may have their hearts in the right place, but a combination of team staleness and a few students screwing things up has led to this state (which the OP described well).

[teamcrashrev]

Yeah, your analysis isn't really helpful or accurate. Same team, and we'd actually say that the OP didn't go far enough. The 'one student' was more of a victim than some evil bully... and I have no idea how he "messed with build". The mentors caused a lot of people a lot of pain... there are a bunch of people ready to leave and start their own thing, and it doesn't look like this will get better.

[FWinter]

Originally Posted by teamcrash

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.

So that only those who already have team experience are voting, perhaps do your leadership election at the end of the season prior to the one in which they will lead, the way many sports teams elect captains. So, for example, elect next year's leaders sometime soon. (This may not work this year while in the middle of an overhaul).

Originally Posted by teamcrash

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.

As others have suggested, get a school administrator on your side.
In addition you and your teammates could write a team handbook that puts policies in place. This will likely have pushback, but if there are things that the mentors want (like an attendance policy or something), give it to them to get what you want (like reasonable limits on their power).

I'm also curious, do you know why Alumni are allowed to have a say in current leadership? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but maybe your team has a good reason.