IRI Rule Changes - 2012

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

And now I am going to shift gears a bit - there is a fine line you have to draw between offering constructive advice and encouragement to other teams from a position of an active, well-resourced program and entering the realm of the mildly condescending.

The manner in which you deliver advice can be a turnoff to your intended audience, if it is done in a relentless, in your face fashion. I personally have had to learn this more times than I care to count, and I'm still learning. Less is sometimes more.

I will chime in a bit in Bryan's defense (although I will agree that he does offer 'relentless' advice ) :
Bryan is very passionate about FRC and our team. Part of the reason he comes off the way he does is because during his time on the Killer Bees, we went through a very difficult period in our team history. The economic challenges which hit our sponsoring companies and this region of our country effectively removed about 90% of our team income in the fall of 2008. This very easily could have destroyed us. Instead of allowing this to happen, we decided that we had to change our approach to almost everything we do. Before this, in retrospect, we were lazy. Now we set goals and targets for everthing we want to do and then figure out how to achieve the results we desire. The results of our efforts over the last 4 years have been amazing (these were Bryan's 4 years on the team, so it is all he knows) and these results have come as the outcome of relentless commitment to success. This is a year-round effort for us. A lot of this drive has come from me and a few other leaders on my team, and I do push this pretty hard, so not surprisingly, it rubs off on some of our students.

All I can say is that if I had 40 students as determined as Bryan, I cannot imagine how much more we could accomplish. (BTW, my company just hired him ). Despite near going bankrupt in the recent past, today our team has more money, more mentors, more students, more ability and more measurable success than we ever had in the past. Our plan is simple:
1. Decide what you want.
2. Determine what resources you have.
3. Define what you will do.
4. Repeat incrementaly until you can achieve your goals.

All of this is a bit off topic for this IRI Rules thread, other than to say that if you want or need to make changes to be competitive at the IRI, the is key to commit to acting on this desire, and then make a plan to do it.