Where's the Gracious Professionalism?

[KevinG]

Gracious Professionalism is about building up the quality of work, emphasizing the value of others, and respecting individuals and the community. It's about building things up, not tearing them down. But at the same time it's not about platitudes or sugar coating issues. I spent the entire weekend inspecting robots and telling people what they did wrong (hooray robot inspection!), but I then told them how to fix it. Probably one of my best experiences this weekend was working with a rookie team, going over the inspection process with them, and then ensuring that they passed by helping them make the necessary changes.

Giving honest (and IMO deserved) criticism about the way things are done is an essential part of GP, and the game is not free from that. There's a major difference between saying "the refs suck!" and "this game is impossible for people to referee perfectly." This year's game was poorly implemented and people have a right to complain about it. It's impossible to expect people to not be disappointed when the final match of their season is lost because a ref missed a possession (which is what happened to my team). There's no lesson to be learned when something like that happens; everybody already knows life isn't fair.

That said, GP is about how you respond to that adversity. In our case the team came together and talked about how we felt. We agreed on the game, let it go, and then focused on what we did well. There was a lot of improvement to consider between this year and last year, and I believe we'll continue that direction in 2015. IMO that's how GP is supposed to work.