The institutionalization of FRC teams, and the toxicity it creates

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Your post does not reflect a team mentality, but rather an individualistic mentality. Family ties and politics has no place in a drive team. Personality clashes only happen when individuals are thinking about themself and NOT the team. In my opinion, a team-first mentality is the key to a successful team. When individuals sacrifice self for the greater good of the team, things are accomplished and work gets done.

And... referring to "too big to fail" is usually an indicator that people have become "comfortable", and have stopped innovating, trying new things, and pushing the barrier.

I think you would have been more accurate OP if you had said your team is now more focused on its status than actual accomplishment. This creates entitlement without work ethic, which is doomed to fail.

Above all other factors, I prefer my team to be the hardest working and the smartest working. A team that thinks smart not hard and has an unmatched work ethic is dangerous.

[unpopularideas]

I can relate. having an anonymous account can be very helpful in discussing topics such as these. In my team the problem is mentors picking favorites and treating them as such. Our new CEO has little leadership qualities, and was picked because she can be controlled by mentors. Everyone on my team knows who the favorites are. Everyone on my team knows that the 3-4 favorites can (and have) kick people off of the team for disagreeing with them. There are too many cliches to count. From a personal stand point, its no longer a team. It's a few members of the elite controlling everyone else on threat of termination from the team. Unfortunately, if I want to participate in FIRST, this team is my only one in my area.

Another thing I've noticed on my own team, and I wanted to see if you guys have noticed anything similar on your own teams - girls run the show. They can easily knock anyone on the team off of it. In addition, they are in charge of programming, engineering, scouting, leadership, drive team and safety. So all of the guys on the team are left either cleaning continually or having ideas shot down for the pure fact that the girls consider their ideas better. For example, in 2015, a bunch of guys got together, and modeled in CAD and proto-typed internal stacking with a HP Station robot (Sort of like 148's Batman and Robin) and it was shot down in favor of an external, landfill stacker (Not to say all of those robots were ineffective). If FIRST is really about letting the next generation get a hands on experience in STEM, then why are we sitting here trying so desperately to help, only to be shot down by the favorites.

Just my take on it.

[Alan Anderson]

I have opinions, anecdotes, and potential suggestions regarding the topic.

I will not share them in a thread based on an anonymous post.

[jtrv]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I have opinions, anecdotes, and potential suggestions regarding the topic.

I will not share them in a thread based on an anonymous post.

Then why make a reply in the first place..?

OT: I think you need to come up with what you want and expect out of FRC. You seem to want to be a good team, but you also want students to learn. Now, these are in absolutely no way mutually exclusive. You have to very carefully balance participating to win and participating to teach. If there are faults somewhere (robot, code, anything), talk about them. Don't leave an elephant in the room. Make sure your students know that if they make a mistake, it's okay, and talking about it isn't a personal attack (if parents need to be told this, then tell them too). This is all I feel comfortable / knowledgeable about regarding this topic, but I hope you can get some help out of it.

[WorldOfRobots]

OP: I think you need to come up with what you want and expect out of FRC. You seem to want to be a good team, but you also want students to learn. Now, these are in absolutely no way mutually exclusive. You have to very carefully balance participating to win and participating to teach. If there are faults somewhere (robot, code, anything), talk about them. Don't leave an elephant in the room. Make sure your students know that if they make a mistake, it's okay, and talking about it isn't a personal attack (if parents need to be told this, then tell them too). This is all I feel comfortable / knowledgeable about regarding this topic, but I hope you can get some help out of it.

I'm no longer a member(I was a student) of this team, I may need to edit my post to make that clear. I'm a current alumni, working with FTC teams instead. I've declined the offer to mentor the team that this post is about. I didn't feel like this was mentor over-participation, which is a whole desperate issue, but not the one I encountered.

Thank you for your advice, though.

[jtrv]

Originally Posted by WorldOfRobots

I'm no longer a member(I was a student) of this team, I may need to edit my post to make that clear. I'm a current alumni, working with FTC teams instead. I've declined the offer to mentor the team that this post is about. I didn't feel like this was mentor over-participation, which is a whole desperate issue, but not the one I encountered.

Thank you for your advice, though.

I see now. Yes, you should edit your post to reflect this information, I got the vibe that you are a mentor of the team and still involved.

[WorldOfRobots]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I have opinions, anecdotes, and potential suggestions regarding the topic.

I will not share them in a thread based on an anonymous post.

I will be happy to talk with you privately, if you wish. I made this post in an attempt to talk respectfully about a problem that I see as fairly common in FIRST, and look for a solution to it that could be embedded in FIRST culture. I did not wish to do that by pointing fingers, and insulting teams.

All I want is a civil discussion, and, like I said, if you message me directly, I will be happy to tell you more specifics.

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I have opinions, anecdotes, and potential suggestions regarding the topic.

I will not share them in a thread based on an anonymous post.

While I understand your concern about the OP specifically, any thoughts you might wish to share could be helpful for other teams struggling with the same issues, or teams who might one day find themselves there and can look back on this thread in the archives.

[WorldOfRobots]

Originally Posted by unpopularideas

In my team the problem is mentors picking favorites and treating them as such... Unfortunately, if I want to participate in FIRST, this team is my only one in my area.

I can't say that I've seen favoritism on my former team, but rather decisions made based on the team's "legacy", rather than on common sense, or what would be most conductive to winning.

Have you looked into starting an FTC team? I did FTC and FRC concurrently for three years, and honestly, the FTC team was a better overall experience. There's not as much money, or as much prestige, but FTC is growing rapidly, and there's less politics among fewer people.

[Jon Stratis]

FIRST is not about the robot, and it's also not about the team. Those are just two of the tools we use to do what FIRST is about: inspiration.

Every team goes through periods where they have conflicting personalities. Every team has to deal with "helicopter parents" that want to push their kid into positions others may be better suited for. It happens, and it's up to the team leadership (both student and adult leadership) to figure out how to handle those situations. The best way is to focus on developing your internal operations and procedures so they don't allow those types of negative situations.

As odd as it sounds, a focus on the team can be a powerful tool for improving individual outcomes. A winning team is one that can gather more members, more interest, and more dedication, if winning is handled by the team leadership properly. Challenging your students to make an impact on the team, to leave it better off than when they joined, or to start something that will continue on past their time with the team does two things - it helps to continuously drive the team forward, and it helps the students develop their creativity and leadership skills in whichever way they want.

Ultimately, it comes down to how the team leadership steers the team. The student leaders can steer the short term, and are an important part of the equation, but it's the mentor leadership that steers the long term view. If you find you can't agree with how the team leadership is steering the team, and you can't change it, then it's better for your personal health to leave and find someplace more conducive to your way of thinking.

There are many different ways to run a team, and there is no one "right" way.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

As odd as it sounds, a focus on the team can be a powerful tool for improving individual outcomes. A winning team is one that can gather more members, more interest, and more dedication, if winning is handled by the team leadership properly. Challenging your students to make an impact on the team, to leave it better off than when they joined, or to start something that will continue on past their time with the team does two things - it helps to continuously drive the team forward, and it helps the students develop their creativity and leadership skills in whichever way they want.

This paragraph effectively summarizes why I believe FRC is such a powerful platform.

Well put.

-Mike

[jweston]

Originally Posted by WorldOfRobots

The team was no longer about the students, or even about robots. It was about the TEAM, for the sake of the team. There was all this political maneuvering going on behind the scenes, people on the drive team because of their parents, not talking about poor design decisions for the fear of upsetting people.

This is something that crops up frequently for FRC teams. It's something with which our own team grapples. I agree with Zebra_Fact_Man and IKE in this is not about the team, but about egos.

It takes courage and a deft touch from leadership to keep strong egos in check. Those are some of the most important qualities to have in a coach. When egos aren't kept in check, the atmosphere does become toxic.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by unpopularideas

...snip... Everyone on my team knows who the favorites are. Everyone on my team knows that the 3-4 favorites can (and have) kick people off of the team for disagreeing with them. There are too many cliches to count. ...snip...
Another thing I've noticed on my own team, and I wanted to see if you guys have noticed anything similar on your own teams - girls run the show. They can easily knock anyone on the team off of it. In addition, they are in charge of programming, engineering, scouting, leadership, drive team and safety. ...snip...If FIRST is really about letting the next generation get a hands on experience in STEM, then why are we sitting here trying so desperately to help, only to be shot down by the favorites.

Just my take on it.

I work with a lot of teams (100+ teams each year), and while favoritism or perceived favoritism is often found, having exclusively female leadership on a mixed team is still fairly rare, and having that exclusively female leadership being that controlling/punitive as you describe would be an even rarer subset.

Female leadership on teams though is much less rare now than it was just a decade ago so I suspect this will be a more frequent occurrence.

As far as ideas getting shot down by "the leaders", that happens all the time. Even really good ideas may be shot down because they would require more resources than leadership can offer, or the strategy may be deemed lower value, or the group generating the idea did a really bad job explaining it. I too had thought of a Batman/Robin style approach in 2015, and my presentation was so unremarkable to the group choosing design direction that they didn't even remember when 148s video was shown. I did not push it hard as I did not think the team had the design resources to pull it off that year. We discussed this briefly after 148s reveal came out, but regrouped to focus on the teams robot.

Inner groups and favoritism do often form and cause problems. Sometimes this is because the "favorites" spend the most time. Sometimes it is because they behave the best. Sometimes there are other forms of favoritism (nepotism, sexism, cronyism) at play. Most mentors try not to play favorites, but it happens similarly to HS sports teams. Unfortunately, this is a real occurrence.
I am not trying to "blame the victim", but it is often worthwhile to do a self assessment to ensure you are not doing a lot of off-putting behaviors. If you come up with some, work on those. Also, ask if you can have a discussion with mentors about taking a larger/more important role with the team. Ask what they are looking for in their leaders and how you could demonstrate. You could try to have a conversation about favoritism, but often this can lead to confrontational discussion that may not be beneficial.

[nrgy_blast]

Originally Posted by IKE

*snip* Inner groups and favoritism do often form and cause problems. Sometimes this is because the "favorites" spend the most time. Sometimes it is because they behave the best. Sometimes there are other forms of favoritism (nepotism, sexism, cronyism) at play. Most mentors try not to play favorites, but it happens similarly to HS sports teams. Unfortunately, this is a real occurrence.
I am not trying to "blame the victim", but it is often worthwhile to do a self assessment to ensure you are not doing a lot of off-putting behaviors. *snip*

We had a student join our team that came from another team, complained about the things the other team did to limit his participation, focused on things he didn't want to focus on - made it sound like our team was a better fit. We accepted him on our team. By the end of the season it was very apparent that it was not the other team that was the problem.... Sometimes personal reflection can go a long way into resolving 'other people's problems'.

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by IKE

Inner groups and favoritism do often form and cause problems. Sometimes this is because the "favorites" spend the most time. Sometimes it is because they behave the best. Sometimes there are other forms of favoritism (nepotism, sexism, cronyism) at play. Most mentors try not to play favorites, but it happens similarly to HS sports teams. Unfortunately, this is a real occurrence.
I am not trying to "blame the victim", but it is often worthwhile to do a self assessment to ensure you are not doing a lot of off-putting behaviors. If you come up with some, work on those. Also, ask if you can have a discussion with mentors about taking a larger/more important role with the team. Ask what they are looking for in their leaders and how you could demonstrate. You could try to have a conversation about favoritism, but often this can lead to confrontational discussion that may not be beneficial.

I see your points about favoritism, but the fact that the girls seem to run the entire show, to the point where they are flat-out removing people from the team who disagree with them, leads me to believe that this team has taken the "inclusion of women in STEM" concept in the entire wrong direction. It certainly sounds like the boys are putting a considerable effort into contributing to the team only to be ignored, and such a significant split between "favorites" and "everyone else" is something I consider unacceptable. If it were me on this team, I would gather up the "everyone else"s to make a plan to confront the people who are apparently controlling the team. After all, you can only kick off so many people before it stops being a team. Just my speculation.