The institutionalization of FRC teams, and the toxicity it creates

[ajdoming]

Originally Posted by WorldOfRobots

To answer some of your points, I do understand that family ties have no place in a drive team. This wasn't a decision by a parent, which at least would have made sense, but rather a choice made FOR political reasons, by mentors with no students of their own, because they didn't want to offend parent who were helping to fund/sponsor the team.

Speaking generally, (as I have no specific insight on your situation) I have been a part of leadership/position decisions (not necessarily in FIRST) that have been perceived by some as 'political' for one reason or another and it honestly hurts a little to get that feedback when so much effort was put into making the best decision based on the criteria.

The best solution I've found, from the organizational perspective, is to have well defined and well communicated criteria (as quantitative as possible, which isn't always easy) for any role that is decided by team leaders.

What I have learned, specific to FIRST and to my team, is that singling out individual students for roles becomes very difficult when you have so many incredibly capable individuals. This is a problem I am more than happy to have.