How do you organize your team?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by NoodleKnight

Hi,

Lately our team has been a whole mess, due to many reasons. We've managed to organize a leadership system -- one main leader and two sub-leaders. Now, I'm not a leader, but our leader isn't on CD so: as the kick-off day inches closer and closer, our team has been panicing over fundraising enough money to pay for our second regional and for the build season, as well as trying to organize the sub-groups, and so forth.

Basically, the problem is that no one wants to cooperate or do any fundraising "work." Our sub-leaders don't do anything, whether they're ordered or not, and when they go to the meetings, they basically act like they know what they're saying by reiterating what our leader or mentors say. Add to that, when they do agree to do something, they usually forget about doing it the next day, and when the next meeting comes around, they come empty-handed.
Our team is open to anyone to join, even those from local schools who don't have a robotics team, in result we have a pretty large team. Of the entire team, there are only about 4 people who actually work, while the rest just sit around. Of those four people, they are: the leader, a senior who has just joined the team, an 8th grader who's brother is on the team, and myself.
Just like the sub-leaders, they are assigned a task, and usually forget about it. And might I add, trying to persuade them to accept a job isn't very easy. After some force, most people agree, except for one person, who basically "ruins everything." Our leader hates him because he refuses to do any work, he simply ignores anything assigned to him. He also acts like he knows everything on the robot (even though he's a rookie), and usually manages to break A LOT of things.
Now, I'm not saying its that bad, people do step up and volunteer to do work, the problem is that there isn't enough of it. What's even worse is that because we are a team, for those four people who actually do something, they'll have to suffer the consequenses due to the lazyness of the rest of the team.
Lastly, our team meetings go something like this: meeting begins, one point is mentioned, mentors talk for 50% of the meeting, everyone argues for another 40% of the meeting, then the last 10% is dead silence when we ask for volunteers to fundraise.

What I'm asking is, has this happened to your team? How do you solve it?
Or even better: how do you motivate the rest of the team?

Thanks,
-Jonathan

First, you need to take care of this before the season begins because your team is rotting from the inside out.
You need to make members accountable for their actions and earn their keep. If they want to travel, they need to get to work and help the team otherwise keep walking.
Weed out undesirables who place themselves before the team and you need a more stringent interview process of who is and who is not allowed on your team. Just taking anyone who shows up at your door sets you up for allowing people who put your team in it's current state.
You may need to revamp your leadership team. It sounds like they are not looking out for what is best for the team. At the very least they should be made aware that you are not satisfied with the direction the team is heading.
Lastly, you need to make your teammates take fund raising seriously. Make it part of the qualification process to travel (we do). We have a star chart that kids are held to strictly for the right to travel and we make sure they know from the get go how serious it is. You need this on your team. If they don't like it, too bad. FIRST is fun but it is also work and discipline is required to maintain order on a team. Without chaos rules and the team could fall apart. Just remember your team's future is at stake so you need to implement changes to secure your teams future.
Good luck.