FAHA: Mentor + Team problems

[Bharat Nain]

Sometimes, you work extremely hard and you feel like your team has not treated you right. This First-a-holic is having a hard time with his/her team's mentor as they put him/her down at numerous occasions. How can you help make him/her feel better and deal with the situation?

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So I'm a two year veteran and a senior this year. For the past two years we have had a relatively small core team. For one of our sub groups I was a leader. I was in charge and looked up to by most of the mentors and engineers at anything related to my field.

At one of our recent meetings, our team mentor looked me in the eye as if he was disappointed with me. Later on another date I walked in late due to an extra curricular activity. Although I was ten minutes late he made a semi-big deal out of it. Then another student came in a few minutes later and he joked about him. After that he told me move but spoke nothing to any of the other veterans who were goofing around and emphasized how much that they were leaders. This really hurt me especially after everything I have done for my team, for once I wanted to rip my name from the team and disassociate myself with the name, logo, and number. Than after a while he talked about leadership on teams. There are only a few main veterans including me on this years team. Knowing that I have been a leader for my group and have worked more for my team than any of the others, he looked at me and called me out as "not a leader." Last year I spent a deal of time being the "go-to" guy and learning everything so that when the team had a question I had an answer. At that I worked so hard for the team I ended up failing some of my classes (careless of me) and ended up spending nights researching and talking to engineers about problems and how to solve them. I also took the initiative to sign up for the FIRST Blast because I knew our team leader last year was not very "into it" and did not share information with the team except his friends. Even more than that I have tried to change my teams reputation by talking to people and being friendly.

I am not a popular kid but I do my best to try and help out and behind the scenes I have done more work on paper and more work by pure effort and dedication that the others combined. After his speech and his looks of disgust towards me I no longer feel like I want to be apart of my district's robotics team. I have always been an outcast-ish person but I have overcome that on many occasions, specifically through robotics, to be more people friendly and more helpful but people don't give me a chance.

These combinations of veteran students on the team not supporting me but rather putting me down as well as this mentor making me feel lower than a piece of dirt makes me feel as if I don't want to be apart of robotics and the team I am on. This is the kind of person you can't really "talk" to and it crushes me that due to the fact that I am very enthusiastic about robotics and now due to the negative support I'm receiving from the team I might end up quitting Robotics and everything all together.

I'll give him another shot but give me advice please. I will try to talk to him and stuff but please shine some light on shadow that is covering up my life.

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FIRST-a-holic Anonymous mailbox is a place to share your concern and frustration about your FIRST experience anonymously. It is the perfect place if you just want someone to listen, or ask for advice when you don’t know what to do. Submit your letters today at the FIRST-a-holic anonymous mailbox forum. If you wish to respond to this thread anonymously, please PM Beth or Bharat with your response and thread title.

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[Cynette]

Very long response alert!

Oh my. It almost sounds like something happened or someone said something to the mentor about you that has the mentor sending off all of the negative signals. Can you think of some interchange or some way that you demonstrated poor leadership or decision-making that would have had a negative impact on the team? Or do you truly have no clue why it seems he is out to get you?

You are in one of those vicious cycles…the mentor is being negative, which allows the other veteran students to be negative toward you which make you act negatively toward all of them which leads the mentor…you get the idea. But now the cycle needs to be broken and it is up to you.

So first of all – you are not wrong in having these concerns. I have a big problem with any adult in any group that says things that any student perceives as demeaning and with the intent to lower a student’s self esteem. Not even in fun. Never. There is no reason for any activity where you give your time to ever leave you with those feelings. Especially not FIRST robotics. That defeats the meaning of the I for Inspiration.

What can you do?
Direct Contact – unfortunately the best recommendation I can give is for you to ask the mentor to find a time to talk to you.
(Aside: You say he is not the kind that is easy to talk to. You are specifically calling him a mentor, which means to me non-teacher. If he is a member of a technical community then his lack of approachability is a trait that he needs to work on and is one of the best things FIRST can teach a mentor – how to be able to communicate positively about non-technical issues. And yes, that is from personal experience.)
Plan ahead to suggest a neutral location (coffee shop, local park) and have specific times available. If he suggests – right now, in the hall… tell him that you really need a separate time and place so that you are not taking away from team time.
Write down your thoughts. Rewrite them to put them in as positive of a light as possible. Example: instead of saying “I need to know why you hate me” say something like “I can tell that something as happened so that you don’t think I deserve to be considered a team leader anymore, and I really need your help to get that back.” Or “I really love Robotics and the team and think I have a lot to offer, but I’m getting the feeling that you don’t think I’m an asset to the team." Make a list of the ways you thought you benefited the team last year and so far this year. Make a list of your goals for this year and how you can help or need help with them.

Indirect Contact 1 – Is there a teacher, other advisor or adult you can go to? Someone who can counsel you, and intervene if necessary? Use the same positive approach as above.

Indirect Contact 2 – Can you confer with any of the other students? Approach one or two at the most and the ones whom you feel would be the least confrontational. – Ask if they know why the mentor seems to have such a negative impression of you. If they say “oh, you know,” make sure they know that you don’t know. Ask for advice on how you can get along better with the other students. Ask if they have any ideas on team building activities that the whole team can do to bring all of the students together.

Non-contact – You alone. Take off your negative hat and put on your “life is good” hat. Don't have one of those? Go get it! Find your sense of humor and your internal voice that is saying over an over “I’m a cool kid, I have a lot to add to the team.” Come in to the team meetings with a positive attitude. Ignore the bad vibes like they aren’t there. Volunteer when you can help. Be a leader in attitude and in action and don’t worry about the acknowledgement. Find good things to do behind the scenes. Are you a writer? Document some of the team’s activities, lessons learned from the past year, progress toward goals. That always comes in handy for preparing chairman’s essays. And here is a big – go out on a limb – idea, write a WFA essay for your current mentor. Seek out all of the positive impacts he has had our your team. (Get input from other team members). If you are writing something positive about someone, it will be way easier to think positively about him or her.

Oh dear… I can go on…but someone else can take it from here.

[Bharat Nain]

The following is an anonymous response.

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Dear Anonymous,

“God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

At one time or another, almost every one of us has experienced what you say is happening with you. We all get dirty looks, treated unfairly, and our efforts go unappreciated. What separates self esteem and contentment from anguish and despair is how each of us deals with it. For some it rolls like water off a duck, while others get their feelings crushed.

You are at an age when it’s time to decide where you fit in. Are you going to let them get you down, or will you accept the things you cannot change?

It’s all a matter of perception. Sometimes a dirty look is like a baby’s smile, not really an emotion, but caused by gas. What matters is that you know you are a “go-to” guy. What doesn’t matter is what you think you know about what others think of you.

So, the best that you can do is all that you can do. If others fail to notice, then that’s their failure, not yours. If others are arrogant and self centered, then that’s their hang-up, not yours.

Do not try so hard to please them. Please yourself instead.


Regards,
Old enough to know the difference.

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FIRST-a-holic Anonymous mailbox is a place to share your concern and frustration about your FIRST experience anonymously. It is the perfect place if you just want someone to listen, or ask for advice when you don’t know what to do. Submit your letters today at the FIRST-a-holic anonymous mailbox forum. If you wish to respond to this thread anonymously, please PM Beth or Bharat with your response and thread title.

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[JaneYoung]

It may be time to do some self assessment.

Not in the manner of - I do this for the team - but in the manner of - how do I conduct myself? How do I present my ideas? How do I enter a meeting that is already in process? How do I conduct myself in other aspects of my life - school, student groups, with friends and family, in my job?

Leadership isn't something that is picked up and put down as a tool. To me, leadership is the engine. Tools such as wisdom, encouragement, knowledge and how they are used - are what keeps the engine humming, running smoothly. The lubricants are humility, respect, friendliness, support.

In leadership, you aren't necessarily just leading others, you are leading yourself as well.

The immediate thought is what FIRST asks of mentors and of students. To work together. To find ways to work together. A good mentor always wants to train, to share knowledge, to help the student develop and grow. To inspire. For this to happen, the student has to be receptive, open to learning what the mentor is trying to teach/role model. Often, students and mentors are bridging the gaps of generations, eras of development, cultures, educational backgrounds, personality differences, and tiredness.

Assess your self and what you have contributed to the situation that has brought you to this point. Think about it. Ask your mentor for an opportunity to discuss where you have come to a cross in the road and see how best to get back on track and centered.