Let's Put the Professionalism back in Gracious Professionalism

FIRST General Forum
1

I want to talk about Gracious Professionalism. Mainly I want to talk about Professionalism and how it is being somewhat overlooked in the name of being Gracious.

Gracious Professionalism is not blindly agreeing with the organization of FIRST. Speaking well of FIRST may be gracious but speaking without thinking for yourself about the topic at hand it is grossly unprofessional. Internal criticism of FIRST, both before and after any plan is executed, is both healthy and necessary for the organization to function and improve.

This post has been anonymously coauthored. I tell you this to illustrate how the atmosphere of fear of counter-criticism is negatively impacting FIRST. It is a sad day when people are nervous to post a post asking people to be professional and think critically. I do not blame FIRST employees for this mentality. The issue comes from the droves of people who love FIRST to the point that they can not bear to hear other people speak ill of it. I ask you, for the good of this organization, to hear these voices in an objective professional manner as they might provide valuable insights.

There are absolutely unprofessional ways of criticizing something but that doesn’t make criticism inherently unprofessional. Which side of a debate a post falls on does not determine how graciously professional the statement itself is. A polite, respectful, well thought out, factually based argument that the owner is capable of admitting the faults in seems far more important.

Considering yourself Graciously Professional is not a carte blanche for you to judge people and their ideas. Dismissing another person and their ideas because you have found a label, judged them by it, and found them not to fit is grossly unprofessional no matter what the name of that label is. The professional response is to instead consider these people’s arguments and, if you disagree, to debate them point for point with logic and facts.

There are many ungracious posts on this forum. They are generally whiny, insulting, or both. This behavior is generally caught and the author receives negative reputation marks or comments asking him/her to modify future behavior.

There are also many unprofessional posts on this forum. They tend to be lacking in facts, research, original thinking, a spine, or some combination of the above. Many of them are in vague praise of FIRST or reprimanding somebody who the author believe has spoken ill of FIRST. These posts are generally at best ignored and occasionally actually rewarded. Don’t get me wrong, FIRST is wonderful and I frankly haven’t got the words to express how the program has changed my life for the better, but those facts don’t constitute a counter-argument in a debate.

The ability to act as a professional in the adult world is one of the most important gifts FIRST gives to the students. Everybody, and I mean everybody in this organization from a freshman on a rookie team to the members of the GDC, must work to uphold this standard in order us to properly be able to give it to the next generation of FIRSTers.

I honestly feel that it is high time we began considering the act of being unprofessional as great a fault as being ungracious.

2

I’m not quite understanding this post/thread.

To begin with, I don’t understand how this post is anonymously coauthored. Katy has posted this/started this thread and Katy is the one who will receive the responses.

The second thought that comes to mind is that this is obviously a post that has some concerns but I don’t understand what the concerns are. There are generalities but no specifics that I can grasp and that may be why I’m somewhat confused.

Jane

3

Katy,

I definitely agree with what you’ve said here. Critical evaluation is absolutely necessary for any organization to thrive and grow. If we want the FIRST program to continue to grow, there needs to be room for discussion about the “hard questions” of where the organization is going. This is not to say that we should have an open free-for-all to bash FIRST - that would be neither productive nor professional. What we need is to maintain a professional attitude while discussing our thoughts about what’s going on - negative and positive (and there’s a lot of positive things going on!).

I would hope that everyone can read and consider this. FIRST is about changing the culture… and as they say, change starts at home. Let’s have some positive change here in our online home.

-Jeff

4

I agree in full, as other people I have talked to in private in the FIRST community. My signature says it all and supports your statement.

5

Let me see if I can help sharpen your concerns:

Is there a concern that any criticism of FIRST is generally viewed as being either ungracious or unprofessional?

If so, then let me offer this.

It is easier to criticize than to create. FIRST may get things 99% right and some people will “whine” about the 1% that isn’t quite right. Depending how that criticism is offered, it can be ungracious/unprofessional or consistent with GP.

FIRST as an organization is quite responsive to constructive criticism. This sort of customer feedback allows the program to improve. People who blindly side with FIRST (believing them to be totally infallible in their judgments) are not ungracious, perhaps they are unprofessional (or more likely, inexperienced).

Why do we see updates to the Game Manual? It’s because all of the possibilities of the rules haven’t been tested. Pointing out flaws in the rules will improve the game. So, offering criticism can be a very good thing.

How flaws are called out is important, let’s use a real example. Just saying “<G36> is stupid” is both ungracious and unprofessional. Saying “<G36> s*cks because it doesn’t allow teams to remove their Trackballs from the opponent’s overpass without incurring a penalty,” is not gracious, but at least offers an explanation of the issue and therefore is more professional. Saying “the game will be better if <G36> were eliminated” is perhaps gracious, but not professional. The gracious and professional way to offer the criticism is to say: “<G36> should be changed because it does not allow teams to remove their Trackball without incurring a penalty.” BTW, in the first update, <G36> was deleted.

If you just complain about something you don’t like and you don’t offer an alternative solution, your not helping. That sort of behavior is not GP and needs to be put in check.

6

First, to Katy: THANK YOU for bringing this topic up. Nothing can be improved if we don’t know what to improve upon. Stating grievances/problems/concerns/issues in a professional, level-headed, unbiased manner, should, in my opinion, be encouraged and applauded- not attacked. A negative comment may be directed at you/your team/whatever, but that doesn’t mean you should take it as an insult. It’s constructive criticism. It is something to improve upon. The best companies ask the people who work for them what to improve on. Members of CD and the FIRST community, I should hope we are not afraid to voice our concerns to the world.

Second, to Jane: [to be read in an explanatory tone, not offended]

In terms of the anonymous co-author-ing, as I read it, it meant that someone sent a message to Katy that proposed the issue, asking her to post it since she was a senior member, and they were a junior member afraid of getting slammed. As for co-authoring, my guess would be that Katy added a little to it. At least that’s how I interpreted it.

I interpreted the post as intending to be a general discussion about how people are afraid to post their concerns. A possible reason that we can’t find any specifics is that there are no specifics (because members are afraid to post them). I’m sure some are somewhere, though…

7

It’s not the complaints about the “not quite right” 1% that bother me. Even if they aren’t presented in a “professional” manner, they usually prompt reasonably lucid debate about appropriate changes. No, what gets me is complaints about the 20% of the things that cannot possibly satisfy everyone because of conflicting goals. A small bit of critical thinking ought to determine that to be the real cause of the problem. Rather than whining that this or that goal isn’t being met, it would help to focus attention on getting the goals to more closely align instead.

Being professional means doing things right. Being gracious means doing the right thing. They complement each other perfectly. But I think we should remember to use GP as a guide for our own behavior, not as a yardstick to measure others’ shortcomings.

8

I fully agree and have been correctly accused of every instance of the original post on various occasions. The cohesion necessary for the varieties of situations of FIRST FRC teams to exist in the same realm takes tremendous effort to set forth, and I believe FIRST generally has a well-rounded framework to allow for it. Some teams have everything funded; some scrape the community and KOP for all they’re worth. Some teams have vast ambitions with mentoring resources; others have a couple of teachers with a few students. All of these teams have an opinion, yet I’m not so sure of the effect their voice has.

All of these teams are also affected by any nitpicky technicality in the plethora of data there is to assimilate, and it’s easy for many of us to forget that as we argue here on CD. It’s extremely difficult to remember every detail of every rule and every update, and every [insert random usfirst.org link here] posted on the website. Then on top of that, teams have to build a bot. It’s easy to get lost in the data and confused by misinterpretations or unrealised links in the rules. Bad assumptions also play a large role in arguments and many times it’s hard to see how to break the news to the arguer without losing GP in either respect. If all of that wasn’t enough, the growth of FRC teams each year means there is an exponential increase in the amount of opinions and available experience for all of us to discuss.

I’m glad Katy has put this on her shoulders and I support it; though support from my stance right now is the mere conjectures and opinions within these words. The question is, how to do you point out non-GP behavior without lacking GP yourself? I’ve witnessed several non GP situations at competitions in the last 2 years – some stem from frustration about a bot and its expectations while others stem from overcompetitiveness. Still others stem from interpretations and the underlying stubbornness of engineers that FIRST forgets to inform students of. In one FSU* students are expected to trust their creativeness somehow amongst [sometimes] overzealous mentors and pressure to succeed with their bot and school. Inherently, it’s hard to tell where to draw the line between GP and trusting your creativity in these situations: if every suggestion is ignored, every attempt failed or every word choice incorrect it is next to impossible to believe you can take another risk at being stubborn while contributing to a discussion or argument. In person or on CD, it’s easy to open your mouth without thinking twice to denounce such a situation or thought. I’ve done it and I’m sure 99% of the rest of us have too. Where do we go forward from here?

*FSU = FIRST Standard Unit, = 6.5 weeks of building, if you were at VCU listening to Dave

9

The best way I can think of is to concentrate on the goal rather than the shortfall. Try not to wag a finger and say “Don’t do that.” Give some incentive for the behavior to change for the better, and say “Do that.” The details will be completely different for each situation, of course, and some people are by nature better at it than others, but we need to keep in mind what we’re trying to promote.

10

A lot of people are responding about GP, posts on these forums, etc, all of which are relevant, but a broader issue came to my mind when I read Katy’s post:

FIRST doesn’t seem to foster an attitude of openness.

What do I mean by that? In technology, for example, think…“open standards”, “open architectures”, etc. Think…a generally cooperative attitude of letting people offer input on your stuff, and letting your stuff work with other people’s stuff, so that the world at large is better off.

Sometimes I think FIRST gets so caught up in being FIRST, it loses sight of its own goals.

The stated vision is to create “a world where science and technology are celebrated”, but sometimes it seems more like they are trying to create “a world where FIRST is celebrated”. Sometimes it seems as though the mission to “inspire young people to be science and technology leaders”, has become a mission to “inspire everyone to be FIRST marketeers”.

And truthfully, that’s not that bad. FIRST is a good thing.

However, there are plenty of other good things out there too…but god help you if you mention any of them at a FIRST event/forum/whatever, you’re likely to be chastised as if you just ran over someone’s kitten. Not an attitude of openness.

And it’s similar if you openly criticize some of FIRST’s decisions and practices, though thankfully there are a few (very few, it seems) official channels/forums for this to take place, where this is handled more gracefully. But in general, it seems to be “FIRST’s way or the highway”.

You can’t please all of the people all of the time…but you can listen to them, and work with them, and consider that maybe your way isn’t necessarily the best way, and realize that it’s alright if there are people other than you and yours out there furthering your own goals.

Again, FIRST is great, truly great.

But it seems to me that some folks have gotten so caught up in FIRST for FIRST’s sake, that they have forgotten FIRST’s goals…

11

msd,without quoting every single word you said, let me say I agree entirely with your opinion.

this is what I have to contribute to this debate:
When browsing the ChiefDelphi portal I sometimes spot a thread with a title that criticizes FIRST. I can tell that the person is going to get slammed pretty hard by pretty much everyone. I am never wrong about it.

and that is pretty sad in my opinion.

I think that for many people FIRST has risen to a state of “religion” (for lack of a better term) where there is an axiom that guides their attitude towards FIRST: “FIRST is flawless”.

I am very close to this but since i’m still relatively new to FIRST (only 2 years on a team, 1 year as volunteer and 1 year as a mentor), I do not believe my thoughts about FIRST have matured enough for me to completely understand all upsides and downsides of FIRST.

-Leav

12

So is this a discussion of the members of CD being critical of people who post in CD?

Or is this a discussion of how FIRST operates?

Or is this a discussion regarding being critical in general?

When I read threads, I often find the balance of opinions in the threads. So many points of view, perspectives, opinions. I rarely see any slamming, I see passion and reason often trying to find a way to work together.

13

In this thread there will probably be some slamming, its sad but a neccessary thing to help the improvment of the FIRST organization. For without negativity how can there be postiveity. (Yeah Math!!)

Basically this thread talks about how people will not insult or speak poorly of FIRST in any way, shape, or form for fear of being un-proffesional.

14

I may have derailed the post Jane, so please everyone get back to the original topic if I got it wrong…

Jane, I agree with you on most threads… except those which criticize FIRST.
CD is only a single case which acts as an indicator.

People are unable comprehend that FIRST may be doing something wrong on a basic level.
That something may be less than ideal in the way things are running now.
The common knee jerk reaction a criticizer would get is: “you are wrong if you say that FIRST has flaws.”

Assuming that you have reached perfection is always the very first step on the road to ruin.

-Leav

15

I cannot speak for Katy and her clearly-nervous coauthor, but that is how I interpreted her post, and my own thoughts were intended to refer to FIRST in general, not these forums in particular.

16

Professionalism usually comes after experience. We have to realize that FIRST is made up of High School students, which means they have a long way to go until they’re truly professional.

I’ve had very personal experience with the lack of professional behavior by teams, and I wish I could say it was a rare incident. However, it seems that GP is only something to be touted when someone isn’t following it, or when it’s time to pack up and head to the competitions. If FIRST students took GP to heart, we’d see a lot less complaining about issues, and lot more solutions being posted.

17

Thank you! This is a very important point to be made, and one that I think everyone should keep in mind in this discussion.

I think something also to consider, is if that 1% can cause such a powerful response from any number of people to overshadow the 99% of the good that FIRST is doing (even if only temporarily) then it is worth taking a look at. Do I blame FIRST for its shortcomings? Absolutely not - but people claiming how good the program is as an excuse why we should not want it to be better drives me up the wall.

If someone is whining, there is a reason. Differentiating what Alan is talking about is important, but otherwise we have to look at these discussions as a possibility to make things better, and not look down on people who are not 100% satisfied. Some changes maybe impossible, but my intuition says that if we all put our minds to it, I think great progress can be made :wink:

18

I understand Kathy’s concerns. Whether to agree or disagree with her statements, is another issue. The criticisms she brings are vague and generalized as Jane has pointed out. This ‘sounds like’ venting frustration. CD provides a good forum for that, and venting is good in this sense, because of the neutrality in Kathy’s statements.

FIRST is an organization with goals and objectives that probably extend beyond my comprehension. Some may even** incorrectly **say it is cult-like.

As with any organization, church, religion, or club, there may be things you have an issue with. The best way to find answers is to approach the offending party direct.

My past and present employers have always implemented an open-door policy. If your supervisor cannot answer your grievance, then you are encouraged to take it to the next level of management. This type of policy is not only professional, but gracious in that everything is kept confidential until the facts are known. Businesses take this very serious. FIRST is also a business.

I’m rambling now, but if you have an issue with the game rules, ship deadlines, lack of compassion for missed work periods because of snow days, missed deadlines for entries, the color of the FIRST emblem, etc,etc,etc,…take it to the next level.

CD forum is meant to be a tool to help students and mentors learn about robotics and discuss the FIRST games in an independent forum.

Hopefully nobody takes offense to my comments. But with the CD Forum being as large as it is, the chances are pretty good someone will disagree…(which is good)

EDIT: For team conflicts bordering on Sexual harassment, color, creed, gender or religious preference, there are LAWS against this. File a police report and also contact your regional FIRST director to file a complaint if necessary. They are listed on www.usfirst.org

19

Katy,

I totally agree with you on this one, there are many times where I have felt a need to share my opinion on a controversial issue within FIRST, but have chosen not to express my views here on CD because of the stigma of my opinion being labeled ‘not GP’. I certainly believe that this forum takes a much brighter look on FIRST then it should at times. The forum as a whole can take the Gracious part of Gracious Professionalism a little too far. There needs to be dialogue about the main issues in FIRST, and I believe they have been hidden under the covers away from the public view of the members of CD. It seems like there is an opinion that these type of conversations criticizing issues within FIRST should be taken up Privately and not openly, and the odd time they truly get discussed here on CD the people with the critical views get attacked by the GP police. It seems like debating problems with FIRST is almost looked down upon here on CD, hopefully in the future we can have professional discussions about these issues within FIRST and help solve them together.

20

Not to be rude but I prefer to be called Katy over Kathy. Thanks.

The post is coauthored because I am not the sole author of it. The idea was discussed, I did a lot of writing, and then there was editing and more ideas added. I feel somewhat bad being unable to speak further on the issue but I would feel unprofessional to violate the trust of my coauthor(s) by saying more.

It pains me substantially to not post links to examples of the sorts of behavior I am attempting to discuss. However, I feel that to point out specific individuals in a debate of this variety would be implying that they are un-GP. Personally I believe GP is a standard to live by, not to judge others by. Additionally as a professional I would feel unethical pointing at people and implying that they are not GP in topic that is meant in part to discuss the negative impact of people labeling others un-GP.

This discussion was mainly intended to be the first and the third. I want to talk about the fact that it is appropriate and often for the good of FIRST to provide meaningful constructive criticism. I want to discuss the fact that this criticism should be regarded by other individuals as an opportunity for thought and not immediately attacked. This is true on and off CD.

I feel that people are confusing “being gracious” with “not disagreeing.” You can disagree graciously and if you believe that disagreeing is correct and have facts to back disagreeing is in fact quite professional.

Here it is in a nutshell. There are people asking the tough questions in FIRST. There are more people who would probably like to ask their own questions. However, after seeing those who are currently asking the hard questions dismissed or vilified the latter group of people are shying away from speaking their mind. I feel this is a dangerous and unhealthy environment for FIRST to be in. I would like to see people be more accepting so that other people can feel a little safer. I would also like to inspire those who feel there is something that needs to be said and have the facts to back it up. Hopefully, despite their fear, they will say it anyway.

Does this clarify?