Should I be angry or not? A school/biz question

I’m not entirely shure if I should be angry or not, but part of me is, and I’m trying to decide whether I should acept it and do something about the situation or ease back, or not.

Background - I’m getting my Business Admin/Logistics Bachelor’s. The current class I’m in is a titanic pain, with an absurdly stupid lecture (the entire hourlong lecture could be condensed into about ten minutes) and a section once a week. The core of the class is a group project. We are asigned into teams and play and online Business competing with other in our course. Each team has completel control of adveritisng, marketing targets, segments we go after, the products we design (computers, but we can build many types with diffferent components), and where we make and sell things, and how we finance it, etc.

In a way, it’s fun and exhilerating. We also spend about 3-5 hours a week just preparing things as a group, and usually more indivdually. It’s a huge task.

Well, last night, we were submitting our plans for this week when I found three gorup members (out of five) had decided, contrary to our plans made as a group, to just switch over some items and alter what we were selling. The points they cited in their email were basically the ones which were raised and considered earlier in the week. It wasn’t a disaster (we’ve climbed in the ranks from #4 to #3 to #2 in marketshare now), and we’ll never know how the alternative went out, I felt ignored and betrayed.

My team has the bad habit of meeting for the game, but not really doing anything, so I get to be the “bad guy” for holding their noses to the grindstone. They frequently raise “objections or ideas”, but can’t articulate any reason for them. I’m tired of having to force them to work through things logically instead of making decisions just randomly. if I ask people for opinions, usually 1 will respond with an irrelevant or just plain " :confused: " comment, one will sort of confusedly say, “maybe this way or maybe that way or maybe something else”, and two will ignore me.

It’s like herding cats.

Despite this, they were very smart and I respect them a lot. It’s because I respect them that I want to work with them and get things done. But they just kinda slack off it. Last night, I couldn’t get in touch with them despite calling everyone, so I had to make a decision on my own I normally wouldn’t. I won’t entirely blame them for it,. But I was still at my cellphone the whole time and taking “business” calls, and nobody bothered to get in touch with me.

Damn right, you should be.

What’s this about school, now?

Really, that’s an excellent curriculum. It exactly duplicates the experiences you’ll have working in the real world. Rewards for non-participants and punishment of the innocent are ubiquitous in business.

I agree. You should appreciate your school for giving you a realistic preview of work. Print out this thread and look at it in 5 years. You’ll be amazed.

Your team isn’t completely disengaged/ dumping it all on you, nor are they completely ignoring you like an outcast. You are performing well against your peers. This is full of win (isn’t that what the kids are saying these days?). Try to be a good example of including people in and participating in decisions. Other than that, let it go.

Sounds like this course is excellent preparation for the real business world.

The hour long lectures that include 10 minutes of content are pretty realistic too.

I dunno. 10 minutes seems a bit generous.

What is it, an hour of the instructor reading his PowerPoint slides out loud, word for word? That’s also pretty realistic.

I taught several courses to MBA students, and always had some sort of team projects… and the problems you cite always showed up in at least one team, usually two. Along with people who coasted and didn’t do a fair share of work, etc. As the instructor, I have to say that I was of two minds about such difficulties: on the one hand, it was tempted to say, “This is a real-life simulation, where you can take action or not, and see what’s effective and what’s not, without the harm that would happen if this were really your job. At worst, you get your fellow team-mates pissed off at you.” On the other hand, I really wanted the teams to work well so that the students learned from their project. If I was their manager and got some of the complaints I heard, I would have known how to deal with it. As an instructor, it was more ambiguous.

You might talk to the instructor. Even if he/she isn’t a good lecturer, that doesn’t mean she/he is oblivious to what goes on in team projects.

Can you fire members of the team and recruit new members from other teams? I’m not quite sure what you could use as incentives though.

Guess what? Life is not fair. Whether in college or any line of work you choose you will find people getting ahead who do not deserve it, and people getting screwed who work their asses off. We all have to work with morons, assholes and the like. Usually we have no say in the people with whom we work. Do your best work and go home at the end of the day knowing that you did.

NM

I suggest that you don’t meet for the game. I don’t know how practical this is. I also suggest that you give out scorecards every week: “Alex, you said that you’d have information on this subject, and so far, you’ve turned in about ten percent of what you said you’d have. Our project is suffering because of YOU.” “Sally, you got all the statistics that we needed, and you found some additional resources which will help our team make a better project.” Grin. Then let them know, that since you’re acting as leader, you’re turning over your notes to the teacher. Ask everyone to sign all the notes, not just the notes on what they are doing, but on what everyone else is doing as well. You’re already the bad guy, you might as well get as much mileage as possible from it. When the group decides on a plan, get everyone to sign that, too.

Ask the teacher if you can “fire” the slackers, after a probationary period. Since the workers are doing most of the work anyway, the only thing that you won’t get is the aggravation of dealing with them. If they aren’t working, it doesn’t really matter how smart they are, does it?

With any luck, the teacher will reward the hard workers with good grades, and perhaps the slackers won’t pass. Thus, everyone learns a valuable lesson.

Sorry, everyone. I wasn’t clear about some things. The people I’m working with do everntually get everything done. It’s just that the meetings, even at 5 people, tend to devolve into two or three conversations. We only need two laptops (one to display, the other to look up data and compare), but everyone else always has theirs out. I use mine only if I can’t get anyone to work on things.

That said, they really are a smart team. We’ve done well. It’s just that we have a problem with getting things done… together! I know, it’s a small problem in a big world. But dammit, it makes me mad. It should not be this difficult, and I should not feel like actually being a Vice President of a major computer corporations would be an easier job.

If 3 out of 5 team members wanted to do something one way, how did your group arrive at the opposite action plan? They were the majority; their way should have won out from the beginning.

Perhaps these folks didn’t feel free in the group setting to voice their opinions but afterwards one of the three talked to them individually and got them to express their feelings more clearly. I understand that you decided on something as a group, but sometimes personalities dominate a group discussion and these folks felt that operating in this manner was the way to get their way. They may feel that their opinions were not recognized by the other members of the group even though they were in the majority.

So, what, I should just butt out and not bother? Heck, by this logic, I don’t even need to come to group meetings! The wonder trio can just handle it all, right? Majority rules, eh?

Great. This is what I have to look forward to in the fall. My Uni believes in the group project thing, too.

I’ve also sat through my share of PowerPoint presentations that go on and on and on. I swear, this guy was just like the teacher in that Ferris Beuller movie. Three and a half hours of intermediate accounting PowerPoint misery. Thank god for laptops - I surfed the Dope a lot in that class.