Leading Teams / Working on Projects.

Busy, busy, busy!  Working on my MBA is about as stressful as I can recall!  The hardest task is working on team projects. Since the program is online, rather than in-person, the amount of work is about triple of being in-person (note, I know because I've been a graduate student twice before; I have 117 graduate hours complete already, and the last 87 have all be "A's." So, I think that my experience on the matters confirms that online education is a lot more demanding. It is logical, however, that more work is assigned, because students aren't directly in front of the teacher, but I think online programs go overboard.  We actually interact with our professor about 5-6 days a week. I interact every day with my peers, as we answer discussion questions, evaluate other student's comments, work on team projects, and so on).

Working on teams, when we are unable to sit in one room and hash-out our means of tackling assigned problems is very difficult. As usual, I've taken the lead on the project (I tend to do that because I want an "A" grade, and if I leave it up to others I risk not having a final product that's of high quality; it happened to me once in this program, and I vowed it would never happen again.). Yet, I am fortunate this time around; the people in my group are professionals. All managers at their organizations, older and full of insight, self-disciplined, and they take direction well. 

The key to leading in groups is two-fold, I think. The first is using a "gentle" demeanor; nobody likes a pushy leader! Second, organization and planning. They go hand-in-hand.  When I lead, I quickly organize our team, get input on ideas, quickly, and set a course for the team. I assign tasks, tell people to not worry about perfection, but get some work achieved in their area and share it with the team by a deadline, and then we adjust, work again on the project, and so forth. I believe in adjustments and revisions.

Lesson:  You have to avoid trying to get the job done well in one fell-swoop! Go through cycle of organizing, planning, delegating/assigning, working on segments, and evaluating multiple times. It's like learning a sport skill. How on earth can any person learn a skill in one try? Repetition, spacing, adjusting as you learn more, and upping the challenge improves performance.

Have a great day!

Tom