Unfortunately I have been unable to start Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It came in the mail last Friday, but I have been unable to find the time to get started – poor excuse I know, but so be it.
Anyway, perhaps you remember me gloating about the psychological maneuvering I performed on my marketing class teammate a few weeks earlier. Well, about five hours ago, we presented the project.
All I have to say is that it sucked. It really really sucked.
So for the passed few hours I have been trying to understand what went wrong. At first, I (internally) blamed the other members on my team, specifically the individual who’s new venture idea it was. Throughout the quarter, I was looking to him to be the leader of the project. But that did not happen. Pretty lame, right?
Well, yes. I still think that I had every right to make that assumption. But this excuse does not help me cope with the uneasiness I feel about my final grade for the course.
The fact of the matter is that I cared a lot more about the grade than the rest of my team did. Is that unfair to me? Maybe, but who cares/does that really matter? I should have seen the writing on the wall and acted accordingly.
Looking back, I had plenty of chances to take control of the outcome and be the leader myself. But I didn’t. I could say I had other things going on and was “unable” to take on the responsibility. No, no.
I guess what I am trying to say with this rambling is that excuses are crap. In the end, all they are are excuses, and everyone else thinks they stink.
The grade I will receive for the project/class is irrelevant at this point. The real lesson I learned is to take an active role in things I care about. Whoulda/coulda/shoulda doesn’t get you anywhere because no one really cares.
Apologies if this was a downer. I hope I got my point across.
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March 10th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Matt,
Great that you acknowledge that what you do and accomplish is ultimately mainly up to you. I say mainly because economic, cultural, social differences play a large role too. While reading your prior post on using what you learned to win over your argument, I noticed that you wrote both of you were defending yourselves. So from there I gathered that it was important to you as person and how you perceived yourself that your point was chosen.
In actuality you were defending your choice and reasons for it as if it reflected on your self-worth. So long as the outcome made the whole project a better one, it really wasn’t about you, or him for that matter. So it is good to see that you put a lot of thought into why “winning” was so important to you.
-em
(not a psychotherapist… but I play one in blogs
)
March 10th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I got your point. Group projects can be extremely frustrating especially when some are aiming for a “c” and you’re aiming for an “a.” I was in quite a few of those groups where I took over (leadership) and ended up doing a lot more work than most. You see, if they’re aiming for a “c”, that’s their standard. So even if you delegated, you may not like their results and end up working on it so the standards are even. I asked one of my professors for advice and he told me what his grad professor told him which is they may have gotten away with it this time, but when it comes to the workplace (out in the real world) you’d be better trained to succeed. It may seem unfair right now, but it’ll pay off later. Sounds like a very positive learning experience.