The Dreaded Group Project

To be honest, if I find out an elective I'm taking has a group project, I drop the class.  Group projects, as executed in past classes just don't work as learning experience for me.  Before I started this policy, I was involved in a couple of group projects.  In two different classes I have taken, I have participated in a large group project.

The first group project I had was in a class about linguistics.  The class was large, about a hundred people, and we were in groups of five to six.  We were to give a 10-minute presentation.  Five people in a group is too many to get together outside of class, so the only time we actually met, there were only three of us that showed up.  B&D mention guidelines for group synergy, and one of the is "Agree on the Basics."  Because only a fraction of the group had shown up to the meeting, we were never able to come together as a group to agree on what our direction was and how we were going to achieve it.  Instead of productive talk about the content of the project, all talk became about logistical aspects of the project.  

To add to the problem, there was one girl who wanted to take the leadership role.  She was one of the ones that came to the in-person meeting.  A problem arose from this.  In the e-mails to the other group members, her role as self-proclaimed group leader was not made clear.  Therefore, in the back and forth communications, she would try to take control, and it was easy to see that the other two were pushing back.  She had not established herself in the leadership role to them, so she just came off as pushy and bossy.

The project became less about learning and understanding the subject, and more about endless e-mails back and forth.  It was truly a nightmare.  One group member I knew outside of class, and we were able to make our portion of the project solid and cohesive.  We met on our own and went forward with the few things all five of us agreed on.  The other 3/5 of the presentation, however, seemed totally unrelated once we presented it.  I would say that the largest contributor to to the problem was group size.  Five may not seem like too many people, but when there are RSO, work, and school obligations that each group member must deal with, this greatly complicates things in a project.  The large size then contributed to the lack of agreement on the fundamentals of the project.

The second group project I had worked better on so many levels.  It was for a cinema class.  We were to watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and give a 15-minute presentation about the movie.  We met bright and early on a Sunday morning and spent three hours in a round-table discussion and brainstorming session.  We agreed on what we wanted to say, who would say it, and how we would present it.  Not only were we able to agree on the basics, but we also followed B&D's advice to "doubt your infallibility."  The other members of the group came from backgrounds like communication, business, and anthropology.  I was an English major at the time.  We all came to the table with different opinions on the subject matter, but we were eventually able to come together with a cohesive project.

I know we are supposed to be bringing juicy stories to the table, but this movie project experience was about as seamless as one could ask for.  I'm actually had I had the second experience so I'd be (slightly) less colored about group projects as a whole.

"Mad Men Lose Their Marbles," Say 4 out of 5 Doctors!

In the world of advertising, agencies will have the creative department structured into teams of two who then report to a higher office. These teams are composed of an Art Director, in charge of the graphics and a Copywriter, responsible for coming up with the print and arrangement of the advertisement. After the creation of an ad, these teams will then have their work reviewed by the Creative Director who decides whether or not it is a viable direction for a campaign to move forward with and present to the client.

A campaign that is liked by the client and is considered successful can have great repercussions for all parties involved. The Art Director and Copywriter are seen having a successful campaign.  The Creative Director shows his management and his ability to pick out a good campaign.  The agency as a whole gains reputation and respect.  In addition, an agency can use their past work to attract new clients.

Because a successful campaign can be so lucrative, often agencies and the creatives are eager to claim responsibility and have their hard worked recognized. Most times, however, the agency reaps the recognition reward, while the Art Director, Copywriter, and Creative Director are just internally recognized.  In this case, the agency has more of the marbles than the three who worked on the campaign.

The author writes, "If the Democrats really want to get moral psychology working for them, I suggest that they focus less on distributive fairness — which is about whether everyone got what they deserved — and more on procedural fairness—which is about whether honest, open and impartial procedures were used to decide who got what."  In the ad agency example, it seems like the normal for this sort of hierarchy of recognition to happen.  In any office, the manager is going to get more positive recognition from the top than those doing the footwork.  

Despite the fact that proper recognition of ideas can be so valuable, team cohesion among the creatives is of the utmost importance. Marbles must be shared at this level.  It is important for both the Art Director and the Copywriter to feel invested in the campaign that they're working on. Therefore, the manager has to share some of his marbles with the pair.

The nature of the creative process is such that ideas can strike at anytime, whether in the office or not, which means that the team may not be together. If one member of the team came up with a novel idea while he developed on his own, he may refrain from presenting the wholly formed idea to the other member but instead guide the direction of the conversation towards his idea, ensuring that the other member will also feel responsible and involved with the work.  In this way, one team member has pulled his rope and is coaxing the other to pull his.  He wants them to reap the marbles, without making it seem like it was his idea to get them in the first place.