Team Experiences

To be honest I have never been much of a fan of group collaborative assignments.  I prefer to do my own work on my own time, and with as busy as I can be outside of school, I am more averse to working around other people's schedule.  No matter the extent of my aversion, there are still many moments in my life that group work was mandatory, both in and outside of the classroom.  Most experiences with group collaboration went extremely well, and many times I made great friends from it.  However, there has been times where working with a team was completely disastrous.

Like I said, more times than not, I often dreaded the concept of working with other students on projects.  Everybody always has conflicts with one anothers' schedules, and it always seems that meetings take place at the most inappropriate times.  So needless to say, in my abnormal psychology class my heart sank the first day of class upon hearing there was a large group assignment that was to be done at the end of the semester.  

Meeting every member of my group went fine.  Of course, there was the awkward small talk guaranteed with every new encounter, but bit by bit we picked away at the surface of each others' characters and all found something we extremely liked.  By some weird coincidence we had all been competitive soccer players throughout our childhoods, and early teens.  From talking to one another, we discovered we all shared a burning passion from the sport, and from then on all my group anxieties disappeared.  Communicating about the assignment became effortless.  Everyone was extremely comfortable with working around scheduling conflicts for group meetings, and whenever we got together we had a blast.

In time we even began to organize small pickup games between ourselves that we undertook when we felt pleased with the amount of the assignment we had already finished.  Of course, this cohesion transferred over to our school work and we received an A on our assignment.  I feel the reason this went so well was due to our similar personalities.  I feel that when an athlete plays a sport for so long they develop a mindset in relation to their particular sport.  Mostly due to long-term effects from large exposure to the elements of the sport in question.  Because of this, I feel we all shared similar personalities through similar experiences with the sport.  We all played in big tournaments, all played since a young age, and all were exceptional soccer players.  As a result, we respected one another and thought similarly which created an extremely strong group chemistry that was reflected in our high grade on the assignment.  

I wish all my group experiences went as well as this one, but unfortunately not all experiences are what we hope they would be.  This had a lot to do with the time my fraternity made the decision to kick out one of its members.  The decision required a unanimous decision, with every member of the house planning, and took a lot of preparation.  Since I was on the executive board at this time, I had to work long hours with other members to determine how this process should play out.  The problem was that our fraternity was so diverse, and with diversity often comes different opinions.

As a fraternity we were basically composed of nearly every high school clique you could think of.  You name it we had it.  We prided ourselves on the different characters we had within our walls, and felt because of this it made us stronger.  On the contrary though, in this particular situation it made us weaker.  Cliques soon formed after we proposed to kick the alleged member out for threatening the executive committee of our house.  Some felt his threat was warranted and others certainly felt it was going too far.  His plan was to sue the fraternity over fines which were rightfully appropriated to him for missing mandatory ritual practice.  It was mandatory for all members, and any member not present was fined.

He extended this threat months on end, and often made life in the house unbearable.  This is why we wanted him gone.  However there were members of the committee who were friends with him, part of his so called "clique".   Due to this, they shot down every proposition we brought forward on the matter.  In the end the house determined to kick him out, after we decided a hearing was the only matter of action left.  It went terribly.  twenty members dropped immediately feeling as we had been unfair, and half our officers resigned at the time.  This left our house in brief turmoil.

I definitely feel this happened due to conflicting personalities.  Different people with different views, often makes it hard to arrive at a single conclusion.  Also, the act of this one individual was the catalyst for all this disaster.  We tried reasoning with him, but he was insistent on taking legal action, even when he had no credible ground to stand upon.  His fine was not unusual, but what he chose caused great calamity and severed any cohesion we once had within the house.

Team Collaboration and Award Distribution

The explanation of early development in group collaboration is a reference to a valuable milestone of human evolution.  It is long been known that the collaborative efforts of a group are for more efficient than the effort of an individual on similar tasks.  Early humans discovered this concept long before any era of modernization, and this notion has maintained its perennial nature to this very day.  From early hunter-gatherer groups, evolved small farming towns that eventually blossomed into large industrialized cities inhabited by thousands of different individuals, all providing, in some way, to the common good of many.  The average humans have come to know that efficiency lies in the efforts of many rather than the efforts of the few.  As a result, production and wealth have reached levels that some may have never thought possible.  The problem with this is that the boom in wealth that our modern societies have come to be familiar with, may not be shared equally between the different members of the economy.  A little strange since we are all taught from young age to be fair and share.  But the main question of today is how much should we share for it to actually be considered fair.

In answering the question of equity in team collaboration, I can provide an example from my place of work, at the I Hotel and Conference Center.  Every weekend, usually on football game days, we provide parking services for fans going to the game.  The spots are usually in high demand due to the large amount of ticket holders and the minimal availability of parking here on campus.  Normally, the conference attendants are in charge of running the lot, but the hotel managers still get a cut of the profits we make during the day.  Also, the conference attendants only get a fixed amount of the total money pot, so after a certain amount of cars, we have already made the maximum amount we can make on the day.  If we do not park an appropriate amount of cars however, we suffer deductions, so it is usually in the conference attendants' best interest to elicit efficient parking procedures throughout the day  This situation has two examples pertaining to the article.  One where equity between conference attendants spurs parking efficiency, and the other where the managers take more of the money, even though they spent no time dealing with the parking fiasco.  The later situation can often be demoralizing to us, and therefore contradict our motivation to park as many cars as possible, and instead park a certain amount until we are sure we will be satisfied with our part of the cut.  Furthermore, the deductions if we do not get many cars often cause us to question the morality behind the process and this relates to the matter of procedural fairness that the author of the article touches base on.

First, we talk about collaboration leading to equity.  As mentioned before, all the conference attendants suffer the same consequences regarding deductions, and we also all receive the same pay out.  If one person is not doing their job, than the parking process fails.  In this sense, if only one pulls the rope, and the other attendant does not, than we get less marbles than we would normally have.  So in order for all of us to receive our determined payout at the end of the day, which is usually not much more than our hourly pay, we must all do our job, and pull on our end of the proverbial rope.  Because of this, it is in our best interest to work together, and work with each others' interests in mind.  It is not the same as the initial condition with the rope in the article, simply because there is no inequality produced for us each doing our share of the work.  However, this process still holds the same collaborative principles that were presented in the article.

Finally, we discuss the inequality in regards to management.  Our managers have no part in the parking process during game day.  They do not have to deal with drunken and disorderly tailgaters, or deal with the hostility of fans we are forced to turn away after the parking lot fills up.  Either way, they still get a higher cut of the day's payout before the rest of the earnings get sent to the hotel conglomerate.  The problem with this is many of the conference attendants feel this is unfair.  They do more of the work but get less of the pay.  The article does not touch on this kind of situation, but it still deals with the idea of inequality in the economy.  Collaboration is stifled between the attendants and the managers interests as a whole and because of this, at times, we park less cars than is desired by the hotel.  It should be known, that after we hit our quota, we suffer no more fear of deductions and more cars simply means higher profits for the hotel.  Because of this, only the hotel managers lose out on the extra money they can make if we were to utilize complete efficiency in our procedure.

Illini Bucks Effect

Personally, I feel that introducing the concept of Illini Bucks into the already established academia is a double edged sword.  At the Individual level, it will allow students who have accrued a large amount of Illini Bucks a more competitive edge when it comes time for class registration.  Those who save their bucks will be better off when it comes to picking classes that fit their ideal schedule.  Therefore, certain students will be able to avoid classes with low demand, such as uninteresting courses and 8am's, and be given an opportunity to choose classes that are more intriguing.  The problem with this system however, is a mjaority of students will more than likely save their Illini Bucks for the sole purpose of class registration.  As a result, the system will in effect cancel itself out and, since older students will have more of an opportunity to gather additional Illini Bucks, leave the registration platform in the same way as before the introduction of Illini Bucks.  One way that Illini Bucks would be able to change the face of class registration is if a variety of other incentives are provided for the purchasing power of varying amounts of Illini Dollars.  Such incentives could allow the Illini Bucks to be spent on various sports games throughout campus.  Another good that can be offered in exchange for Illini dollars is public parking.  As a student with a car here on campus, the supply of affordable parking in the local area is shockingly low.  There are meters placed at basically every parking spot imaginable, and often high fees are assessed to park in the many private lots around town.  Having one's vehicle towed is highly probable, and therefore creates another anticipated yearly cost.  Because of this, Illini bucks could be exchanged for meter time and parking spots on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  Offering more incentives will create a competitive market and entice students to choose to spend their bucks on what they deem is more rewarding.

Illini Bucks have huge promise to undermine the system that is already in place.  Especially when talking about different prices that are determined for purchasing the Illini Dollars.  As of now, registration is offered in a priority method of senority, and Acadamic standing.  This allows older students an opportunity to obtain the proper classes required for their major so they are able to graduate at an appropriate time.  Also, those students with a higher academic status, James scholars and Evans Scholars, are offered priority registration as well.  Providing a reward for academic performance, such as creating a higher possiblity for students to get classes they desire, will motivate, and hopefully lead to increased academic achievements.  In regards to these issues, if the price of Illini Bucks are really high, then those with more resources will be able to accrue copious amounts of them.  This will eliminate established senority and rewarded academic status, since younger students and any individual with the right amount of cash will be able to purchase these Bucks to pick the classes or whatever incentive they desire.  For low cost, I feel there will be no effect, since everybody will be able to buy a large amount of Illini Dollars.

I feel in order for this system to work properly, Illini Bucks should not be paid for, but in turn be a reward for different achievements around campus.  Such achievements would include, but not be limited to, academic performance, community involvement, and campus volunteer work.  Because of the nature of the Illini Bucks, this reward program should elicit more student cooperation around campus and provide one with further motivation to invest in their academics here at the University of Illinois.