On Teamwork and Twenty-Three-Year-Olds

Today was the final project presentation, in front of the industry sponsor, of the capstone project for the Master of Science in Analytical Finance, which I supervised. About twelve students worked on the project throughout the academic year and did a superb job addressing the challenge first identified by the executives in October. I had never been in charge of a group that large before, and the experience provided some fascinating insights (some more positive than others) into team dynamics.

There were, broadly speaking, three kinds of people involved in the project. The first one was made of the leaders - those students who took an active role in determining the approaches the group would analyze, made exceptional contributions to the report, stayed late on Friday evening to prepare the slides, rehearsed yesterday afternoon, dotted the i's and crossed the t's - because the executives were not available last week, the presentation was scheduled after the grades were given to the Registrar's Office, and the students worked countless hours, when it had no longer any effect on their grade, to make sure the presentation and report would be flawless, on the grounds that the quality of their deliverables would affect what the industry sponsor thought about Lehigh University. That's professionalism right there. As an educator, it is always gratifying to interact with students who are so obviously going to "go places" in life, even if I can't pretend I played any role in them turning out that way. They were trustworthy, professional and highly competent when they entered the Master's program, and they remained trustworthy, professional and highly competent throughout. Congratulations to, in alphabetical order, Rahmi Erdem Aktug, Renee Garin, Tracey Sandor and Jonathan Tillson for their extraordinary performance. (Regarding a different capstone project, Nicholas Wagner and Mengyuan Zhao did excellent work as well.)

Then you have the followers, who are just as trustworthy, but take a less active role, sometimes because they come to analytical finance from a non-finance background and have so much to learn that they don't gain the confidence to contribute actively until the very end of the school year, or because they are not native English speakers and are reluctant to express themselves during meetings (but will instead do a large part of the numerical implementation, for instance). Followers might become leaders later on. Not everyone can be a leader, and not everyone can be a leader all the time. Team players who do the tasks they've been assigned without going off-track play a critical role in the overall team success.

Finally, you have the slackers. I have to admit there were a few of those. The slackers try to do as little as possible and don't bother coming to the final presentation. My advising style was quite hands-off - we met once a week, but I tried to let the group come up with its own solutions to the executives' problems rather than imposing the directions I felt were most interesting, because I believe people learn more, and work more, if they have a sense of ownership of the solution. Sadly, slackers thrive off that environment as much as leaders do. They take pains not to volunteer for anything, and hope that someone else's output will hide the fact that they personally did not contribute a line.

After seeing the hard work some of the students put in on Friday evening to prepare the presentation (I bought them Domino's pizzas to cheer them up - I was there until 9.30pm editing the final report, and some stayed until 11pm), in sharp contrast with the lack of contributions of some of their classmates, I thought some more about the distinction between leaders and slackers over the weekend. For instance, I felt it was very unprofessional for students not to show up for the final presentation. This was supposed to be a group project, and while it was quite clear the executives would be pleased with the recommendations, you should stand by your classmates and show support for the rest of the group no matter what. You do not let them facing executives while you're off enjoying your first week of vacation. (Finals ended last week.)

At the same time, whenever my undergraduates do something stupid, my first reaction is always to hope they'll see the light once they are in the workforce. (And then I take action.) Companies don't generally give second chances to employees who appear untrustworthy. People who are unprofessional in college will have to pay the consequences once they work - they might think they'll change when they get a paycheck, but it's like trying to run a marathon when your only exercise is walking from your car to your office - of course you can start running, but you're not going to go very far. Professionalism is not something you develop when you're under pressure and faced with six different deadlines. It has to be acquired beforehand. Either students understand that character matters before they start working, or their first job won't be a very happy time in their life. (Thankfully, it probably won't last very long either.)

My general philosophy with graduate students when they do something stupid, though, is that they should know better. I don't forgive them much. Now this raises a contradiction, since many (although not all) graduate students go straight from college to graduate school, without entering the workforce except for internships. Once they are Master's or doctoral students, students take fewer courses and focus on research, but most meet with their adviser about once a week, without the daily interaction with higher-ups that occurs in the workforce. In a way, they're mostly left to their own devices. So when are they supposed to learn about professionalism if they don't already know that stuff? Of course we teach them about Integrity: we all say it is wrong to cheat, cheaters will face disciplinary sanctions, and so on. Each test reminds the students of that point. But there are fewer opportunities to teach professionalism (more of a gray zone, while integrity is black or white: you either cheat or you don't), most of which are provided by team projects. When students are undergraduates, it is vaguely admissible - although undesirable - if they aren't always professional (if they let their teammate do his work and theirs, disappear before the project is due, etc); kids will be kids and at some point they'll grow up. But those who haven't grown up by the time they enter graduate school - those who still think it's all about the grade and they'll be fine as long as they steal an A or B - are in for a surprise. The only people they are fooling are themselves, and nobody has ever achieved anything worthwhile in life with that kind of attitude. I just don't know how to break them the news.

Comments

[Shubhendu Trivedi]

Very frank and open post from an insider.

I could relate with this article in multiple ways (and so would do most grad students and undergrads). Like, in some projects I have done. I always took the lead. And have most of the times done that except on occasions when I did not have sufficient knowledge as my other team-mates. For, in a project, knowledge and ability is directly proportional to the confidence.

And I would also agree that graduate students can not be forgiven that easily. Well they have been around longer and have seen more of the world. I was reminded of a quote by Richard Feynman by the end of the post.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool
And the realization that usually occurs later when much is lost, that you only fooled yourself is one of the most sinking feelings.