+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 26

Thread: Team Motivation

  1. #1
    Seeing all of these running cars is kind of depressing me. Our chassis isn't even 100% complete yet and we rarely have a decent amount of people in our lab, even on the weekends. Some of the 08 alumni's do more work than the students getting credit...

    So that being said, what do you guys do to motivate the dead beats on your team? I've got my Powertrain team leader basically laughing at me when I give him deadlines. It's been a month since he first said he'd have our prototype intake done. Everything "will get done" according to him.
    Lawrence Tech University
    2009 Formula SAE
    Team Captain

    (AKA The Dollar Nazi)

  2. #2
    Seeing all of these running cars is kind of depressing me. Our chassis isn't even 100% complete yet and we rarely have a decent amount of people in our lab, even on the weekends. Some of the 08 alumni's do more work than the students getting credit...

    So that being said, what do you guys do to motivate the dead beats on your team? I've got my Powertrain team leader basically laughing at me when I give him deadlines. It's been a month since he first said he'd have our prototype intake done. Everything "will get done" according to him.
    Lawrence Tech University
    2009 Formula SAE
    Team Captain

    (AKA The Dollar Nazi)

  3. #3
    Unfortunately what happens on most fsae teams is that the dead beats cause so much delay, the lead guys end up taking on more responsibility than they already have. Any fsae captain (or system lead) could tell you this.

    The fact is that these people are just simply not the motivated, and most importantly, dedicated type like we are...hence why they are not in charge. I can tell you right now that none of the dead beats contribute to the forums either because it requires effort. They also seem to know everything about everything as well.

    That being said, bribing doesn't work, but neither does cutting back their privileges. You can't give them MORE privileges either. I think the best way to go about it is to sit down, AWAY FROM THE SHOP with said dead beat, and have SEVERAL people confront the person...this way its not just coming from "the boss."

    Good luck, I've been in this situation before and it's never easy. Remember, only dead fish swim with the tide ;-)

    Jon Scales
    2009 Team Captain
    Hartford Motorsports

  4. #4
    Another way that helps in developing motivation is to bring these people to the competition with you.

    When they just work on their respective university's car, they don't grasp the importance of every little component on the car. And most of them just join the team to tell their friends they're building a race car and to put it on their CV.

    However, when brought to a competition, 90% of new members witness the importance of every minute of work that was put on the car prior to getting their. They appreciate the little jobs that were given to them by subteam leaders. And then, when they get back, they start putting more effort into their participation.

    Trust me, that's how it is in almost every university

  5. #5
    I used to call these people daily to get updates on progress, find out when they planned on doing more work, then follow up after to make sure they did what they said. I also had to go out of my way to make sure i was around when they were in the shop or made arrangements to meet up. It's definitely not fun dealing with these kinds of people and you can't be everyone's friend. If it gets real bad you can explain the situation to your faculty adviser and see if your adviser can speak to this person.

    One team explained on this forum a plan where they have deadlines that are tied to a certain amount of the budget to fund their project. So if you don't meet your deadlines, you don't receive as much. I forgot the team but they said it was working well. Seems too late to implement for you now but it's an interesting approach.

  6. #6
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Grand Rapids, MI
    Posts
    284
    Our students never received credit for being a part of the project so being the team leader had me trying to figure out this same problem for quite some time. To be honest, you can try every trick in the book, but you probably won't have any success. For our team, the best solution was just to have as much fun as possible as we could in the shop. Sure people would have liked to go to the bars on Friday and Saturday night, but we made coming into the shop seem like a "not so bad" alternative. By accident, a few of us starting going out for dinner and a couple of beers on Friday nights and then we would head back to the shop to finish up work for a couple of hours. As the weeks went on, the groups got bigger and eventually the whole team was coming along. We used the time to relax, MAYBE talk about the car, but mostly to have fun without the stress of deadlines. Sometimes we had too much beer and called it a night, and sometimes we headed back for several more hours. Eventually we learned to get together and do things that weren't FSAE related so we could just have a good time and blow off the emotions that come with facing the stress of deadlines. Get your team involved in doing things together that don't require working on the car and I think you'll have people coming back for the friends, despite not always being excited about the work aspect. I hope this helps. It sure worked wonders for our team.
    Conor Riordan
    Lincoln Design Judge 2013
    Michigan Design Judge 2012, 2014
    Notre Dame 2009
    WMU Team Captain 2008

  7. #7
    trust me, you're not the only team with these problems. even some of the teams with running cars right now are struggling with it.

    i don't have a good answer for you, because i've been looking for one myself for years.

  8. #8
    <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by michaelwaltrip:
    trust me, you're not the only team with these problems. even some of the teams with running cars right now are struggling with it.

    i don't have a good answer for you, because i've been looking for one myself for years. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

    Trust me, every engineering company out there struggles with this as well.
    Sam Zimmerman


    Vandals Racing alum

  9. #9
    We're having our weekly team planning and group update meeting at the Chicago Auto Show this week.

    Promises of 'new-people-drive-the-car-day' usually get good responses as well.

    At the end of the day, the people who stick around and are enthusiastic are the ones who are personally invested in the outcome of the project, and who want to learn and apply their skills towards the project. You can't always instill that sort of drive, it comes with the person. We always say it's not about finding lots of new people to join, it's about finding the right people to join.

    Best,
    Drew
    _______________________________________

    Northwestern Formula Racing Alum
    Head Engineer, Frame/Suspension 2006-2009

    My '73 Saab 99 Road Race Build

  10. #10
    I couldn't agree with Conor more. If you can develop a culture within the team of inclusion and mateship people start to feel tied to the team and don't want to let the team down. Negative leadership techniques won't really work because people can always just leave if they want (especially in purely volunteer teams). The more you can do to build a team early in the cycle the better of you will be when things get tough later in the season. Going for a gokarting session, having a bbq and a few amber ales, fighting each other with fire works etc all these things really help to build a team where everyone is always keen to put in.

    Cheers

    Olly
    Olly

    Academy Racing 04-07, 09-11
    UNSW@ADFA

+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts