Sunday, September 23, 2007
Team Management
This semester's management problem for me is the management of a team. I have to build a multi-talented team of leaders to creatively coordinate a Weekly General meeting of an average attendance of 60 students. This requires time commitment from everyone in the team, which is one of the problems. Including me, there are 8 team leaders. It is very challenging for all of us leaders to meet together because we each have our own schedules and other commitments to keep. It is very important that all the leaders meet together, this way everyone is on the same page ensuring the Weekly General meeting to be a success.
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3 comments:
Coordinating a club of 70 students and participating in a managing team of 8 leaders for Intervarsity Christian Club must be quite a demanding undertaking. However, this becomes twice as difficult when you take into consideration how vital it is for an organization to communicate goals and exchange ideas. I had a similar experience when I used to be participating member of AIESEC Baruch. Gathering of all the leaders in one meeting was uncommon and very troublesome, a problem which was solved by daily organization-wide emails. I would propose this as a partial solution to your problem, but I'm confident that you have already implemented it. Nevertheless, I will propose a more technologically advanced solution. Google, Cisco, Microsoft and many other successful corporations have found email to be too constricting for managers to exchange ideas freely. Whereas flying managers to other countries for meetings proved costly and inopportune. As a result two-way web cameras evolved into virtual 3D conferencing - technology capable of bringing together numerous teams from different parts of the world. A web camera costs a measly $20 nowadays, and there is a multitude of software and virtual meeting rooms on the web, which could possibly make your life easier and your organization more productive. There you go!
Up until a few days ago, i was also working as a leader in a school club. It was incredibly difficult to get people together. At the end of the day it would seem that the only thing you can hope for is that everyone is dedicated to making it work. The good thing about extra curricular activities, is that they are not mandatory and people should desire to spend their extra time working on it. In situations where there are a lot of people, pre-determined schedules and systems of updating people have worked best for me in the past!
Good luck!
I am actually having some team management issues, but my problem is with obtaining results from my team within a well-timed basis.
But anyhow back to your situation. The first option that comes to mind is to take advantage of the technology that you have available. For example, at my workplace I communicate with the staff in the Corporate Office via emails instead of phone calls. I feel this way allows for a more complete and detailed communication. I can easily go back to get the information I need and reference it when completing some of my tasks.
You did not specify how often you need to meet with your fellow leaders but, I would suggest that you can communicate via email this way you can start discussing and planning your weekly General Meeting. Then agree on a date or maybe a few hours before the General Meeting your teammates can get together and discuss the final touches for the General Meeting.
Good Luck!! :)
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