Monday, February 28, 2011

Don't Blame It On Juan!

Upon reading this prompt, several things stuck out to me. As everyone stated very clearly, the problem with this group was that Juan lacked strong leadership qualities. From the prompt, this is true. Juan was quick to volunteer and  conduct meetings. However, an even more startling problem is that no one else seemed to step up and take a stance and even offer another nomination. Their silence was consent and they didn't really talk about who they feel could have been even more effective as a leader than Juan.

Another problem I found was that the members brainstormed and there didn't seem to be a meeting where the ideas that were proposed, were presented to the group and everyone voted on a project, after having investigated the logistics of every idea/proposed plan.

Money is always a key issue as to how things get done. I feel that as a group, there should have been a person put in charge of coming up with ways to raise money in a separate committee that worked in conjunction with Juan's group. Had each idea been researched and developed throughly, through Juan's guidance and the groups initiative, the idea of fundraising and having money would have not hindered them.

With planning any event or meeting, you always have to have several backup plans in place to avoid the last minute scrambling of finding an idea to do. There is common knowledge that things always do and will go wrong; you can never plan when they will occur, how they'll occur, and what will occur. As a leader of a group, you plan and have fail safe procedures that give you a foundation to stand on and eases the stress level.

Having been a leader of group, once you lose your people, you have to work overtime and its stressful. Juan should have apologized, when he made a mistake and accepted responsibility for the failures, he could have prevented. On the other hand, the members of the group should have tried to support him and not given up on the tasks-despite the frustration and walked away. Also, if the members felt frustrated, someone should have pulled Juan aside, offered to help and him and talked to him about what he needed and how everyone could support him to make the best event possible. Furthermore, if the members of the group had questions, they should have asked them sooner rather than later and asked Juan clear and concise questions about their role, what he wanted from them, their objectives as event planners and how to further their mission.


Overall, the majority of the problem was communication and being open. I have found that you have to prepare for any task-gather data, find out your mission, time restraints, the things that need to be done, and having a backup plan. When you have the meeting, you have to be open to questions, ideas, concerns. At meetings, you have to encourage the members to ask questions, present ideas, and be accommodating and more importantly, delegate and fully explain your ideas, thoughts, concerns, and propose solutions and investigations. For Juan and his group, they failed to communicate. Juan, as a leader, took on a task when he didn't have a clue about what to do and hadn't prepared for the challenge. This lead to issues in communication, which affected the group and the celebration.

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