There are some experiences that will stick with you forever. For me, one of those experiences was during my freshman year when Vice President Joe Biden came to campus for the It's On Us campaign. When VP Biden came to campus, what most people did not realize was there was a whole team planning the event a week in advance. I was one of the members of the planning team, which as a freshman was a very memorable experience. Part of why it was so memorable was due to the great teamwork that we had. The planning team was made up of the student government executive team, our Chief of Staff, myself and the White House / It's On Us national representatives. My role in the student government at that time was one of the executive assistants / interns to the Student Body President. When we found out that VP Biden was coming for an It's On Us rally, the executive team brought specific staff members on the planning team that could be trusted. We planned the entirety of the week, with my focus being on student volunteers for the event itself.
Based on this successful team, I learned a lot about the benefits of this team structure as well as traits of good team members. I would categorize this team structure as a simple hierarchy. There was the White House It's On Us representative who was at the top of the team. She directed our Student Body Vice President, who then directed each of us within the team. Based on this, there was a lot information being sent through the higher ranks. I found this to be helpful but also challenging. It was helpful in the fact that because of all the moving pieces for the event, I had the specific information that I needed to do my duty for the rally. However, I found it frustrating when I had specific questions that had to be sent up the hierarchy, which took time. As talked about in the book, this allows the top people in the structure to focus on high level objectives, leaving the focused details to the others.
Based on the top performance aspects within the textbook, the key characteristics that I saw within that team was shaping purpose in response to a demand or opportunity, teams that are of manageable size, developing the right mix of expertise and hold themselves collectively accountable. With the way that we collaborated with the White House officials, we were the University of Illinois experts in terms of event planning. Because of this, we were able to talk about the different possibilities for the rally, and be able to quickly adapt to the changes throughout the week. For example, my role with the student volunteers was two-fold. After finding the volunteers, I found out that we needed less than originally anticipated. This forced me to find tickets for the rally, which were of very limited supply at this point in the week. I was able to respond to the changes in the situation, with the support of my team, to ensure that everyone had a ticket than initially thought they would get in as volunteers.
The other characteristics that I saw within my team was having a team of a manageable size, developing the right mix of expertise, and holding each other accountable. All of these characteristics were evident as our team was only six students, with two White House officials. There was a lot of work that went on at the University level with communications at the higher aspects of the hierarchy. Additionally, the right mix of expertise was evident as we had most of our executive team which were juniors at the time, a sophomore who would become my best friend and myself, a freshman. This mix of expertise was very valuable as we were able to bring different perspectives as well as experiences. I gained valuable experience during this week leading up to the rally, and have found it to be one of the most memorable and teaching weeks in my time in college. Additionally, as we had all worked with each other on a smaller scale throughout the year, when VP Biden came to campus, we were able to hold each other accountable. Helping out each other was something that was very important as there were a lot of moving deadlines throughout that week. Additionally, because this was an event on such a large scale, accountability for each other was necessary.
Overall, working on the It's On Us VP Biden rally planning team was an experience on a team that I will never forget. The team worked extremely well together under pressure and time constraints. The system of simple hierarchy seemed to be highly effective in this time as there were many aspects of this event that needed to come together in the correct order to make it happen. In working on previous and post teams within the student government, the It's On Us rally planning team was by far the most successful one I have worked on. The group of us have become very close friends, and I know that if given the opportunity to work together again, we would be able to be as effective as we were before. I am very grateful for the experience and everything I learned from it, and have been trying to utilize it as I have continued to work on teams.
In the future, please try to get your posts done earlier in the week. This one will be marked as late.
ReplyDeleteLet me comment first about background information that was provided and also what was not provided. I had to Google It's On Us to find out what that is about. Maybe it should be common knowledge to everyone, but It wasn't something I was familiar with. You might have said that. You mentioned the event itself, but you didn't say where it was held and what happened at it. (I presume VP Biden made some remarks. Did anyone else speak as well?) I also wondered whether Campus Administration was also involved with the planning. You discussed your student group, your role and how the communication worked. But I would be very surprised for there to be a VIP visit to campus without people from Public Affairs involved. So I didn't quite understand how the various pieces fit together.
Since the experience happened in your first year, maybe some of the things I'm asking about above were unknown to you at the time. That's fair enough, but then you should say something about the extent of what you know happened.
I do think that people rise to the occasion and when there is a big deal event going on that servers to motivate everyone to function at a high level, even if there are some issues with the structure. You can't always count on that sort of motivation, however, so one wonders whether the lessons really did carry through to other group were you've participated in since.