Hey, what's up guys.
Last week, we did a video about whether or not music is
an effective study aid, or if it's just a distraction.
At the end of that video, I said I wanted to follow it up
with a video on music that's intentionally designed
to increase focus or concentration,
or some other cognitive function.
Well, to be honest, that video's research isn't ready yet.
I've been researching all week.
I'm gonna put a comment down below this video
if you want some more explanation on it, but,
in short, I'm gonna have that video coming out next week
so I have a little bit more time to polish it
and make it as good as you guys deserve.
I didn't wanna just not publish anything this week,
so I went looking in the College Info Geek community,
which has been up for a few weeks now,
and there was a really good question by a student who said,
"Often, I'm paired up with group members
"that refuse to do any work, no matter how many times
"I attempt a conversation or email them,
"or phone them, or even just talk to them face-to-face.
"I don't know if they lack motivation,
"or if there's just something wrong with me
"that they refuse to work with me.
"Help?"
The question, really, here is,
how do I deal with group members that aren't contributing
to the group project?
I have had to deal with this before.
I know, personally, friends of mine who have been sitting up
at almost like 11:59pm, waiting for a group member
to email the last part of a group project
so they can submit it when it's due at midnight.
This is a common problem, so in this video,
I've got five quick tips for you to deal with
unresponsive, or uncooperative, or lazy group members.
The first tip is to consider that
maybe it's not a laziness issue.
Maybe it isn't that they are simply not doing any work,
and rather, it's actually a communication problem
with your group.
There could be just inefficiencies
in how you guys communicate or share files,
or get things done, so when the group project is set up
and you're able to communicate for the first time in class,
after all the details are given,
I think you should really take stock of everything
that needs to be done, divvy up all the work,
and assign roles and assign tasks,
and have everyone in the group
verbally affirm what they're gonna do.
That way, everyone else knows
what they said they were gonna do,
they're a little bit more beholden to it,
and they are accountable to everyone else.
Also, during that first meeting, it is critical
that you get as much communication information
from each group member as they are comfortable giving,
so an email address or a phone number, or whatever it is,
just in case something comes up.
Tip number two, I think it's much better to use a tool
that is specifically designed for group work,
rather than trying to communicate
through email, or something.
In the past, I've used things like Google Docs,
or Face Camp, or Trello, but the one I'm using right now
is called Asana, and I'm gonna recommend it
because I am loving this tool.
I'm using it for all the work that I do with
both of the people who regularly help me
with work on College Info Geek.
It's totally free for groups of up to 10 people,
so you'll never have to pay for it,
and it's just really good for assigning tasks
and keeping projects really well organized.
You can sync up Dropbox, so it's really easy
to attach files and, overall, I just absolutely love it.
Tip number three is to pay very close attention to deadlines
and structure the projects so that there are mini-deadlines
along the way.
Say you have a group project and there's five of you
and it's due in two weeks.
Instead of being like, "All right, this is your role,
"this is your role, you guys go do it and get it all done
"by the due date," you need to build, basically,
checkpoints along the way for each person to
send work to an editor or a project manager.
I'm gonna say, if you're worried about group members not
pulling their weight, or the group project
not getting done, in general, it's probably a good idea
for you, yourself, to take on the project management role,
because if you're worried about this,
you're likely to be one of the more responsible
members in the group.
With these mini-deadlines,
you can make sure things are along schedule,
you can make sure people aren't procrastinating,
and I think it is absolutely essential
for one deadline, in particular, to be created,
and that is a deadline for everyone to get
everything they need to contribute
to the editor of the project,
at least, one day before the deadline, preferably two.
That way, the editor has time to get everything in order
and actually submit it before the deadline.
Now, we've moved on to tip number four,
which is emailing the professor.
Maybe the communication is not an issue.
Maybe the tools are not an issue,
and you really just have somebody who is unresponsive,
or who is just not getting their work done,
and they're dragging the entire group down.
You feel you need to bring the issue to your professor.
You can do that, but you need to think very carefully
before you do, and make sure you do it in the right way.
Because it's very possible that your professor
is trying to structure this group project
as a simulation for the real world,
where there's a project manager
who is responsible for the group.
If you're that project manager, or if somebody else
is the project manager, it's their responsibility
to do what they can to make sure the project is on track
before you escalate it to a supervisor,
which is, in this case, your professor.
If you haven't already emailed that member
who's not doing what they're supposed to do,
if you haven't already escalated that to a
face-to-face conversation in class,
your professor might well ask you why you didn't do that
before bugging them with the problem.
Also, if you're going to go to the professor,
you wanna do it early on in the project,
right when the problem rears its head
and you've already tried things out, rather than waiting,
because they're gonna ask you, "Why did you wait until now
"to bring this problem to me,
"rather than nipping it in the bud right when it was
"actually a problem?"
That brings us to the last and most inconvenient tip,
which is that you might just need to suck it up,
do the work for them, and let them ride your coattails.
It sucks, it's awful, and totally unfair,
but it's great training for the real world.
There was actually somebody in the subreddit
who expressed a lot of surprise when I said that.
They were like, "Wait a minute, people in the real world
"aren't more responsible than people in college?"
I would say, on the whole, people do mature,
they grow up, they become more responsible than they were
as teenagers or college students,
but there's always gonna be people
in almost any organization you work in in the future
that aren't gonna pull their weight,
or they're gonna be disorganized,
or they're just not gonna communicate well.
You're gonna have to deal with that.
Professors know that, that's why they build group projects.
Part of the intention here is to help you work in a group
and deal with those kind of issues.
They know that some people are not cut out for group work
and they're just not responsible.
Hopefully, this video has been helpful to you in some way.
I know dealing with unresponsive group members
is absolutely awful.
That's why, in college, when I had the option to,
I often elected to do group projects by myself
instead of with a group but, sometimes,
you have to deal with a unfortunate situation.
If you have additional tips or you want to
discuss this video, there will be an official
discussion thread in the College Info Geek community,
linked down below in the description.
As always, thank you so much for watching,
and I will see you next week.
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