Working In A Team

Working collaboratively has its advantages and drawbacks. In a project like this one, where there is so much work to do, working in a team can be beneficial because you can take down tasks easily when you have more minds working together and creating ideas. But being in a team always sparks discussions and disagreements. My last post is a picture of my team. I’m the girl on the far left, next to me is Sebastian, Mayan and on the far right is Felipe. Sebastian and Mayan are no longer really part of the team because they have completed their CAS experience and are busy with other IB things, so the project is now in my hands and Felipe’s. Something I have been improving on throughout this project has been the skill to work collaboratively because when Sebas and Mayan were in charge, I simply had to follow orders and do my part. Even then, we had a lot of issues with communication but we worked through them. Sebas and Mayan passed the project down to me which is a huge responsibility but Felipe joined the team. I am someone who tries to perfect everything, and I get easily annoyed if things don’t go my way or things aren’t fair. I’m the person in group projects who ends up doing all the work because no one else will do it, and I don’t want to get a bad grade. I admit that is all me. Clearly, working collaboratively is not my strength, which has led me to inconvenient situations in the project. At the beginning, we had a weird start with the team, because we had had a meeting with other students in my class and at the end no one was sure who was part of the team or not and eventually that led to me forgetting Felipe was even a part of this, so I would tend to leave him out of the project and I thought it was just Sebas, Mayan and I, specially since we were the ones mostly involved in everything. Once I had discovered Felipe was a part of this, I was still under Sebas and Mayan’s project and they’d assign me a lot of work that I would end up doing alone because either I’d forget about Felipe, or there wasn’t strong enough communication to plan. Fast forward to me being the leader, I still kept doing most of the work by myself because I wasn’t sensing any initiative from Felipe, so I thought he wasn’t really a part of this anymore. Also, I have always liked being an independent person and doing things on my own to assure I can make it the best possible and do it my way. Turns out he was part of the project, so we’ve been working on getting him more involved and incorporated into the project. I tried managing this on my own, and it was hard, because there is so much to do and trying to take care of every detail is really stressful. I have been assigning Felipe more tasks and insinuating him to come work at the mangrove or the nursery more often, without me having to directly ask him to, or having to be there every time. I don’t mean to offend Felipe but he has frustrated and disappointed me in the past because of my high expectations. One of the main examples is when I had to present to 5th grade on my own because he couldn’t come to school, and I understand he was sick and that is not fully under his control, but what annoyed me was he tried changing the date last minute, once we had already arranged this day with the 5th grade teacher and there was no way to cancel last minute like that. Felipe wasn’t there either when we built the mangrove nursery, which has been the biggest part of our project so far. This project requires a lot of motivation, passion, dedication and effort because its a lot of work and the fact that I’ve done a lot of it on my own was really stressful and mentally draining to the point that I broke down one day in class. I have always had really high expectations and I always want everything to be perfect, which is impossible, but at least I want the project to have good results and a positive impact on the environment and the world. Since the mangroves in the nursery weren’t doing very well with the dry season conditions, I was stressed with everything there was to do, and I felt like I had to carry all of these responsibilities on my own, I broke down but I had a wonderful classmate and Miss Amy who were there for me to talk to me and make me feel feel better. Moving on, I am expecting Felipe to help me out more and carry through the project. I understand he has told me he works better under direct orders but that is exactly what stresses me out the most. I don’t always know what to do next, and that is exactly why I need his help, but he’s telling me he needs more direction, but what can I do when I don’t have any? I feel like that just makes me a terrible leader for not knowing the answer to everything but the point of working in a team is to find that solution together so I am hoping Felipe is willing to step up more often because as life gets more complicated and so does the project, I am simply getting overwhelmed and I can’t do it all alone. Moving on, someone who has surprised me is Ernst. Every time we meet he has more and more great news about the curriculum, about what they’re doing at ConnectOcean, about certifications, new ideas for the event, and so on, always bringing in incredible and creative new thoughts. Ernst always has so many new amazing things to tell me, it motivates me even more every time and gives me so much faith that we will create a positive impact on the world. I have to admit I haven’t reached out as much to him either because I didn’t want to bother him about anything not really that important, since I know he has a really busy schedule, but moving forward I will also get him more involved and update him more often, I will also begin meeting with him more often because we have to plan the event. I admit I haven’t been a great leader, and I will try to be more open-minded and tolerant, but I expect good results in return because I want this project done well and with passion. I will also work on communicating better and asking for help when I need it instead of stressing out and trying to do it all on my own which is sometimes a really terrible idea that will most likely end in me crying but it’s all a learning experience.

Learning outcomes: Work collaboratively, Commitment and perseverance, Strengths and areas for growth, New challenges and new skills
Learner profiles: Communicator, Reflective, Open-minded, Inquirer