Picking Teams

July 13, 2012

I have always hated the feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and expectation surrounding choosing teams, but this week was different. It brought the most exciting moment of the Innovation Institute thus far: picking our design teams! These are the groups of 4-6 community members with whom we will work for the remainder of our time here. The entire week was devoted to the selection process and to preparation for our first meetings together. The process went like this:

1. Reviewing Assets. In the two weeks of Immersion, we interviewed 40+ members of the community to better understand the assets in the village. This includes physical resources, knowledge, abilities, VABES (values, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations), etc. Before we picked our teams, the scholars met and catalogued not only the assets of the people whom we had met but also those within our Think Impact team.

2. Defining Criteria. Next we individually reflected on the most important attributes of an ideal team member, reflecting on the ways in which our own strengths and weaknesses as leaders and managers will also affect our teams. Each of us used different techniques to do so. Emanuel had a ranking system based on scores in a number of different categories, while I used a table to organize the most important information from interviews. Beyond tactical considerations (i.e. who has a bicycle or knows how to sew), there was consensus that the most important qualities were understanding of and alignment with the Think Impact mission, an entrepreneurial spirit and forward-thinking mindset, and genuine curiosity and enthusiasm for the project.

Notes on assets of various community members

3. Scholar Discussion. We then came together with individually-prepared list of our top fifteencandidates. I had decided to select a team of entirely women, while Tom was interested in having a team of all men. We discussed team dynamics, village relationships, and team goals before creating a paper version of an Excel optimization model that would have made my Darden Learning Team proud. Given that we had all identified slightly different goals and criteria for our teams, there was surprisingly little overlap in our target lists. We each narrowed down the lists to a top 5 with the aim of having a final team of 4-6 community members.

Our team working in the village government office space

4. Design Team Invitations. Armed with our target lists, we were joined by our translators to devise an “invitation pitch” to the community members. Preparing ahead of time with our translators makes meetings infinitely more effective, and Gilbert and I outlined and rehearsed talking points before setting out across the three villagesin which our invitees live. I was shocked at how eagerly people accepted their invitations and how clearly they already understand our objective of our work from our earlierconversations (thanks to Gilbert and friends for such excellent work!).

Prep with our translators

5. Prep for the First Meeting. We spent the remainder of the week preparing for our first design team meeting on Friday. Talking with other scholars, it was interesting to see the many ways in which people found to connect with their teams. One scholar planned the human knot as an ice breaker, while another brought in specific items to spur conversation around assets and issues in the community and another facilitated a game of charades across the language barrier. I chose to storyboard my meeting with drawings of the most important things I wanted to convey (i.e. goals and expectations). Together with this, I tried to learn a few key words in Kinyarwanda, with the hope of connecting with my team directly instead of just through the translator.




Power Point slides by hand :-)



This was a very involved, methodical process, and we worked with each other every step of the way. Picking teams when you have clear goals and a strategy to get there is not as much stressful as inspiring. By the end of this week, we will have had several team meetings, and we will have identified the challenge we want to tackle as a group. I’m feeling confident that I have assembled a wonderful group of women, and I’m looking forward to our discussions this week!

 





My notes from Immersion and profiles of community members