Passion Breeds Success

Lesson #1. Everyone MUST be working towards the same goal. 

The initial meetings of this challenge were, well, more or less brutal. Everyone their own unique way of how they interpreted the challenge and their vision for this thing we were calling a conference. Everything was messy and the people who liked what we had come up with were excited and always wanted to work on this conference and then there was the other side of the spectrum where the people who were uninterested were clearly uninterested. This really bothered me. I decided to share my thoughts with a few people and soon realized they were on the same page as me. You might be asking why I decided to share with only a select few? Well because I knew some people just wouldn't care and the others who were passionate about it would get upset. Us in the middle kinda decided something needed to change. Once the organization structure changed, and then the whole idea of the conference changed as a result I finally felt great about this conference. Yeah, it came a little late in the quarter but it was needed. From what I have noticed everyone seems to be pretty passionate about the idea of this challenge. There will most likely always be a few people who have different ideas but for the most part the reactions I saw were excitement and motivation. Now that we are all on the same page and have a desire to work towards the same vision, I know believe that we have the potential to hold one of the most successful conferences that Ohio State has ever seem. 

Lesson #2 Not Everyone Can Be Heard. 

As much as it killed me to learn this (my Includer trait), its so true. Working in a group of 20 extremely intelligent people, who all come from different backgrounds and have many different outlooks on how things should be, is really difficult. As an outsider, I think it would look like the most interesting and insightful group of people; and while I would completely agree there are times where it can be a little much.When a group of 20 people all want to give their opinion on every matter, things don't get finished. The line needs to be drawn somewhere for where a few opinions is enough. Since we are a group of such talented and bight people we need to realize that each and every one of us has the ability to make a large decision and while it would be nice to have everyone's input, it just isn't practical nor realistic.. This leads me directly into my next lesson. 

Lesson #3 Trust is Crucial 

When someone says they trust me, I expect them to mean it. There were times when people would throw the "trust" word around and so while I felt completely empowered to work on whatever it was, it would sometimes bite me in the butt. I would show what I had completed and "this needed to be changed, this wasn't good enough, etc." It was, for lack of a better word, annoying.  Having trust in someone, to me, means expecting they get the job done, knowing they will do a good job, and not having the need to critique the work they completed. After communicating this with many people I eventually noticed a change. Rather than just saying trust I think now people actually practice trust. This trust that has been formed in the fellows has proven to be effective. I see this empowerment leading to actually getting things accomplished, not holding back because they are worried they will do it wrong. Establishing trust is hard, but necessary, and I'm thankful that we, as fellows, have found that crucial element.