Working With The Outcasts 290510
The moment they were assigned to my team, I thought…
Just when we were doing so well… why? Why?!
They were infamous for being difficult to work with. They had strange and different ideas which the majority couldn’t accept. To sum it all up, nobody wanted to work with them. They attended all tutorials and lectures, but failed to deliver, and word was going around that these two individuals were really fucking stupid.
My team was worried, so was I.
I was extremely pissed when a few classmates shook my hand and wished me good luck. I told myself that I was going to prove them all wrong.
We watched them closely and sent out reminders before deadlines were due. The written work they both delivered were sub-standard, I have to admit. We didn’t know what to do with them. Until one day…
Student 1 came up with a brilliant project idea instantaneously, when all of us (without him) took almost 8 hours and failed to come up with anything half as good.
Student 2 designed a 30-minute long presentation within 2 hours. It would have taken us about 10 hours to do so… Moreover, the animations (done using a Mac) were breathtaking. He was a professional photographer, who so happened to be my junior in Victoria School.
That’s it! We realized that they had what we all lacked. While we were focusing so much on productivity, we failed to realize what they had could actually have saved us a lot of time and agony…
Creativity. They dared to think outside the box when it came to problem solving, without any fear of criticism.
We immediately changed our strategy. Those two guys were instantly put in charge of all visual materials. We ended up topping the entire class in those project assignments and proved everybody wrong, but that’s not the point.
The point is…
1. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses.
2. Leave them out in areas they are weak in, rather than try to force them to improve, unless it is absolutely critical that they do so.
3. Delegate tasks according to their strengths and… most importantly, encourage them!
To the teams who ostracized them… I hope your jaws dropped when you saw them perform well. All I have to say is… your judgement sucks!
