One of the things I hated as a student was group work, where everyone seemed to want to get as much credit as possible while doing as little work as they could get away with. Well, not everybody… but too many people.
The same thing happens, of course, in business, and you are going to have to deal with it. But how? How do you make sure that the people who really do the work are the ones who get credit? In particular, how do you make sure this happens when the boss wants results and has no interest in hearing about who does what?
Technical Writing is group work. Rarely does anyone do it on their own. Companies don’t want that, for they look for breadth of input and variety in ideas. Today, with so many people working from home, companies are even more concerned that people work together. They know that each employee has her/his own skills and want to meld those.
Employees will be asked to keep a work log much like the log/journal I am asking you to keep for this course. In their work log, employees are expected to break down their work into projects and, further, into relevant tasks. Oh, and who they worked with and for what amount of time.
In a final encapsulation of the activity on completion of the project, each employee will be directed to comment on who contributed most to the project. This is dangerous: you don’t want to put down your colleagues (you never know who might get promoted faster and get access to your files). What, then, should you do?
The lesson to learn, and one you should put into practice in this course, is that you never criticize anyone in a written report (unless it is specifically asked of you by a superior–but even then, be careful). If someone does nothing, put down their name as part of the team but do not mention them when discussing any of the tasks completed. Say nothing negative about them. Your boss, or your teacher, will get the message. Write only about the things people actually did.
In your log/journal, keep track of every interaction you have with others in the class. If a group of you decide on a Zoom meeting, tell who was there and who contributed what to the conversation. Just showing up, after all, is never quite enough.
As everybody in the class will be turning in a log/journal at the end of the term, it becomes very easy for the teacher to determine those who have contributed and those who were just carried along.
Get in this habit now. It will serve you well in your business life. You have have already seen that those who make it to the top always have notes about every activity they have been involved in–indeed, they have jotted down memories of all business communications from the short discussion in the hallway to the formal meetings in the corner office. Do the same for every aspect of this class.
Prepare for success.
