Let me tell you about my team member from hell. Someone with no desire to succeed is the worst kind of person to have as a member in your student project group because it is nearly impossible to induce him to do the work and perform it well. It was apparent from the beginning that John had no motivation. After our group had already been created by the course lecturer, a latecomer came to class, and the lecturer assigned him to our group. His name was John. Already I was a little wary. Students who turn up to a class a couple of days after it has started are the slackers; they have either skipped the first few days of class, or haven't got their schedule of courses organized.
At our first meeting my expectations were confirmed. I found out that John was a member of the university drinking club, and he did nothing but talk about his social life. I must say though, John was entertaining. He could make us laugh, mainly because he didn't seem to know what he was talking about. Unfortunately, John could also be loud and obnoxious and often his jokes were simply not funny. He just didn't understand the difference between social time and work life. Although John planned to work in his family's business when he graduated, he was working 20 to 30 hours a week to earn money to pay for his tuition fees and cover his living expenses.
I don't think he wanted to be at university really, and he might have dropped out if it wasn't for all his friends. John seemed like someone you would always have to push a little harder in order to get anything done. He made no attempt to discuss anything about our team project or about the courses he was taking. All he ever talked about was partying.
In our team, we began by discussing what we would prepare for our next meeting.
John did not volunteer his services for any of the tasks and when we assigned him one, he seemed very annoyed and dissatisfied. At the next meeting, John showed up late and was unprepared. I was disappointed, but not surprised. It wasn't the end of the world, but I couldn't help but look ahead at the complex project we had to complete.
If this was the attitude and work ethic that John brought to only our second meeting, how were we ever going to get a reasonable project finished? I intend to make something of myself when I graduate, so I am concerned with my grades and don't want to be dragged down by someone who doesn't care. I would almost rather do things on my own.
We decided to distribute the workload evenly among all the members of the group. Each person chose a certain task, and we all began working to complete it. Things seemed to be going quite well until another group member and I realized that John was not completing his part of the work. He had a bad attitude about university that was not very positive, and was not doing well in classes. We tried to motivate him by explaining that if we completed the project successfully, he would complete the course and get a good grade. This seemed to work initially, but we soon learned he was still not completing the work. We discussed the situation and offered to help him if he was having difficulties.
Again this worked temporarily but he fell back into his same old pattern.
It wasn't as though the group didn't make an effort to get him involved. Two of us kept reminding him to do his part of the project. However, John would just smile, give a little chuckle, and reply 'I don't really care about this stupid course. I don't know why we have to do this anyway.' We also sent him numerous emails, practically begging him to attend our meetings, so that we could have his input as well as to save his grade. He never responded to any of the messages. At the meetings that he did show up to, we confronted him, and asked him to make more of an effort to attend regularly. He was really laid back and would always just tell us that he was busy, and that he would do what he could.
Eventually one of the members exploded with anger at him. She told him that he was being extremely disrespectful, and that if he didn't want to do any work, he shouldn't show up at the meetings at all! After that, the only thing that changed was that he began coming to our meetings, but he didn't contribute and still did almost no work. He just walked in, sat there while we did the work, and then took credit for work that he had not done.
As time went on, we noticed that John was trying to make small attempts to slowly work his way back into the group. I think he began to notice what a good time we were having working together to complete the project. Although he became more vocal and offered some opinions, we really didn't want to listen to what he had to say. We were well advanced with the project and didn't need his input by this time. Also, we no longer trusted him and did not feel that we could rely on him. I didn't take anything that John said seriously any more, and when he offered to do something, I didn't expect him to do it. He continued to derail our meetings with stories of his weekend parties. He began to complain and make sarcastic comments such as 'Oh, I guess nobody hears me.' As the project deadline approached, the group agreed to meet at the start and end of the week and then again, over the weekend, for one final time. However, after thinking about the plans just made, John realized that his club's formal dance was scheduled for the same weekend, and he claimed there was no time to work on the project. His statement really annoyed me. Did he expect the rest of us to finish the project for him? Did he really have the nerve to change our plans, just so that he could get drunk all weekend? What were his priorities - university or partying? Suddenly, after this occurred to me, I felt a tremendous pressure. Not only did I and my other team members have to organize everything to finish the project, but we were also the only ones who cared about the quality of the work we produced. We could have talked to John again about his performance, but we never did. We just wanted to get the work done and go home as soon as we could. We decided to speak to the course lecturer to see if we could get John removed from our group. We told John of our intentions and he realized that he would not be able to successfully complete the project on his own, which he would have had to do if he was removed from our group. John agreed to fulfil his duties and, although we had done a large part of the required work that had been assigned to him, he did successfully complete the rest himself.

Discussion questions

1. What motivates John?
2. What mistakes did the group make in trying to motivate John?
3. How did the team contribute to John's motivational problem?
4. Given what you know about effective group performance, how well did the group handle its problem with John?
5. What suggestions would you make to help the group both achieve its goal and to motivate John?