Red Bull - It Gives You Wings...and collaboration?

I read this prompt and immediately thought to myself, “Man, that’s a tough one.” In a lot of ways, this is something I expect to get asked in a job interview. So I sat down for a while, and – slightly distracted by Facebook (Millenials multi-task remember?) – it finally hit me. The best and most obvious time where I engaged in an authentic collaborative effort was last spring when a small group of brothers and I designed and built our chariot for the Red Bull Chariot Races. 

A week or so before the races, I met in the FIJI house dining room with a few brothers, and we pulled out a big dry erase board and listed all kinds of ideas for the chariot. Everyone’s opinion was respected, and all the ideas were considered at first. Once we had a sizeable list, we talked about pros and cons of each idea. Together, we addressed issues like the time required to build, ease of finding materials, and strength of the design. We came to consensus about some defining characteristics our design should have in order to be successful. We judged our ideas against these characteristics and constraints to conceive our final design. For instance, one of the ideas was to create a system by which the wheels could swivel and help steer the chariot.  We dismissed this idea because of its technical complexity. It would take a long time to design something like that, and that system would be easily broken. We were time-limited as the races were in a week, and one of our priorities was strength. Similarly, another design idea was to use children’s bicycle wheels on our chariot. This was something we stuck with because the wheels would be strong, while the chariot’s center of gravity would be low.

Having agreed on a design, we set out to build the chariot. The same group of brothers was extremely helpful, and everyone played a vital role, whether it was screwing 2x4s together, measuring pieces, or just providing input. We were able to build the chariot over the course of two days, and put the final artistic touches on it the day of the chariot race.

As many know, we went on to win the chariot race.

From the experience, though, I took a lot of valuable lessons. First, a small group who is energized around a goal has a lot of power. When you approach the task in a way that involves everyone and seeks to collaborate, you are far more likely to succeed. I have no doubt that we were able to win because everyone felt so personally invested in the project. It wasn’t only that we were representing our fraternity, but that we were representing ourselves as well as the value of the time we’d put into our creation. Finally, I saw the power that our group could have on the rest of the chapter. Our hard work and our victory really lit a fire under the chapter, and the chapter really carried the momentum of the chariot races into Greek Week and Islander.

These are lessons that I keep in mind in my role as a chapter officer. Much of our approach as a cabinet has revolved around getting the right people in the right places to energize our various committees towards being successful. I know that if we can be really successful in something like Rivalry Run, Education, or Service, we can build off that success.