Team Dynamics

The organizational culture on my team at Monster is, to put it mildly, pretty strange. At least, its not what I expected a professional environment to be. The expectations about work being done has almost nothing to do with the amount of time you spend at work or how seemingly focused you are when sitting at your desk. The ultimate test of your work is the final product that you produce. The context of my team makes this possible; the analysts I work with are very good at what they do and bring a diversity of experience to the table, including current military intelligence, actuarial scientists, ex-private equity, and ex-investment banking.

This might not seem like the worst way to lead a team, as it allows us team members to have a certain level of autonomy that boosts morale and keeps the relationships on the team rolling smoothly. However, it has also left room for some team members to not meet the level of work that I think they could.

For example, there’s one analyst on the team who just graduated this Spring and just became a full time hire. He messes around on the job a lot, scrolling through social media and taking multiple smoke breaks every day. He’s able to do this because he ultimately gets the work done that he’s asked to do. However, it feels like he gets the bare minimum done and doesn’t unlock his full potential (he’s a really smart kid). I’ve been assigned to work a couple of projects with him and it feels like doing a group project at school with that one kid who puts all of his work off till the last minute, and the whole project suffers as a result.

An aspect of the organizational culture that I feel is a positive is the open communication on my team. We have about 8 analysts on my team, and everyone is very open to have productive conversations, give their thoughts on difficult issues, and respond quickly and honestly to any communication I initiate. Even though I’m an intern, I’ve never felt shrugged off by any of the employees on the team. Although, I have gotten the cold shoulder from some people in other departments, and my manager says its because my Outlook signature says “Intern.” That’s to be expected, but it requires my manager to be attentive to my interactions with external parties, to make sure the my productivity is not being hindered by lack of communication by these other organizations within Monster.