Nicholas Barry

My interns, apparently, aren't as wild about initiative as I thought they'd be. It turns out they want a bit more structure.

We recently had an Intern Retreat - we got all the interns together to talk about how things were going, and to ask them to suggest improvements. A few quick findings:

• Everyone seems to really like the program - they had plenty of improvements to suggest, but hardly any complaints. I'm always open to complaints, so I don't think they were just biting their tongues out of fear.
• Interns like the freedom they're given to dream up their own projects, but also really want some preapproved projects to choose from if they just want to get started on something.
• Experienced interns really wanted more opportunities to act as leaders and help mentor newer interns. I've been wanting to start a mentoring program for a while, but feared that the older interns would view it as a hassle. Au contraire!

I'll write another post soon about the intern mentoring I've started up. I have also begun an Internships page of this website to describe what I've learned about starting and running an internship program. For now, I'll start with my biggest surprise, which was that most interns seemed to want more vetted projects.

When I dreamed up the idea of ownership initiatives, I thought the biggest appeal would be that interns could think up their own projects. One of the aspects of my job that I've always valued the most has been the freedom to initiate a project I thought would benefit the office, and I imagined interns would clamor at the opportunity to do the same. So I developed the ownership initiatives around the idea that interns would propose an idea, then investigate how to turn that idea into a feasible project.

Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that things don't always go as smoothly as I imagined. There are at least three things that stand in the way of my idealized vision:

• Many interns - even motivated, creative interns - don't come in with a good understanding of what sorts of projects our office will want to take on.
• Roadblocks, often completely unexpected, can derail good ideas, which is frustrating for interns.
• Most of our interns are energetic and don't want to spend weeks investigating a potential project before getting started - they want to get started now.

What interns need is a pool of vetted projects they can get started on immediately, which have been cleared of roadblocks, and which I know will further the cause of our office (providing assistance to constituents, and providing a communication channel between constituents and Senator Steinberg).

The ownership initiatives now have a slightly different focus. Instead of trumpeting the benefits of being able to work on projects that interns can design on their own, we emphasize the appeal of having ownership (responsibility and commitment) over a project. We help new interns find places on existing projects. I spend time making sure projects aren't getting stuck. What I still need to implement is a list of fully-vetted projects with notes on how to get started.

Beyond that, I talk to interns about ideas they may want to pursue on their own. I know that there are interns who want to design projects of their own, and I want to make that possible. But I also realize that not everyone wants to invent a completely new program; they just want the opportunity to contribute something of value for which they will be recognized.

A few days ago I had the odd experience of mentoring one of my interns on leadership development. Odd because I'm so new to leadership development myself, but also because I felt I actually had things to teach. Much to my surprise, Lauren didn't immediately say, "Yeah, yeah, I already know that." Instead, she was nodding and taking notes. Also, I was reminded how much I learn when I teach - it forces me to articulate ideas that only exist nebulously in my mind.

Here are the basics of what I've learned so far, and what I told Lauren.

Involvement is a continuum. It doesn't help to think of infrequent volunteers, team members, and leaders as separate categories of participants. These types of participants belong on a continuum. Every volunteer should be seen as a potential team member, and team members can and should be encouraged to lead.

Leadership isn't a one-way activity. You can have lots of team members acting as leaders because leadership isn't a one-way activity that only occurs when someone leads her subordinates. Participants can lead laterally when they work on projects together, and help each other overcome obstacles. They can also lead upward - people higher in an organization should be open to the contributions of those below them. Developing leaders is less about grooming someone for a position of formal authority, and is more about developing abilities like critical thinking, communication, confidence, teamwork and a willingness to take risks.

Get participants working together. You'll have real trouble developing someone as a leader if you only assign him individual work. Even when tasks can be completed individually, get participants to work together on tasks so they can learn how to lead laterally. If tasks cannot be easily split up, ask participants to choose how to distribute a bundle of tasks, and ask them to talk to check up on each other's work. This will also help you recognize which participants take the initiative, and may be ready for more responsibility. Assigning work to groups also builds morale and team spirit, and takes a load off your shoulders, as you are no longer solely responsible for assigning tasks - you can ask a team to figure out the best way to accomplish something.

Assign responsibilities, not tasks. To engage a team member's passions, assign them broad responsibilities rather than narrow tasks. People want to feel they have accomplished something, and it's difficult to feel ownership of your work if you can't see how your work connects to everything else. Almost everyone has to do some tedious groundwork; a team member will be a lot more cheerful doing that work when she decides it's necessary to accomplish the goals she's responsible for than if you tell her to do that work. Sometimes you'll have to step in to remind a team member what sort of groundwork is necessary, but even in these cases, make sure to put the groundwork in the context of her overall responsibility.
When someone first gets involved, you should probably find engaging tasks to assign them, because they may not be interested in taking on responsibilities. But as people get more involved, you should give them the chance to take on responsibilities.

Gauge a participant's interest by suggesting they invite others. People who are really interested in the work they do will probably be enthusiastic about asking others to get involved, if you have ways new people can contribute without a large time commitment. If these opportunities exist and your team member isn't interested, it may be because he doesn't feel very engaged in what he's doing. Think about how you can engage him more. If you're already doing everything you should be doing, keep in mind that he probably won't be interested in getting any more involved than he already is.

Leadership development takes time. Leadership development not only takes time in the sense of needing weeks or months; it also takes real time from a leader's day. Don't shortchange your leadership development effort by assuming it will happen as a natural byproduct of management. Keep in very good contact with anyone you're developing as a leader, and anyone who is a potential leader. Don't drop the ball!

I'd love to hear your own suggestions - how do you develop leaders?

I feel like our office's intern program is on the verge of a growth spurt. We usually have between 4 and 16 interns, maxing out over the summer (see this graph). But I feel we're on the verge of being able to take on a lot more. I came to this realization yesterday after a series of interviews with prospective interns, and after talking to my district director, Susan, about our program. I left the office feeling elated and empowered.

Interns in our office do great work. In the past, they've enabled us to do a better job of things we already do: writing response letters, assisting constituents with casework, organizing district events. But with the start of the Ownership Initiatives and the leadership development program, our intern program will start to take on an entirely different character - it will allow us to do things we have never been able to do. We'll be able to proactively reach out to constituents (more than we already do); we'll partner with organizations to run health or safety or environmental programs; we'll put on educational workshops; we'll help neighborhoods organize. This is the vision of the intern program that motivates me.

I still need to grow as a manager and leader to make this vision a reality. I feel that I'm on my way down this path, but we also need to be thinking about what factors limit the number of interns we can handle. These are the factors I've been thinking about:

Space/resources: Our office is pretty big, but we do have a finite number of desks and computers. We'll have to figure out ways to fit more interns in here, or find ways for them to do work outside the office. We have a wireless network, so interns could work on laptops. We have a couple of other offices interns might fit into, but only after they've had significant experience in this office - this program works in part because I can help train interns. This brings me to the next limitation...

My ability to manage interns: I'm not quite at my capacity yet, but I may reach it yet, and I really need to ramp up the leadership development aspect of things if I really want this program to take off. I need experienced interns to be able to lead newer interns - I can't be the bottleneck through which everything must pass.

Our ability to find work for interns: As I see it, this is only an issue as long as we have interns working on our existing functions (letters, casework, events). As we develop the ownership initiatives program, more interns will just mean more projects we can take on. This will depend on successful leadership development, though.

The capacity of other staff members to help handle the interns: I do the bulk of the intern management, but other staff members play important roles. Karen reviews every letter after I review it. At the moment she feels well below her capacity, but as we have more interns, this may change. I can try to address this by having interns mentor other interns, and check each other's work before sending it to me, which will hopefully lead to a higher level of quality by the time it reaches Karen. This may decrease response times, though. Staff also do some managing when I'm away at class. This can be addressed somewhat through leadership development - interns can lead each other. It will also help when interns have more self-directed projects - at the moment, I assign them tasks, and once they've finished those tasks, there isn't much they can do. With self-directed projects like the ownership initiatives, they can come up with their own tasks.

I'm ready for our program to take off! I'll keep writing as things develop.

I've been slowly trying to get interns to work together more. I've been doing it both with my Davis Dollars interns and with my interns in Senator Steinberg's office, with different strategies.

I think it's important for a lot of reasons.

• It develops the interns' skills, initiative, and responsibility to be accountable to each other.
• Two heads are better than one - they can think of more ideas together than they'd be able to think of working alone on their projects.
• This allows me to tap into the creativity and intelligence of every intern. I can't think of everything. That fact is obvious, but assigning tasks unilaterally only makes sense if I believe I can think of everything we should do, and how we should do it. By allowing interns to talk about what to work on and how to accomplish it, they can come up with ideas I would not have thought of.
• It removes me as a bottleneck - when I need to assign tasks for everyone, it means interns are stalled if they need to wait to hear back from me. By delegating some authority to the intern teams, they can bypass me. This requires some watching, however, to make sure I approve of what they're working on.

There are different ways I'm having interns work together. My Davis Dollars interns work in small teams (2-3 people per team) to focus on different things. Two interns work on business outreach. Another is working on community outreach, which is broad enough that she helps other interns out as well as doing her own projects. Another intern works on our Gardenscaping project to create gardens for people in Davis, and she has some auxiliary interns helping her out, which I've helped recruit. Yet another intern helps other groups by working on design issues (creating publications, logos, etc.). Grouping them up this way has been tremendously successful in that it capitalizes on their good ideas and reduces pressure on me to think of everything.

In Senator Steinberg's office, I've been a bit less successful in thinking of ways to get interns to work together. They work together on their ownership initiatives, but I’ve had more trouble finding ways for them to work together on their core tasks of writing response letters and working on casework. Many of these core tasks are (to my mind) highly individual tasks that are difficult to split up.

I’ve been thinking of broader ways to get interns to work together, though. Working together doesn’t necessarily require splitting a task down the middle. Rather than assigning individual tasks to interns, I could allow them to create a division of labor by assigning a block of tasks to a group of interns, and allowing the interns to split the tasks between them. This would give them more initiative and make them partners in figuring out the best way to get through all the tasks. My current method commoditizes both the tasks and the interns by making piecemeal work out of something that could benefit from more creative thinking.

I did notice yesterday that two interns who were just starting out spontaneously started helping each other with tasks. Lucy, one of the interns, has already shown more initiative than average, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when she started helping Rochelle (who is a bit newer than Lucy). But I could also encourage teamwork by assigning each new intern to a more senior intern, and ask that senior intern to be responsible for guiding and mentoring the younger intern.

What are your thoughts? Do you have suggestions? How do you work with interns?