Election Politics
The Background
The Said Business School Sports and Social Reps (of which I am one) was asked to provide two names of people to each give a short speach at our farewell dinner. We sent out an e-mail about a month ago calling for nominations, then a reminder one last week.
Needless to say, there were only 6 nominations so we put the names forward to the class and I offered to coordiante the voting.
The Crisis
Pandemonium ensued! Now everyone wants to have their say. Why weren't there any women on the list? Why no Asians? Why only North American males (with one exception)? Why not this person? or that one?
What we did
In light of the fact that we had not set a closing date for nominations, we decided to reopen the nominations for one day only. Today I recieved 16 additional nominations. We only need two people. A vote with 22 nominees is unweildy and inneffective. What should we do now?
The Commentary
We were looking at internal (office) politics in our Developing Effective Organisations class this week so it is ironic that this should happen now. People have use several strategies to get what they want...
I've certainly learnt a lesson, especially since I am now lumbered with far more work than anticipated since I have to coordinate a revote. It's just reinforced that I made the correct decision to take the "Theory & Practice of Negotiations" course in Trinity.
PS. We ran an election using Ballot Bin, a free on-line election tool. It wasn't very obvious how to setup the election at first but the voting process was very simple and the results screen was very well presented.
The class was appeased, and everyone is happy with the results.
The Said Business School Sports and Social Reps (of which I am one) was asked to provide two names of people to each give a short speach at our farewell dinner. We sent out an e-mail about a month ago calling for nominations, then a reminder one last week.
Needless to say, there were only 6 nominations so we put the names forward to the class and I offered to coordiante the voting.
The Crisis
Pandemonium ensued! Now everyone wants to have their say. Why weren't there any women on the list? Why no Asians? Why only North American males (with one exception)? Why not this person? or that one?
What we did
In light of the fact that we had not set a closing date for nominations, we decided to reopen the nominations for one day only. Today I recieved 16 additional nominations. We only need two people. A vote with 22 nominees is unweildy and inneffective. What should we do now?
The Commentary
We were looking at internal (office) politics in our Developing Effective Organisations class this week so it is ironic that this should happen now. People have use several strategies to get what they want...
- some tried to negotiate with me via e-mail
- others came and spoke with me
- others spoke with other Sports & Social reps
- or formed a coalition and approached us en masse
I've certainly learnt a lesson, especially since I am now lumbered with far more work than anticipated since I have to coordinate a revote. It's just reinforced that I made the correct decision to take the "Theory & Practice of Negotiations" course in Trinity.
PS. We ran an election using Ballot Bin, a free on-line election tool. It wasn't very obvious how to setup the election at first but the voting process was very simple and the results screen was very well presented.
The class was appeased, and everyone is happy with the results.
posted by Vaniah | 5:12 pm
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