Would You Get the Vote?

Well the election is over and now we can get back to watching our regularly scheduled programming with regular old commercials about icy cold beverages, restaurant chains and lots of holiday gift ideas. Here’s a question to ponder in the days following this election.

Would you get the vote at your office if you were running for re-election?

Many of us behave like long term incumbents with a sense of comfort and maybe even entitlement for our years of service. What if you had to be re-elected by your peers every couple of years? It’s an interesting idea to think about. If you work with external customers, they have a vote regularly about where they take their business (and money).

But inside the organization, it’s a big trickier. I’m not talking about establishing big campaign budgets – I’m talking about looking at your service thus far. That includes your effort AND your results.

Here’s a set of questions to help you decide how the vote might go...

1) Would you get the endorsement of your teammates if your boss asked?

2) Would you get the endorsement of your internal customers (unlike external customers, these folks don’t really have a choice about working with you)?

3) What do your results say about your performance?

4) Is the organization a better place because you work there?

So as you settle in to work on meeting your year end goals (or goals for today), think about your own campaign for your job and decide if you would indeed “get the vote”.