Culture of Presidential Campaign Staff
The U.S. presidential election is in the news and there have been a number of in-depth articles about the organizational workings of some of the candidates’ campaign staffs. One such article was by Peter Baker and Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times (6.8.08) called “The Long Road to a Clinton Exit.” This article is a treasure trove of information about Mrs. Hilary Clinton’s campaign, but what caught my attention were the clues to understanding the culture of her campaign staff.
One of the first cultural clues identified from the article was, as would be expected, a strong drive to win. But, there are myriad approaches in the world on how to win which in turn create differing ways of working within a staff. Many of the quotes seemed to point to an offensive or attack approach to winning based on “overwhelming force” and the drive to capitalize on a reputation of past success. The article authors noted – “…her (Mrs. Clinton’s) campaign represented a back-to-the-future effort to restore the Democratic dynasty of the 1990’s…”
Another cultural theme that jumped off the pages of the article was the strong sense of internal competition among campaign staff members which was noted as distracting them from battling their external opponents. The following quote gave me an insight to the original source of this way of working – “On election night, Mr. Clinton grew playfully competitive with his wife over who had done more events or had more impact…Mr. Clinton wanted to know exactly what the returns were in the places he had been and Hillary hadn’t been. He kept showing Hillary and she would laugh.” So it appears that one of the sources for why the campaign staff competed so strongly against each other was the modeling of rivalry between Mr. and Mrs. Clinton themselves.
It is my sense that every grouping of people who work together over time with a common purpose develops a set of shared rules of behavior that can be identified as some form of an organizational culture. These rules are many times not talked about, but primarily people watch how the leader(s) act – who they promote and follow the behaviors rewarded. If these behaviors produce success in meeting the group’s purpose – a culture is set in place.
The last sentence above sounds very final, but what happens if the culture does not help a group to achieve their purpose? In a fast-paced environment, it just may be too late. The alternative is for leader(s) to pay attention to the rules of behavior within their organization – ask the question if these rules are helping and if not, start first by modeling the behaviors they think will bring success.
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[...] Culture of Presidential Campaign Staff By Terri ? older, but wiser white lady The US presidential election is in the news and there have been a number of in-depth articles about the organizational workings of some of the candidates? campaign staffs. One such article was by Peter Baker and Jim Rutenberg in the New … Leading Workplace Change? – http://cultureconsult.com/leading-workplace-change [...]
[...] culture of presidential campaign staff one such article was by peter baker and jim rutenberg in the new york times (6.8.08) called “the long road to a clinton exit.” this article is a treasure trove of information about mrs. hilary clinton’s campaign, but what caught my … [...]