If You Don’t Vote, You Can’t Complain

This isn’t about politics…

It’s Election Day on the United States, and hopefully swarms of Americans are getting out to vote today. But, everyone that can vote, won’t. In the US, voter turnout is typically in the 50% range. Close to half of the people that are of voting age don’t cast a ballot. They remain silent. Their voices go unheard.

The same behavior plays out at work too. In group settings, even when input is solicited, many won’t speak up.

Yesterday, I was a part of a workshop focused on taking stock of where our program is currently at and pulling together ideas for where it goes next. Invited to the workshop were participants with vested, clear interests and roles in the program or its outcomes. Yet, many remained silent the majority of the day.

This doesn’t surprise me really. A lot of people don’t like to speak up in group settings. However, near the end of the day we did a little activity where everyone had a chance to vote on where they felt the priorities should be for future improvements. No speaking, just go out a tick mark in the column of your choice. Vote.

I’m left wondering why several program stakeholders decided to remain silent. Did they not have a formed opinion? Is the act of getting up in front of their peers too anxiety ridden? Did they not like the choices? Did they not agree with the process? Do they not care about the outcome?

Overall participation was good. Much better than voter turnout will be in the US election today, so the effort to bring stakeholders together and create a shared vision of the future was definitely worthwhile. As much as we often proclaim the value of collaboration across our respective organizations, it’s good to remember that it applies to what we do in informing the future direction of our programs as well.

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