How discourage toxic people from running for fencing leadership?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


From another poster in another thread:

I used to be on my division's board, but the politics turned much uglier than I was willing to deal with.

This matches a sentiment that I have read many times over here on f.net, and observed IRL.

Fencing leadership seems to attract more than its fair share of people who want to be in a position of power for the wrong reasons. Two typical versions of that, but by no means an exhaustive list, are:
1. Parent of fencer who runs for office, intent on furthering the interests of the fencer/child to the exclusion of all other goals.
2. Club leader who runs for office in order to be in a position to steer local resources towards his club, first and foremost.

I am sure that you can fill in more examples.

That kind of people - unconsciously or not - treat fencing organizations as a cupboard full of resources, which are there for them to take for themselves. Left unchecked, they will run any organization into the ground.

However, the pool of potential candidates is often quite small, so anyone who puts in some effort has a quite good chance of getting elected/selected for some kind of post.

Instead, I want to have people elected which have the best for the organization for their eyes, and are capable of recognizing that there are some possible actions which will help their child/club/group/whatever in both the long and short term, while at the same time hurt fencing as a whole in the long term. Furthermore, I want them to choose the 2nd action in such cases.

Enough of the problem background. Now for the question:

How should one do in order to discourage that kind of resource-grubbers from running in the first place, and if they get elected, make it difficult for them to create damage? At the same time, possible candidates which look to the big pictures should be encouraged to run for office. Ideally, the organizational structure should simultaneously discourage the former while encourage the latter.

Can anyone come up with an already existing elected body which is strongly resistant to pork-barrel tactics? If so, why did it work out that way in that organization? What can be adapted and/or copied by fencing organizations?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[noodle]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Hi!

Enough of the problem background. Now for the question:

How should one do in order to discourage that kind of resource-grubbers from running in the first place, and if they get elected, make it difficult for them to create damage? At the same time, possible candidates which look to the big pictures should be encouraged to run for office. Ideally, the organizational structure should simultaneously discourage the former while encourage the latter.

Can anyone come up with an already existing elected body which is strongly resistant to pork-barrel tactics? If so, why did it work out that way in that organization? What can be adapted and/or copied by fencing organizations?

1) reduce the scope of the organization and/or distribute power amongst more people. if the person in charge is in charge of less, then there's less for them to mess up.
2) introduce laws/policies/etc. specifically designed at equality in decisions. i.e. decisions about clubs have to equally effect all clubs.
3) introduce laws/policies/etc. that preclude one person from running rampant. for example, introduce a policy that says that the person who introduces a policy can not be the person to propose repealing that policy, and that all policy requires at least, say, 3 people to support it to introduce or begin the repeal process.

[Guerre]

Originally Posted by noodle

1) reduce the scope of the organization and/or distribute power amongst more people. if the person in charge is in charge of less, then there's less for them to mess up.
2) introduce laws/policies/etc. specifically designed at equality in decisions. i.e. decisions about clubs have to equally effect all clubs.
3) introduce laws/policies/etc. that preclude one person from running rampant. for example, introduce a policy that says that the person who introduces a policy can not be the person to propose repealing that policy, and that all policy requires at least, say, 3 people to support it to introduce or begin the repeal process.

Sounds like leftist chicanery to me.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by Guerre

Sounds like leftist chicanery to me.

it sounds more like a house of government instead of a dictatorship, to me.
i'm sure that we'll next hear that the senate and house of reps are inherently communistic and we need a king to rule the country, born into royalty.

[irishfolker]

Photograph them in bed with a goat.

[Peach]

Make terms shorter and forbid re-election of the same officers. Rotate officers frequently. Many people are afraid to do that because they want to keep the good people working; but allowing people to serve indefinitely burns out the good people and doesn't prevent dingbats from getting into office (or prevent good people from turning into dingbats).

[erooMynohtnA]

Two words: Captain Planet!

[edew]

Forbidding re-election is not the answer, because that's assuming bad people are being elected. If you get a good person in there, it's very important to re-elect them if possible and one wouldn't want some by-law to prevent that from happening.

Making the term shorter also doesn't help.

Certainly, there should be a way to remove a person from office and that should be used immediately and consistently when malfeasance occurs. I think that's the main tool to remove bad seeds, not write in rules that expect a bad seed to be elected.

Reducing the scope of the position is good, mainly because most people wouldn't want to run for a job that is very difficult to do.

Have a nominating committee pick people to run is also good. That way, there is some vetting of nominees. The committee should be made up of people from various clubs and weapons and represent a broad spectrum of the division/section/whatever. Of course, this is just another layer and that makes the whole process more complicated, possibly.

[Guerre]

Originally Posted by noodle

it sounds more like a house of government instead of a dictatorship, to me.
i'm sure that we'll next hear that the senate and house of reps are inherently communistic and we need a king to rule the country, born into royalty.

You're one of them reds aren't ya. I'm personally for a return to divine right. Though it may be hard to find those chosen by god in our division. Is there a scientology-esque device we can use?

[nyacfencing]

How do you know you're not the toxic one?

Generally speaking... you do the same thing that is done in all political areas: run against them and get more people to vote for you.

The only real toxic leadership is that which fails to act or who consistently picks the wrong path. Merely arguing a lot is not toxic leadership if things progress in a generally good direction. If they really are toxic, it shouldn't be hard to convince the base.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

How should one do in order to discourage that kind of resource-grubbers from running in the first place, and if they get elected, make it difficult for them to create damage?

Eliminate the Republican Party?

[seven6ty]

...By making posts about it on the internet.

[edew]

Originally Posted by Jason

Eliminate the Republican Party?

That's not enough. They'll just change their party name.