Goals, Goals, Goals
Your FO comes to you at the start of a new goal week and is concerned about how they will hit their dial goal with their schedule. Do you:
A.) Assure them that dial goal is optional and that they do not need to worry about hitting it
B.) Sit down with them in a 1:1 and plan their weekly calendar together to find time for them to make dials outside of call time
C.) Tell then that it should be easy to make calls in the given time frame and they need to dial faster
B.) Sit down with them in a 1:1 and plan their weekly calendar together to find time for them to make dials outside of call time
A County Chair reaches out to let you know that they have invited press to one of your FO's upcoming events without our knowledge. Do you:
A.) Immediately call + text your DOD to report the issue up the chain and to the Comms team
B.) Call the journalist to tell them not to come
C.) Tell the Chair you think that was a great idea and thank them for taking innitiative
A.) Immediately call + text your DOD to report the issue up the chain and to the Comms team
Your FO is planning an event that will overlap with our designated statewide call time (4:00-7:00 PM). How do you respond?
A.) Tell them not to worry about calls for the day
B.) Tell them to cancel the event
C.) Make a plan with them to make more calls on other days, and talk about the importance of hitting dials even when we have events
C.) Make a plan with them to make more calls on other days, and talk about the importance of hitting dials even when we have events
Your FO just had a huge turnout and got several shifts at their first event with the campaign! What do you do?
A.) Tell them good job and then move on
B.) Celebrate their win with the team and lift up their success
C.) Critique the things that could have gone better
B.) Celebrate their win with the team and lift up their success
You send a Morning Memo out to FOs and include at the top a Reply-All report out that is due at 10:45 AM. At 11 AM 2 of your 3 FOs have still not sent the reply all. What do you do?
A.) Send a reminder to FOs who have not completed the reply all and ask them to get it in by a new set time.
B.) Ignore it and hope they remember
A.) Send a reminder to FOs who have not completed the reply all and ask them to get it in by a new set time.
Your FO has recruited 37 shifts for their Saturday canvass launch. It is not Thursday, and they are starting the day at 8 shifts confirmed. How many additional shifts does your FO need to confirm to be at 2-Day Out Confirm Benchmark?
11 Shifts!
2 Day Out Benchmark: 50%
37 / 2 = 18.5 (19)
19 - 8 = 11 Shifts to Confirm
There was an issue with your most recent supply audit, and you discover that one of your offices does not have enough literature to make it through canvass launches this weekend. Your other office has a surplus of literature. What do you do?
Make a plan to move surplus literature from one office to the other! Then make sure to resubmit your updated supply audit and flag the discrepancy to your DOD and the Ops team so that they are aware.
Your FOs are doing call time in the main room of the office. You have some turfs to cut, but do not need to be making calls because they are on track to hit their dial goals. Where should you be working in the office?
In the main room! Even if you are working on turf cutting, you should still be present with your staff during call time and ready to jump in to offer feedback or praise.
Your FOs are planning a team dinner and invite you to join! (Yay!) Afterwards, they are planning on going out to a club and go dancing/drinking. When do you leave?
Before the club! It's important that your team and you are able to build connections and relationships outside of the office, but as a manager it isn't appropriate to participate in clubbing with your staff while they are working for you.
Your DOD asks you to own pulling a specific statewide recruitment list for an upcoming event in your region for FOs to call into starting at 4 PM. At 2 PM, you receive a political flag from a County Chair that is going to pull you away from your tasks and prevent you from getting the list up. What do you do?
Reach out to your DOD and ask if they/another ROD can help you in pulling the list so that you don't miss the 4 PM deadline!
How many days in advance, minimum, should events be planned and scheduled onto Mobilize/VAN and entered into Big Calendar?
10 days!
You open up the PTG and see that none of the event shifts your FO entered the previous day are reflected in their Shifts Completed goal. You check VAN to see that the data is entered, shifts are closed, and the attendees were turfed correctly. What do you do?
Take a screenshot of the issues and submit a data flag immediately explaining the discrepancy.
You hear one of your FOs on a confirm call use this phrase:
"Hi Sammy! Thanks for signing up to canvass with us this weekend. I'm just calling to confirm you're still coming?"
What are you correcting?
We never say "confirm" in a confirm call! Coach your FO on using other logistical questions that assume the "yes," just like they do on recruitment calls. Example: "Do you have the address for our office?" "Are you bringing a friend with you?" "It's going to be a little rainy, do you have an umbrella you can bring?"
Two of your FOs have not been getting along in team meetings, and you are worried that their attitudes toward each other may reach a boiling point if you do not intervene. How do you approach the conversation(s) with them?
Talk to each FO independently to get a better picture of why they are disagreeing and what the main conflict is. Then share that information with your DOD. Schedule a joint meeting with both FOs and walk through the impact of their behavior on the rest of the team, and remind them of the communication norms you all agreed to. Ask them to each commit to tangible action steps to deescalate the situation and be respectful of one another.
Your FO in a high-capacity turf is taking a pre-approved PTO for 4 days over an upcoming Weekend of Action. What questions do you expect to be answered and outlined in their Out Of Office Plan before they leave?
- Who will be making confirm calls for volunteers in their turf
- Which Volunteer Leaders or coworkers will be covering their canvass launches
- Their plan for making dials before they leave for PTO
- What materials still need to be prepped for their canvass launches
Your Region has a total Shifts Completed Goal (Capacity Building + DVC shifts) of 68 for the week. You also have a regional Door Goal of 612 doors. Your average KPS (Knocks Per Shift) is 32, and you have 2 FOs who each have a personal Door Goal of 50 for the week. How many Canvassing shifts should you plan to complete that week, and how many Capacity Building Shifts should you plan to complete to hit your total Shifts Goal?
16 Canvassing Shifts and 52 Capacity Building Shifts
612 Doors - 100 Staff Doors = 512 Vol Doors
512 Doors / 32 KPS = 16 Vol Shifts Completed
68 Shifts Completed - 16 Canvassing Shifts = 52 Capacity Building Shifts
A volunteer canvasser with our campaign goes to a house where a dog is out in the yard, and is bitten by the dog. They are not badly hurt. What do you do?
Report the incident up the chain, ask them about the incident, and encourage them to visit the hospital if they are concerned about their injury. Follow up with them later thanking them for their work and checking up on how they are feeling.
You hear your FO perfectly execute a waterfall ask on a recruitment call, but they still aren't able to recruit any shifts from this prospect. How do you keep them from feeling discouraged?
Share your own experiences of making calls, praise their effort and execution, and assure them that they will be able to get the next one!
One of your FOs tells you in a 1:1 that they are feeling disconnected and left out from the group. They are in a turf that is further away, and they feel this is negatively impacting their ability to connect with you as the manager and their co-FOs. What steps do you take?
Make a plan to visit their turf and work alongside them for a day, and use that time to invest in getting to know them on a personal level. Make a point to call out their turf's progress and make space for them to share on team-wide calls. Talk to your DOD about upcoming opportunities to bring all the team together in one place during the week.
Your FO is helping at a canvass launch at 12 PM, with instructions to leave to knock doors at 12:30 PM and be knocking by 1 PM in turf. At 1:10 you do not see any staff doors in VAN, so you call the FO and find out they stayed late at the canvass launch chatting with VLs and are just leaving for turf. How could you have prevented this issue?
Reaching out to the FO at the time that they were scheduled to leave the canvass launch to debrief how things went and ensure that they are on their way to turf!
There is a big flake rate for your Saturday canvass launch, and it leaves you short on doors compared to your Path to Goal. How do you address this and mitigate damage so that you can hit Door Goal on Sunday?
Pivot your reshifting asks to be Same Day and Next Day: Ask completed volunteers to take a second packet and/or to come back and canvass on Sunday. Pull a list of all Flakes/No Shows and have FOs call through with the specific ask to canvass on Sunday. Work with FOs to see if they can take an additional packet themselves or if you can take a packet to contribute to staff knocks.
You discover that one of your FOs is faking data and has been lying about their work for the past few goal weeks. What do you do?
Document all discrepancies and inaccurate data, and share documentation with your leadership chain. Talk about how, when, and why you discovered this issue. Make a plan for an immediate corrective conversation and action steps with your management chain and the HR team, if deemed necessary.
Your FO is complaining about low contact rates and believes that dials are not a useful way for us to recruit volunteers. How do you respond?
Talk to them about why calls are important, and how they can help us grow our program by connecting us to historic volunteers and new prospects. Brainstorm with them other ways they can work to recruit volunteers outside of their designated call time (emails to volunteer prospects, relational asks during 1:1s, field pitches at County Party meetings, etc.)
For the past 2 weeks your FOs have given you regular pushback on directives and not followed through on the culture commitments you made to each other at the start of the campaign. What steps would you take to address this issue with the team?
Talk to your DOD about the struggles you're facing and make a plan/agenda for a resetting conversation. Remind FOs of the agreements we all made to the team, and explain the impact on you and the program that comes from their constant pushback. Be open to hearing about issues or challenges they are facing, and talk about the support you can provide for them. Make new commitments to each other about how you will communicate standards and they will receive directives.
A Volunteer Leader who was scheduled to launch a canvass for you on Saturday flakes their shift, and it causes a lot of stress for your staff/other VLs who have to cover. Your FO has a 1:1 scheduled and confirmed with that Volunteer Leader who flaked for the next day. How do you coach the FO to talk to the VL about their No Show?
Walk through an agenda with your FO where they are able to ask the VL why they missed their shift, and talk about what the impact of them not showing up was. Describe how this affected the other VLs and the experience of volunteers who were coming in to canvass. Reaffirm the commitments of the VL schedule and role with them and walk through their next few scheduled shifts to ensure you're on the same page about when they will be helping launch canvasses.