Office Politics Example-Eric Mistake Survivor Samoa

by chess master on 05/01/10 at 3:15 am

One of the best episodes in Sur­vivor Samoa was episode 8, when Eric Got voted out blind sided with­out using his hid­den immu­nity idol. i will start by  describ­ing  the flow of events and then analyse the “office pol­i­tics” mis­take, Eric did.

Episode 8 was was a major point because it was the first elim­i­na­tion for the jury, and the rela­tions between the two groups (old Galu and ormer Foa Foa ) all united in one tribe– Aiga, was changed.

Galu tribe arrived to the union with major­ity. it seems that the elim­i­na­tion of Foa Foa mem­bers will be done which gave every­one on Galu con­fi­dence for the next 12 days.

How they were wrong.

The flow of events prior to the tribal coun­cil were:

• Rus­sell, feel­ing that the heat is on him, begins to scram­ble and con­tem­plates using his immu­nity idol. 
• Rus­sell show the idol to Laura.
• Laura reveals Rus­sell secret to Erik and opts to make it seem like they will be vot­ing out Rus­sell in order to flush out the idol. 
• Erik, in turn, brings this knowl­edge to John by sug­gest­ing that they make it seem like they will vote out Rus­sell, but will instead get rid of Jaison.
• John imme­di­ately rejects Erik’s plan in favor of vot­ing out Mon­ica in order to break up the women alliance. 

This is the point were things started to get wrong for Eric. you can say that John was right by break­ing the woman alliance, but first they had to vote a woman from Foa Foa tribe-meaning Natalie.

John didn’t saw Natalie as a great threat although you can iden­tify at that point as threat,Natalie was an “under the radar” player which makes her a big threat.

Also, John sug­ges­tion was came as a big sur­prise to Eric. look­ing back you can see Eric don’t have much expe­ri­ence in Office Pol­i­tics. what you can expect from a bar­tender right?

 

• When Erik asks John who else will be on board with that plan, John replies that every Foa Foa is already with them.  Erik is sold on the plan to axe Mon­ica and attempts to bring in Dave and Brett.

The Sec­ond Mis­take for Eric was that he didn’t cal­cu­lated the num­bers odds. he went along with John Plan instead of going back to Laura, explain her John plan and do the math.

lets do the math together:

Foa Foa has 4 mem­bers. Galu has 8. now if lets say Shan­non goes with Foa mem­bers’. its 5 against 7. Also lets count John with Foa.(although the chances for that were lousy if Eric had denied John request anf got back to Laura telling her what we wrote here)  its a tie. Now there are two options:

1. Tell Shan­non All Galu will vote Rus­sell which she will go along because she already flipped sides, know­ing he has the immu­nity. that will make a 6:5:1 vote and Galu wins.
2. Go to a tie and 99% at the sec­ond vote John will take up his con­scious and vote Natalie off not want­ing to make his life on the island a nightmare.

But what Eric is doing?he is not office pol­i­tics master,an office sur­vivor ruler. he goes along with John plan, with­out see­ing the axe falling on him.

the Third mis­take Eric done is to make the move him­self, although it was John’s. that a big mis­take. Eric just join a trai­tor alliance with John plan but he carry its out, while john is look­ing amused , some­how knows the end of things.

•  Dave, how­ever, becomes fear­ful that Erik is being too crafty.  that makes me a lit­tle ner­vous,” says Dave.
• Erik then approaches Mick, Natalie and Jai­son with the notion of vot­ing for Mon­ica with­out telling Rus­sell, so that they can flush out his immu­nity idol.
• After­wards, Jai­son sug­gests to his fel­low tribe mates that they should instead turn the tables on the overly arro­gant Erik. 
• Natalie car­ries the plan a step fur­ther by telling Laura that Erik is secretly gun­ning to vote out Mon­ica, which causes the Galu women to flip on Erik.
• The Galu women bring Dave into the mix, as Rus­sell looks on in utter con­fu­sion.  this is the first time that I don’t know noth­ing,” says Rus­sell, who is on the fence about play­ing his idol.
• Erik feels as though the plan is too easy,” and he brings his idol with him for protection.

TRIBAL COUNCIL

The Tribal coun­cil Show another side of Eric –arro­gance which is always a bed char­ac­ter play­ing office politics,survivor games and group dynamics.

• At Tribal Coun­cil, Erik takes an arro­gant and cocky stance on Foa Foa’s chances for turn­ing for­mer Galu mem­bers to vote their way.  “ My heart goes out to them, but they’re in the hole,” he says.
• Rus­sell fights explains that his men­tal­ity is that the under­dog should never give up. 
• Erik responds by cut­ting down every sin­gle Foa Foa mem­ber, start­ing with Rus­sell.  “Russ goes out there and scram­bles.  He’s been in every­one ear,” says Erik.  He con­tin­ues to state that Mick, Natalie and Jai­son are utterly use­less, and don’t stand a chance against the for­mer Galu tribe.
•   “In other words, just roll over and get voted out qui­etly that ain’t gonna hap­pen,” Rus­sell snaps back. 

At the end Eric got voted out with 10:2 votes, with­out play­ing his idol. So, For the Future Eric need to learn sev­eral Things:

1. Don’t carry on oth­ers trai­tors plan. let them do it and join if you see good from it. its their plan, so don’t steal it. beware of sneaks in the group.
2. Don’t be arro­gant. arro­gance is a mis­take most man­agers  are doing from the begin­ning. every office pol­i­tics con­sul­tant will tell you play with­out arro­gance, cause it will make other peo­ple hate you. if you man­age them they will not carry your order.

For con­clu­sion, we hope that in the Future Eric will know bet­ter. after all he want stay a bar­tender all his life, and at one point his skills will be used inside a polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment.
good luck Eric.

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