Closer Look at the Council

For our final unit in Systems and Models, we studied I-O Psychology, specifically its history, relevance, systems dynamics, and an organization’s ability to attract and serve its employees. Psychology has been around since the 4th century but wasn't considered a legitimate science until the APA was formed in 1892. I enjoyed this unit because it made me think more about what is important to look for when getting a job and what types of places I may want to work for in the future. For our last action project we each chose a part of the school to focus on and then were assigned to create a SWOT based on that part. I’m proud of my final result because it was about a part of the school that I am a part of and think is very important, so I was glad I got to represent it.

AG . Examples of Maslow's hierarchy implemented by Student Council . 2016

For my SWOT I focused on the Student Council. As President of the Student Council, I have a great insight on how everything is run and what strengths and weaknesses there are. When thinking about this group, you must also think about the “Tragedy of the Commons,” which is the potential to abuse a shared opportunity and everyone shares the consequences. There are multiple different commons in my scenario. One of those would be time; the Student Council meets each Thursday during lunch, which is an hour long. However, Falcon Fiesta got added to the schedule making lunch 55 mins. We then allow the Council members 10 minutes to get lunch, cutting our time down to 45 minutes. If Falcon Fiesta runs longer, or if members take extra time getting lunch, that affects everyone else on the Council because we can’t fully start without all the members. It also interrupts the discussion every time someone walks in late. Another example of the commons would be the entire student body. The Student Council is the student body’s representation on any issues; if the representatives of the school aren’t doing their job, then the entire student body, and in turn the entire school, is impacted.

The way the Council solves problems reminded me of Six Sigma. They have two processes for improvement, DMAIC process consists of: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control; the DMADV process consists of: define, measure, analyze, design, and verify. The DMAIC is for existing processes that aren’t meeting expectations and the DMADV is to develop new processes or products. I compared this to the way we look at issues in Student Council and how we implement policies, we pretty much used the same steps. I also saw similarities to Total Quality. A part of the Total Quality Management definition is “In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work,” this is what members of the Council do as well. I was glad to notice these comparisons because I feel that it validates how the Council works. If this is how these big, well known, companies run things, it must be effective.

When interviewing people about the Student Council, I got a lot of positive comments which reminded me of all the strengths the Council has. I wanted to get a range of feedback so I made sure to interview a student on the Council as well as one that is not on the Council. Similarly when interviewing the staff, I wanted to interview the teacher who is present at all Council meetings as well as someone who only sees the external effects of the Council. JM, the Student Council Vice-President, stated that “The Student Council is a really helpful tool for communicating with teachers. A lot of times there are issues in classes that have easy solutions but the class doesn’t feel comfortable telling the teacher because we don’t want to negatively affect the classroom dynamic. Through the Council, we’re able to respectfully let a teacher know about any issues and what solutions we have come up with.” BKJ said “I feel like it finally gives us a voice” which I was very glad to hear. Hiu told me that “Spirit week was awesome” but also suggested that “more events like that should be put on, not enough community action from the Student Council”. I thought her suggestion was really good and decided to get some more advice from people on how to improve the Council. Jamie who is present at all meetings suggested: “The Council should collaborate more frequently on projects that will directly engage students and staff to build community.” Eric also pointed out to me a really interesting opportunity I had never considered before, the opportunity to meet and talk with Student Councils at other schools in order to learn from each other.

I was thinking about possible solutions to the Council’s weaknesses and possible threats. I wanted a solution that related to systems thinking, so that we really solved the root of the problems. One of the issues that I thought was really important to think about more closely was the lack of communication between the Council and the rest of the student body. I thought a good solution that would actually solve the issue is a mandatory sort of exit slip at the end of every two weeks. This way everyone would get a chance to say what they think, and it would be anonymous so they would be able to tell us things that they might not have felt comfortable letting us know one on one. This would be really beneficial to the entire school because it will address more issues to the Council and give us the opportunity to help come up with solutions for these issues. Another issue I came up with a systems thinking solution for was not having a designated space, which causes confusion and some members to not show up due to not knowing where to go. A solution to this would be to have a set space in the new building where we are already scheduled to meet each week and cannot have the space taken from us. This will remove confusion and thanks to that more members will show up. The more members show up, the more insight the Council has on new issues and the more minds we have available to help brainstorm solutions.


Works Cited

• Koppes, Laura L. "What Is I-O?" A Brief History of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc.-. SIOP. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
• McLeod, Saul. "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." Simply Psychology. 2007. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
• T.L. Brink. (2008) Psychology: A Student Friendly Approach. "Unit One: The Definition and History of Psychology." pp 9 Web. 18 Mar. 2016
• "Total Quality Management (TQM)." TQM. ASQ. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
• "What Is Six Sigma?" ISixSigma. ISixSigma. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.