Pon'far Approaches

Like Pon'far in the Star Trek series, presidential elections happen every so often and people go crazy. The reason for this is that, in America, we have this one guy to blame for everything that goes wrong. Gas prices too high? It's the president. Toilets won't flush? It's the president. America has lost its luster and is now going down the tubes of history to languish as a sad, third-rate power? It's the president? National budget doesn't balance? It's the president.

Stay away from my guy and my issues, if you know what's good for you!

At the risk of starting an argument, I decided long ago that no, it's not the president, its Congress. Congress really has the most power of all the branches, as it should, but most of the time they skillfully maneuver so that they don't actually have to decide or take responsibility for anything.

But that's not the way things work. Instead, we put all of our hopes and fears, hates and likes on this one poor schmuck that we replace every four or eight years. And now the time is coming.

You would think that a pretty big country like ours would work where we all sit down and talk about the issues and decide what policies to pursue, then choose the best person to do that. You'd be wrong. Instead, each candidate does his or her best to create a cult of personality, where they are the answer to what's wrong with the current guy. Then they continue forward, demonizing everybody else in the race, either inadvertently or on-purpose.

So people get their favorite candidate, and he/she has their favorite issues and ways of looking at things. The other candidates are looked at as being either substandard in some way (if they are of the same party) or outright dangerous, stupid, lying, or evil (if they are of the other party) In order to get as many people to vote as possible, campaigns use more and more negative advertising to keep the anger and negative feelings in their base. Yes, sad truth is that an angry person is much more likely to vote than a happy person.

So what's this mean for consulting? Just this: you can be having a perfectly reasonable discussion about, say, whether the requirements are too formal or not and mention something offhand like "I'm sure this is something only (insert candidate name here) would understand" You might mean this as a compliment, or not, but it little matters. Suddenly the room goes cold and you hear that music from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time"

The way we choose a president sounds crazy and ineffective, but it works and it has some good qualities. For one, it lets people blow off steam by blaming one person for their problems and then getting the pleasure of "voting the bum out". People are good-natured and want the best for their country, mostly. And most all candidates are smart, capable, and able contenders for the office. One of the games I play each election is to see how long I can stay emotionally detached from the race. I never ever make it, but I think the more we can come together as friends with different viewpoints, the more we can get accomplished. That's good whether you're picking a president, or working with large groups of people. It's just the right way to be.

Now what's that music that's playing?