Politicians: Should your Travel Agent also Sail that Cruise Ship?
There are thousands of weird things with our current representative democracies, but nothing is blowing my mind more than asking the salesperson to also sail the cruise ship…
When it comes to how power is granted and exercised, shouldn’t we expect a stricter delineation of tasks, like in large companies?
Let say you want to go on a boat cruise to show to your family the beauty of this world while sleeping in the same bed every night… You go to your travel agency to meet the salesperson:
Here she is, loud and extrovert. Cracking a joke to make you feel at ease, remembering your name and giving you the attention you deserve, well-versed into selling tricks and manipulation techniques.
“I know this circuit, I did it with my family and I would do it again”. “I’m on your side let see if I can convince the management as your last one just turn 3, maybe we can keep the discount”. “Unfortunately I can’t keep it longer in the system — it’s only reserved for the time being and there are other people who seem interested”. “You should definitely take this option — you can always cancel on board.” “You will have no regrets, trust me!” “None of our competitors can offer the same!” Etc.
All those are psychologically efficient ways to trigger your mental shortcuts and put you into a state of mind where it becomes difficult to say no. And of course our politicians are masters at selling their ideas often using the very same methods…
What you would expect from a politician is that they have a vision. That they can inspire you to believe with them in a society like this or a society like that.
Basically they are trying to sell you this vision and if you buy into it than you vote for them.
But let’s get back to our cruise.
What is your surprise, when you step on board to be welcomed by no one else but your salesperson, fully dressed as the captain of the ship and introducing herself as such.
Of course, it’s too late to change your mind. But you still wonder as the engine starts what you would have done would you have known before. You would have expected that the captain would be someone fully dedicating her time to sail her ship, learning and improving with years of experience crossing through a few storms.
But let’s wait and see as the journey begins…
At first things are fine — nice weather, nice food, lots of entertainment and the endless sea. But quickly a first storm is looming and the captain does not seem to know what to do… Storms after storms, the same impression of amateurism (let’s go that direction, no finally we’ll stay here — in the middle of the ocean), scapegoating (this crew is incapable, let’s fire them — in the middle of the ocean), bossy attitude (I’m the boss, if you don’t like it here you can leave — in the middle of the ocean), etc…
How many shipwrecks because the captain was not really a captain but a salesperson…
No need to dwell on this simplistic comparison but I cannot stop wondering why do we trust so much that someone who is a great talker can also be a great ruler.
It’s logical that we would listen to the one who seems the most convincing. Why not. But when they are in power you expect them to also know how to do it: How to run a country, how to fix different problems, how to implement their visions, etc. And then we are disappointed.
We are expecting too much from them. The question is how to avoid that those who are the best salespersons also end-up sailing the ship. It is not because they are eloquent at telling what they would do that they are good at doing it.
It is even more problematic when we talk about exercising power: they are often eloquent because they are attracted to power not because they are good at it. As a rule of thumb we should be cautious when someone speaks so well: like the salesperson it is a lot about manipulation…
