Show Me Your Calves: Slaves to Fashion

 

Most neuroscientists would agree that well over 90% of our behavior is generated outside of consciousness. We are more slaves to our biology than we realize. Our rational minds represent a very small layer floating atop a vast well of unconscious drivers. Business leaders who understand biological programming and can leverage it possess an enormous advantage.

 

 

There is a whole science around manipulating people's drives to get them to behave in a certain way; cast their vote for or against, buy a product, ignore the man behind the curtain.  It used to just be an art - marketing, manipulation, a slight of hand. 

 

Now, with the crystallization of NLP, neuromarketing and such, it's a science.  Other people are learning how to make you think their desires are your original inception. 

 

But who pulls the puppet-masters' strings?  When they feel they're smart and everyone else is dumb, their confidence blinds them to their own motivations.

There's only one way to illuminate the shadow-world of the semi-conscious mind.  The answer's a variation on a theme we've come across time and again -

Recognize that we are imperfect, accept that we're part of something larger than ourselves and come to terms with the fundamental premise that no man nor woman is an island - together, we're a system.

Sounding a little too pseudo-religious for your liking?  You can interpret it that way, if you like - really, though, it's just science.

Inside Stephen Harper and His Legacy

This retreat is highly characteristic of Stephen Harper. He likes the reputation he enjoys among his opponents, as a bruising fighter who single-mindedly pursues a lonely and extremist political vision.

I really enjoyed this Paul Wells column for two reasons:

1) It takes a scratch at Stephen Harper's veneer and provides a rather astute look at what lies beneath.

Political people like to spend a lot of time exploring tactics and strategy and trying to guess what moves their opponents will make next so that they can counter them in advance.  It's a bit of playing general, hashing out battle plans and moving troops and ordnance around the field.  The best players at this game, including Harper, get compared to Niccolò Machiavelli. 

Of course, Machiavelli didn't live in a democratic state - nor was he all that successful in his career, either.

What too many of these War Roomers fail to do is get into the headspace of their opponents; because lives aren't literally on the line and campaign periods tend to be short, punchy and frequent, the assumption is that level of depth isn't necessary.  If you get in fast, hit 'em hard and never leave a punch unreturned, you're golden.  It's not as effective an approach as they think.

Stephen Harper is clever, yes, but he's hardly evil.  When you label him as inscrutable, you are willfully ignoring the ample evidence mapping out the clockwork that makes him tick.

Harper is a bit like Theon Greyjoy - trying to be something he's not and suffering from the resulting cognitive dissonance.  He's an emotional guy who isn't gifted with natural outlets to express his insecurities.  Harper self-identifies as a threatened outsider - this stems from his family history, his relationship with his immediate relatives and of course his being an Easterner trying to fit in out West.  It's not at all hard to believe he hid in a washroom in Brazil - that would fit in lock-step with other displays of petulance ranging from embracing the same China he criticized when Obama rejected him over Keystone or a negative obsession with the Liberal Party of Canada and in particular, the Trudeau legacy.

There's a big gap between how Harper wants to be perceived, how his Party wants to portray him and how the PM really feels about himself.

Publicly, he's a proud Westerner (who needs guidance on how to wear cowboy clothes) and contemptuous of the latte-sipping elites considered stereotypical of his hometown, Toronto.  In the House, he wears the emperor's cloak of a tough scrapper, like a Jean Chretien or a Brian Mulroney.  Yet where both of those leaders loved engaging with the public and weren't afraid to give and take hits, Harper has an obsession with fire walls, trouble lapping at shores - all defensive postures that he has probably developed and relied on since at least his university days.  In fact, he responds a bit like a jilted lover when partners don't do things his way.  He's scripted, brief in his appearances and does his best not to engage directly (and certainly not publicly) with equals who may challenge him - like Premiers and press galleries, for instance.

The Opposition is supposed to fear Harper's bold political strokes of genius - but where are they?  Harper has chipped away at some Liberal programming he doesn't like and muzzled people who threaten him (because public debate with people who know more about subject matter than he does is way too intimidating).  He's even managed to raise the ire (or at least amusement) of international players.  For the most part, though, Canada hasn't changed much at all - Harper is, at best, an incrementalist who plays it safe.  He may tell himself he's slowly building a legacy that will last, but the truth is he's not comfortable with being bold.  In fact, that little smile of his betrays a level of nervousness that he tries to mask with overt derision and condescension.  

Stephen Harper is not comfortable with variety.  He wants to be the smartest man in the room, but is worried he isn't; that's why he sticks to his personal safety zone in terms of subject matter and looks to shoot down, rather than engage, those verbal opponents he can't avoid.

Liberal Leadership hopefuls should carefully study the diplomatic approach of Kathleen Wynne.  Could you imagine the PM trying to square off against her in a public forum?  She would judo-flip every statement he'd make and throw him off with her supportive, almost parental approach.  He'd work himself into a tizzy every day, just thinking about it.  He's comfortable with attacks, because he can deflect them - offer him the political equivalent of a hug and see what happens.

Of course, the goal of Opposition shouldn't be to destroy Harper, but that's something to address in

2) Harper is no further ahead at realizing his dream of stamping out Canadian progressiveness than he was when he started.

Politics isn't war - the goal isn't to end opponents' careers or take away their castles.  It's a far less romantic and far more diplomatic exercise of winning over the hearts and minds of voters.  Politics in a democratic state is more like religion than combat - conversion, not slaughter, is the desired pathway to the ideological state equivalent of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Harper doesn't get this - for all his structural tweaks and opposition attacks, he's had zero luck in making Canada "more conservative."  In fact, there's a broad shift towards more liberal approaches to problems - collaboration, dialogue, shared service, playing nice.  Even Conservatives are starting to embrace this wynning approach.  Perhaps worse - Harper's pokes and prods have wakened a frequently somnambulant populace; the harder he pushes, the less idle they become, helping to maintain a positive balance between staying rooted and moving forward.

If you take a look at the broad trends in Canadian history, the periodic pendulum swings between the political left and political right aren't as significant as they seem in the heat of the moment, or even the decade.  Social progress, after all, is the equivalent of natural evolution - you need to adapt to survive.

Over time, our society is becoming more inclusive, more diverse, better coordinated and continuously progressing.  Canada has never been at the top of the power or popularity scale, but then we have never slid, either.  Twenty years from now, we'll have a Conservative PM fighting to remake the country in a Conservative vision that will be weak tea compared to that Harper presents now.  The Progressives of that day will reel in horror and express their fears for the future of their country, much as they're doing today.  The progressive trend will continue regardless. 

Stephen Harper has worked hard, against the odds, to get to where he is - that's a level of dedication that deserves to be respected.  He's inevitably going to fall short of the legacy he wants, which is really kind of sad.  The best thing the Opposition can do is help him to progress past his internal conflict and maybe empower the Prime Minister to relieve some of that cognitive dissonance.

After all, there's nice symmetry to a life that goes full-circle.

Warren's Where's Waldo Method of Engagement

 

 

I can't imagine Warren Kinsella is a big fan of Carly Rae Jepsen, being a punk and all - but he clearly understands the value of a catchy meme.  He has started to roll out endorsements for the Ontario Liberal Leadership Candidate he supports (can you find who it is in the picture above?) but instead of just feeding his audience names and title that might not have meaning for them, he's challenging his readers to identify who the endorsers are themselves.  This accomplishes four things:

 

1) It engages readers in his candidate; figuring out who backs that person becomes a viral campaign, creating a community of engagement around them

 

2) It motivates his audience to take the lead in identifying the supporters, ensuring everyone has a chance to know who they are...

 

3) ... but as that information is crowd-sourced, the information comes from the community rather than being delivered to them by the campaign itself.  This adds an automatic level of accessibility and authenticity to the endorsements that biased political staff would be hard-pressed to achieve on their own

 

4) Letting the crowd do the work and handing out gold stars to those who find the info first builds competition, which gets people more active, but it also rewards the experience of participation with a dopamine rush, the same sort of thrill you get from winning at bingo (but also the same neurochemistry that can get you hooked on slot machines)

 

Of course, there's a whole science to this; someone with an NLP background or even a rudimentary knowledge of how cognition works can tell you why people react this way.  With a bit of practice, it's not difficult to proactively shape those responses by managing the stimuli your audience receives, creating the sort of community experience you're looking for.  Kinsella's great at doing this in person - he'll engage crowds directly within the first moments of a presentation, getting them to clap for themselves, etc. to make his talks their experience, not just his.

 

There's nothing new to these tricks of the engagement trade.  Religion has done this for ages.  Great artists or speakers (like politicians) use these tools to their advantage all the time.  Conversely, poor leaders do the reverse - instead of creating communities of experience, they block external stimuli and trigger fear rather than engagement.  These are the cultists, setting themselves up as saviours from troubles lapping at shores and holding you to that fear and dependence on their protection, trying to foster a kind of crowd Stockhom Syndrome.

 

What's perhaps more recent a phenomenon is the internalization of these techniques through things like Positive Psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  These sorts of practices work kind of how exercise or yoga does, except from the inside out rather than the outside in.  These conscious exercises provide effective methods to manage emotional disorders or to overcome duress (though not always in exclusion).  When you become aware of how your own neuropsychology works, you begin to see how external and internal conditions shape your mood and thoughts the same way any drug would.  That's when they become your tools to use, rather than someone else's to abuse.

 

Of course, all of this requires a lot of thought, time and discipline.  Why bother?  Wading into the fine print of brain function is boring.  You get a decent rush from playing the game right in front of you and besides, consequences are things that happen to others. 

 

Keeping track of where Waldo's at is enough to keep anyone occupied and entertained.

The Politics of Memory: Mental Maps and Digital Government

Most of us think of memory as a chamber of the mind, and assume that our capacity to remember is only as good as our brain. But according to some architectural theorists, our memories are products of our body’s experience of physical space. Or, to consolidate the theorem: Our memories are only as good as our buildings.

Close your eyes and picture you're in your kitchen at home.  How do you get from there to the washroom?  What colour are the walls?  Where are the cupboards?  Could you draw a map from point A to B?  How many of the details along the way could you replicate with accuracy?  It's not as easy a process as you think; even the distances between rooms isn't as consistent in your memory as you think it is.

That, essentially, is the process that police walk witnesses through in describing suspects or recalling details from memory.  It's one we do very poorly.  If you're asked, however, how those spaces, faces or experiences make you feel, you're on much safer ground.  People who have touched your life deeply leave lasting impressions; you might look kindly at a cactus if, say, a favourite grandparent always had a cactus in their space.  You might mistrust all dogs, because you were terrified by one in your youth.  Emotional impacts are much more deeply ingrained in our memories. 

Marketing understands this, as does politics - the best messaging doesn't present information; it conveys emotional content.  Neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP relies on the manipulation of emotion to direct thought and is employed to some degree in the design of any tribal event, be it a religious service or a partisan rally.  Even Scientology incorporates some understanding of emotion's role in memory.  Ever heard the expression "number tell, but stories sell?"  How about this one - "a picture is worth a thousand words?"

"Syrian forces had killed 500 children."  It's pretty sickening.  Think you'll remember the number in an hour?  Click this link and tell me how soon you think that image will clear from your mind.

Now, think of government services; press 1 for this, press one for that.  Lists of hospitals, lists of doctors, forms and rote information.  Click on this link to 211 Toronto and tell me where your eyes gravitate.

I'm going to guess it wasn't the text on the left, but the pictures on the right.  Yet, our services aren't picture-based, they aren't designed for intuitive use; they're lists of terms that link to other lists of terms, or they're people on phones reading out "if A, then 1; if B, then 2" scripts.  The emotional resonance is missing; the map-like feature cues are entirely absent.  It's the dimensional equivalent to black-and-white, silent films; there is so much more detail that can be realized, if we have the right technology to map out that third dimension.

Of course, we're only now developing the digital tools that will allow for government services to be presented in a way that fosters maximum efficiency in public uptake.  The US has put together a roadmap for digital government that is doing just that - building a digital map that provides mental cue landmarks and will facilitate access.  This is where Wiki meets Googlemaps; the realization of what Don Tapscott calls Networked Intelligence or what I like to call The Conscious Society.

The future of government services, much as the future of work, is going to capitalize on this deeper understanding of what resonates with constituents/employees and how to design services, work spaces and work itself to promote maximum efficiency of use and maximum productivity.  The Henry Fords of the Cognitive Labour Revolution are busily designing the assembly mind lines that will propel the information economy forward.  The process will start in work and be picked up by labour, but where the most amazing transformations will occur when this trend hits our education system - where good teachers are already employing some degree of cognitive space design.

It's an exciting time to be alive; there's a whole new world of opportunity being opened up before us.  The challenge we face now is putting together the map.

Thinking First: Political Marketing, the Marketplace of Ideas and Engaging Citizens

"At its very essence, political marketing relies on the most rudimentary principle of communications: knowing your audience and tailoring your product as required."

 Part of accomplishing this is creating a market place of ideas and keeping a bead on the traffic flow. Facebook, polling, comment cards, etc amass data and feed into this. So do aggegrates and next-gen social/policy networks like the ORION Network. 

These marketplaces are also providing opportunity for idea sharing and new audiences but to attract attention, providers need to be spectacular.  How do you really ensure you stand out in a crowd and engage potential audiences in the right way?  By understanding how engagement works in the first place.

That means, directly stimulating positive physical responses in the crowd; you're looking to nudge things like oxytocin levels and positive neurotransmitter connections, ie dopamine.  to accomplish this you first have to understand how the brain perceives and responds to stimulus. Hence, neuro-marketing and NLP, even the renewed focus on mental health with hints at proactive approaches.

To understanding this stuff, you have to think about it; much of cognitive function is counter-intuitive.  The more you think anything through, in all it's variables, the harder it becomes to fall back on reactive responses. 

It's a brave, exciting new world.