Ari's Why

"Something wrong with your eye, Craig?" Ari Goldkind asked me at the recent campaign office opening for Ward 20 candidate Terri Chu. 

 

I told him he had a good eye, that I'd been putting in a few too many hours at computer screens of late and was suffering some eye strain as a result.

 

Not realizing that the man I was talking to only had one eye.

 

"I tend to notice details," Ari replied.  Which is true.

 

I've gotten to know Ari a bit over the past couple of months, primarily through Why Should I Care, where he has twice been a speaker (once on the issue of police carding, the other in our Mayoralty debate).  He's a thoughtful, informed guy who - true to his message - cuts right through the crap.

 

Ari is a great communicator - he's got a folksy style of engaging, but what he engages with and over is more about substance than platitudes.

 

One thing Ari isn't great at (and has so observed himself) is the political verbal trickery that helps politicians avoid landmines.  Ari doesn't bridge, he doesn't bait and switch - he doesn't even pontificate which, seeing how he's a defense attorney, is pretty special.

 

Ari doesn't do pretense. 

 

So when he says things like "I realize that, as a driver, I'm more a cause of gridlock than the people on public transit" you know he's not feeding a line; it's true, and he believes it.

 

When he says "I've been lucky in life, I have money, I am totally comfortable with paying a bit more to help others reach the same quality of life", he means it. 

 

I understood all this about him before today - but what I didn't know, what I hadn't heard clearly articulated was his why. 

 

Every person standing for political office needs to have a "why" - a reason why they have chosen to run for office.  Fighting the status quo doesn't cut it - you can do that from the outside more effectively than the inside.  In my experience, most politicians who start with "fighting against" are primarily interested in replacing the incumbent, not changing the status quo.

 

Though Ari has used similar messaging, I could tell that wasn't his core motivation; if it was, he'd have spent more time working on finessing his political presence, on hobnobbing with those who could fund or otherwise support his campaign and would have been more aggressive in his recruitment strategy.

 

So what's his motivation?  Why does he want to be mayor of Toronto?

 

I wonder no longer.

 

“So many people who are so lucky in so many ways don’t understand how quick your luck can change and I think about that every single day,” he says. “When I see people who haven’t been as lucky as me through no fault of their own, it makes me want to go to them, not go away from them.”

 

Ari is a self-made man whose journey has nevertheless been a rough one.  His family has been rocked by mental illness, as so many families have.  I can't say I know many people who've been shot in the face by a camp councilor, though. 

 

Kids are supposed to have the comfort of looking up to parents and persons in position of authority and knowing they are in good hands, safe hands. 

 

Ari learned early and learned hard that such is not always the case.  It's clear he's thought about this a bit and gets the contextual nature of personal misfortune.

 

With true grit, hard work and a fire in his belly, Ari's life has evolved in to a purpose, as is the case with all the best leaders out there.

 

Why is Ari running to be mayor of Toronto?  It's pretty clear to me now - he knows what hardship is like and knows how to come out of it on the other end.  He recognizes that he's pretty lucky to have had that revelation - and now, he feels a responsibility to empower others so that they, too, can move forward.

 

Ari Goldkind has always been one to notice details and look out for others.  He doesn't draw attention to his own challenges, nor do they jump out at the people he engages with - even people like me, who tend to be pretty detail-oriented.  It's never about him with Ari - it's always about his purpose, and that shows.

 

I'm glad to see that he's starting to turn eyes in this mayoralty race.  Whatever happens on the 28th, his purpose won't change, nor will his commitment.

 

That's leadership.

Politics - Why Are You Running?

 

To reverse her slide, she is trying to pick apart SmartTrack, attacking Mr. Tory for his shaky financing plan and hasty planning.  She is also trying to rally her own natural supporters, liberal-minded and left-leaning Torontonians who usually vote Liberal or NDP.  This week she summoned the media to announce that, if elected, she would slap a "progressive" tax on high-end real estate sales.  One Chow adviser says the idea is to energize the base."

 

 

While this story is about Olivia Chow and her team, you can trade in any number of candidates and their circles. 

 

Let's deconstruct:

 

- Not doing so well?  Attack an opponent and try to make them do worse.

- Rally the troops, get them to line up behind you - only you can stop forest fires, etc.

- Throw out a fight-picking policy to energize your base.

 

What about having a vision?  What about strong policy that will be effective and communicating it to the public?  Heck, what about consulting with people first and then making policy?

 

Politics is about winning.  Winning is about getting ahead.  Getting ahead is about beating the competition - only politics is a contact sport, which means a large part of politics tends to be about knocking your opponents down.

 

Politics is about sales.  What's makes your product (you) stand out?  How do you entice people to buy into it?  Marketing, marketing, marketing.

 

Smart political advisers will always tell their candidates that step #1 in running is to identify your why - your mission, your purpose, your benchmark and touchstone.  Once this why is clear, it grounds you, your team and all your interactions in a way that buffets you from the raging storm of a campaign.  Without a solid why, you're liable to blow where the winds take you. 

 

Why matters.

 

Of course, the truth is that in far too many cases, the why is a comms strategy, not a grounding principle.  The real motivation - "I want to be an elected official" - isn't saleable, so something else must be developed for public consumption.

 

This has a significant impact on the tone and tenor of a campaign.  Where a fundamental why is missing, a campaign doing really well can forget it's mission and get lost; the same holds true for a floundering one.

 

It all comes back to the candidate.  Have they been living their core why prior to running for office?  Will they keep at it regardless of whether they win or not?  If the public doesn't feel that's the case, they will be harder to motivate.  That's when all the chicanery comes in.

 

A candidate that really believes in what they stand for never wavers; if someone emerges who's better able to realize their vision than they are, they will happily pass on the torch, because it's the purpose, not the person, that matters.  Should they lose, they will accept their loss with dignity and seek ways to help the winner to keep that mission alive.

 

This unwavering commitment to the ideal, to put mission and team before self is a critical component of leadership.  It's not one we see a lot of.

 

There are very few people in politics who will tell you it's better to lose vote than it is to lose your moral compass.  That says something about our politics.

 

Something voters and candidates should think about.

 

The Cause

I'll do or say anything if I believe in it, but I have to believe in the cause."

Political candidates, if they have smart people on their team, will be encouraged early on to clearly answer one question: "why are you running?"  There are two public answers to this question - one, because you stand against something; this was the approach that got Rob Ford elected.  Two, less populist and often harder to position is standing for something.  If you're the incumbent, that can be the status quo/your record.  If you aren't, however, it has to be something innovative.

The reason it's really hard to sell something new is because people may not get it.  You can look for precedent elsewhere, but even then it comes down to what will actually resonate with the voters (or at least, your targeted coalition thereof).

Which is why politics is rarely about ideas, it's about brand - the strength of your candidate's and the weakness of your opponent's.  This is why politics bleeds idealism and the survivors, the ones who last long enough to move through the backroom ranks tend to be cynical, manipulative and unafraid to go for the jugular of whoever they feel stands in their way.

You're right, this is exactly what the Republicans do, and it's about time we learned from them.  They're more disciplined than we are.  I've been in this business for twenty five years and I have seen way too many Democrats bite the dust because they wouldn't get down in the mud with the fucking elephants.

There are a lot of people in politics who only pay lip service to public answers to "why are you running?"  For these people, it's the win that matters.  Politics is competition, like a rugby match.  You want to be known as a winner, because being a winner gets you more access, more finery, a more fearsome reputation, clout whatever.  When it's winning you believe in, you will convince yourself you believe in anything that will get you ahead.  It's a small step from there to saying or doing whatever it takes for that win, no matter the cause.

Not everyone starts off this cynical; many actually do start with something they believe in.  A surprising many carry those beliefs all the way through their careers.  It's rare, if not impossible, to find anyone who has willingly compromised a core belief because they say political advantage in doing so.  After all, you can't effect change if you don't win and you can't win unless you're willing to bend the rules a bit - after all, everyone does.  Right?

A common example of this here in Canada is paying for party memberships.  You'd be surprised how many candidates' teams do this.  You'd be saddened by how many see nothing wrong with the practise, then turn around and disparage Doug Ford for handing out cash to constituents.  It's not the principle, you see, it's how blatantly he breaks it that offends them.

Here's the rub, the uncomfortable truth that is anathema to politics.  If the cause is truly the thing you believe in, then winning isn't everything.  You don't run unless you plan to win, of course, but the cause has to come first and stay first, always.  Otherwise, you get people who will do things like commit to running for a seat whether they win leadership or not, then back away afterwards.  You'll get people making challenging, structural promises like Senate Reform or real transparency and then forget those promises when they win.

That's what leads to public cynicism in politics; it's also why so many people fail to make a lasting mark on the political landscape.

On every campaign I've played a significant role in, we changed things whether we won or not.  I can think of one where my candidate didn't win, but the one who did used some of our lines in their victory speech.  In at least a small way, we made our cause their cause.  It often sucks to see your work and ideas brought to fruition by someone else, but always remember that without you, that idea wouldn't be there in the first place.  

Some of the most politically influential people aren't politicians at all.  They have dedicated themselves, their talents and their resources to something they believe in and as such, can never lose. They only learn how to do better, making new connections, refining ideas and laying track along the way.

Political people will ask the question "why are you running" and look for an answer they can sell.  It's very rare that they stop, look in the mirror and ask themselves what they will do about that cause if they lose.  

The answer to that question is the difference between wins or losses and true accomplishment.

It's one we need to be asking more.