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The rule of false equity
Posted on: Tuesday, May 04, 2010
First of all let me apologise for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. I have been moving office and traveling (ash allowing) in order to speak at events and consult. It has been a busy time and unfortunately the blog has suffered. I hate blogs that are not updated so I am sorry for falling short.
They say we get the leaders we deserve (not sure who “they” are by the way) and watching the way the UK’s elections are going I must agree with that!
There is a strange thing going on - on the one hand voters say that politicians never tell the truth whilst at the same time those very same voters reject the politicians that dare to tell it. Let me illustrate my point with a clear example.
The UK’s deficit is running out of control. The economy is in a mess and whomever gets in some pretty tough decisions are going to have to be made. The simple truth is that you either increase taxes or cut services or probably more than likely do both. Not only that, but you are probably going to have do this on an unprecedented scale.
So what are politicians going to say? Well the good news is that we now have TV debates with instant reaction lines. At the bottom of the screen is a line per politician (blue line for the conservative, red for labour and yellow for the liberal democrat). All lines start in the middle. When the politicians speak a representative audience turns a dial up if they approve and down if they don’t. The line moves up and downs as each speak making us able to see reactions to the politicians words. The lines are commonly called worms.
During the first televised debate the only politician who (and forgive me for simplifying for the sake of time) said something along the lines of ‘we’re going to have to make tough choices and some of them you’re not going to like’ was Nick Clegg (the liberal candidate). But guess what happened to the yellow worm at that stage. You guessed it - it went burrowing the deepest any worm ever went that night. Seems like people didn’t like the idea of the truth they said all along they craved. So what would you do if you’re Nick Clegg?! That’s right next time around you decide to adopt a different strategy - you treat the people as the children they say they’re not and tell them a bit more of what they want to hear which is a bit different from the truth they said they wanted.
What is true of the economy is true across the board. Immigration (the other topic of choice for this UK election) is similarly treated.
So what are we to make of this apparent dichotomy. After all what is true of politicians is true of leaders more generally. Is the only way forward to compromise with the truth and tell people what we think they want to hear even when they say otherwise? Should we tell them when things are going to hurt? Are people just not “clever” enough to handle the truth?
First we must understand one simple rule. The rule of false equity. We are all able to handle the truth, what we disagree with is that we should be the ones suffering as a result of that truth. We can all point to people whom we believe suffer less than us and therefore must pay a higher price. For things to be fair and equitable others must be made to hurt more than we do (in this current case it’s the ‘greedy bankers’). The logical conclusion of the false equity rule is extremist and populist views - issues are no longer addressed with figures, facts and reason but rather with emotive language and pictures).
The only way for a leader to gain trust through truth is to get over the false equity rule. The only remedy is education which only has one tool - dialogue.
Back in my formative year in France I was introduce to what the French system considers a pillar of education - namely the ability to argue. The French regard a well constructed argument as the key to an active communal life. What is interesting is that the ability to construct an argument means the ability to see all sides and bring them together in one outcome.
When, as is the case with the rule of false equity, we are faced with two extreme views we often dismiss the grey area between them as compromise. However whilst compromise is seldom valuable there is another position which is one of resolution. In resolution both extremes are combines into something better.
The way to do this is what the French call thesis, antithesis, synthesis. In every piece of homework French students are asked to make the case for one position. They are then ask to make as strong a case for the opposite view before working hard to synthesize all the positives into one view of higher value. All of you interested on how these ideas can be applied to business would do well to check out the works of Fons Trompenaars who has used his years of research into culture to come up with one of the best dilemma resolution methodology I have come across.
This requires diligence and an open mind but often yields more value than either string positions. I do hope we, and therefore the politicians we deserve are broad minded enough to engage in that kind of debate. There are some tough choices to be made and opposing views on how to make them. These differences should be valued and debated not hidden by the lowest common denominator. Genuine debates can be robust and agreement is not necessary but what is is the willingness of all parties to open their ears as a conduit to opening their minds. I am afraid that in our search for votes or followers we are willing to play to the rule of false equity rather than educate ourselves to the true nature of hardship and the most appropriate solutions which we can only surface as a community.
As a Frenchman living in the UK I do not have the right to vote in this forthcoming parliamentary election. I have been here for 25 years. I have always paid my taxes on time and tried to behave as I would expect any guest to behave in my house. With two children of dual nationality I am fond of the country that gave me so much. To paraphrase the words so beautifully expressed in ‘The Anatomy of Peace’ I hope my hosts have their heart at peace when they cast their vote rather than do so with a heart at war.
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