I recently saw an article where someone said that all leadership, sales and politics can be simplified to just two types of influencing motivations. Inspiration or Manipulation. Essentially you can be stimulated to act or you can be persuaded to act. (Push or Pull)
Manipulation
The manipulation aspect is fairly easy to understand. In leadership this can be reward or compensation, authority or threats. In sales this can be price incentives, offers, fear of missing out or fear of consequences of not having it. Politics is often the same, you will get ‘x’ reward – direct or indirect, or the other guy is worse he will take away ‘y’. We see it all the time it is part of our culture: reward; fear; peer pressure; even bullying; it is rational although not always obvious.
Inspiration
Inspiration is far harder. One person says I believe in ‘x’ and if you do too then you may be inspired to follow them, vote for them or buy from them. A great example would be green companies, we are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products or animal humane products because we are inspired by their values.
The problem with inspiration is that you limit your supporters to those that believe in the same things as you. For sales and politics this is not a great policy as it cuts down your target audience considerably. The benefit is that if someone shares your beliefs they are a powerful voice they are harder to manipulate and more resilient and enthusiastic about your cause.
Inspiring Leaders
By all accounts Steve Jobs was not likable but he was inspiring to his employees and his customers. The same is true for many inspiring leaders even the unpleasant ones. You don’t have to be a nice guy to inspire people you just need to be open about what you believe, to be clear why, and to stay true to your beliefs. Those that share your thinking will support you.
Painful Example
To give you an example of this in action let me talk about Brexit for a little while. Brexit is a difficult and complex topic, I am not an expert and am likely to oversimplify the situation so please don’t be offended. Although I am British I live in the USA and lived here during the referendum so did not get to vote. But I have family that lives in France and everybody British regardless of where they live feels the impact of this decision directly or indirectly. It has been an anxious time for all of us, and it is not over yet!
Background:
The UK joined the EEC in 1973, it was presented to the people as a trading union, over the next 45 years it turned into a confederation and now has an open desire to become a federation.
I think it is fair to say that most people in the UK did not know they had signed up for this, and felt that it has evolved without our consent. There is also a sense that we (the UK) have very little influence in the EU.
The decisions by the EU were often in alignment with our thinking and beneficial to us, or did not impact sufficiently to trigger an extreme reaction. There were a few notable exceptions like the Euro and fishing rights, but mostly the EU could be ignored, that is until it became apparent to the masses just how much power had been ceded to the EU.
The referendum was simply a choice: do you want the UK to remain a member of the EU or to leave the EU?
The EU has a mandate for an “Ever closer union” it is currently essentially a confederation of states, with a long term goal to become a federation of states. Ultimately a United States of Europe.
Currently the member states have ceded power for currency and monetary policy, trade agreements, fishing, agriculture, borders, migration and law in too many areas to list here. The longer term the expectation is a European army (including nuclear deterrent), central taxation, and further power. shifted away from individual states to the EU. To Remain is to support the move to becoming a United States of Europe.
To Leave would mean returning the ceded power to the UK and losing the benefits of membership, and likely exclusion from the EU in the future.
The arguments:
Those voting Remain claim that we have benefited from membership and will continue to benefit from trade and free movement, and that EU policy is broadly in alignment with our views so ceding the power to the EU is not an issue as we broadly agree with the decisions and laws created so far.
Those opposed (voting Leave) have quite a large and diverse number of objections to the EU but the majority seem to focus on the issue that the European Commission – the body that creates and proposes laws and legislation – is appointed and not elected, and that they are not transparent. We ‘the people’ have no influence in the laws proposed or in the appointment of the law makers. For a country with a strong democratic history this is a big issue for many. The UK has almost no influence direct or indirect on the EU, we are passengers along for the ride.
And to really set people off, the leader of this group Jean-Claude Juncker is on record for saying : “When it becomes serious, lie to them” and that in relation to a French referendum: if they vote Yes he will act and if they vote No, he will ignore them and continue anyway.
“When it becomes serious, lie to them”
Jean-Claude Juncker
The vote
Interestingly looking at the two arguments it appears that the Remain have the Inspirational goal and the Leave are based on manipulation and fear.
But the campaign changed that drastically. The Prime Minister David Cameron had the support of his cabinet, the support of the leaders from all the major parties, support of the mainstream media (apart from a few loonie papers), it had uncharacteristically overt bias from the BBC in support of the EU, not to mention celebrity endorsements all over the place. All the PM had to worry about were a few dissenting voices in his own party and UKIP – a fringe party that struggled to get a seat in parliament. He felt the referendum would be a slam dunk. In any other situation he could quite reasonably expect a huge landslide with the way the deck was stacked in his favour.
The Leave campaign was led by a less then credible man that had the aura of a very dubious used-car salesman. I think at the start of the campaign most people felt that the outcome was a foregone conclusion and the vote was simply an opportunity to warn the EU that we are not to be taken for granted and we would like our voices heard in the future.
The primary Remain campaign strategy was “Name calling”
Watching the campaign unfold was shocking to me. The Remain campaign rather than talking up the benefits of the EU or the inspirational goal of the EU, they decided to make their primary campaign strategy to call Leavers names.
Almost the entire Remain campaign seemed to be centered around the claim that if you vote Leave you must be a racist bigot.
Rather than choosing to inspire or even discuss reasonably, Remain were so confident of victory they chose to belittle those that didn’t agree with them. Unsurprisingly those voters with reasonable concerns felt ignored and insulted. They felt manipulated and pressured and that their only voice left was a vote in a secret ballot box.
Leave perhaps in response to the arrogance of the Remain strategy took on a much more inspirational campaign, they talked about “taking control of our destiny”, “taking back our borders”, “making our own trading agreements”, “making our own laws” All this was about independence and autonomy, an inspirational call to arms. It played on out dated notions of empire and sovereignty and in many cases was meaningless rhetoric but it nevertheless inspired the voters.
The Leave campaign certainly had a fair share of manipulation with claims (many questionable) about money not going to the NHS and the waste of funds in the EU, crazy expenses of EU politicians, and there was certainly a vocal minority that wanted to block immigration. But this was all secondary to the notion of independence and autonomy.
In contrast the Remain had similar wild and questionable claims, but I hardly ever heard anyone in the Remain campaign say anything positive about the EU for the UK. It was all just negativity about those voting Leave. Or edge-case examples of how very small groups of people would be worse off. There was nothing inspiring in the campaign nothing to feel good about.
There is an old adage that when you insult the person rather than the policy you have lost the argument, and I think that is what has happened.
When you insult the person rather than the policy you have lost the argument.
Even in the aftermath of the vote, the Remain voters talk about how Brexit will hurt them personally or someone they know, or the near-term disruption to the markets and trade, or the retaliation we should expect from the EU. For people inspired to independence and autonomy, the obstacles, disruption and short-term issues will not change their mind, they have an inspirational long-term vision (that may very well be flawed) but it can’t be countered by complaining about the impact to individuals. They believe in a better future or at least one in which they have some control. Threats of retaliation by the EU just further reinforce the view that they were right to vote leave. I hear a lot of people that were on the fence during the vote but seeing the EU’s attitude since the vote they are now far more against the EU than before.
In my opinion, If you want to counter the Leave vote you need to inspire people to stay, and from what I can see no one has tried. You need to shout from the roof tops why the EU is good for the future and how you and the EU will listen and address their concerns.
Outcome
The result was a clear and surprising victory for the Leave campaign, the leaders were surprised and confused they had no expectation of winning. and Remain had no plan for what to do if they lost. The country is now confused and lacking direction, the losers are in power trying to achieve something they opposed. People we know and care about are in a situation of confusion and uncertainty. Who knows whether things will be better in the long-run we will have to wait and see.
I think it is a rather extreme example of the power of inspiration and the inherent weakness of manipulation. Threats and promises don’t work if a person can be inspired.
In my opinion the Leave campaign did not win, the Remain campaign went all out to lose. When you openly insult your electorate it is hardly surprising that they rebel against you.
The Lesson
For those in a position of leadership it should be an eye-opener to the power of inspiration. State your intent, your vision and those that share it will be fierce supporters. But if you choose to lead through manipulation, your hold on your followers only lasts until someone makes them a better offer.
We all want to be inspired, we all want to share a vision and work towards it but all too often our leaders don’t share their thinking or in some cases believe we can be manipulated, or worse need to be manipulated, the result is that we become what they believe, we react to how they treat us.
We want leaders that inspire us (and I don’t mean political opportunism) but genuinely tell us what they believe and the “Why” behind their actions and decisions. We want to support these leaders because we believe in the same thing.
Unfortunately inspiration alone is insufficient, you also need a plan. Brexit is now a mess, there was inspiration for the vote but no plan for what to do when they won.
The absence of a plan is disastrous:
Vision without action is a daydream, Action without vision is a nightmare.
Proverb.
Right now Brexit looks like a daydream and for many Remain looks like a non-democratic nightmare. Whatever the outcome we are losers.
Note:
It is always tricky using politics as an example but I have tried to be impartial. This is not meant to be a debate on the politics. I just want to highlight the contrast in impact when you inspire rather than manipulate. If you would like to comment could you comment on the this rather than Brexit, there are plenty of forums for that.
John Yorke 