Why people with a high impact on our lives should have a recruiting process too.
Politician´s decisions can change people's lives. Their selection process should be more rigid.
It may sound too simplistic, but everything becomes crystal clear when it comes to our pocket. Of course, it always comes to our wallet in the end. Especially when politicians are around, money tends to flow to their side magically.
We all know how hard it is to build a business successfully or achieve a good job position. Right after you did it, you realize that it was just the beginning of the race. The most challenging part is to keep our achievements.
I am from Spain, more precisely from Barcelona. Why do I tell you this? Because I come from one of the most politicized societies in Europe by far. Spain is always under the EU's scrutiny, especially regarding funds helping this or that sector.
For decades, Spanish politicians have been involved in corruption scandals, influence traffic, paying favors in the shape of succulent public contracts, being supported by narcos, and even murder.
I guess this is the price we have to pay as the only country in the EU that had a dictator for four decades. Yes, Spain is a “democracy” only since 1977.
I was born in 1979, so we can say here that we almost have the same time as a democracy as we had under a genocide fascist regime.
I didn´t know this video by the time I started to think about this article. Despite the comedy, it is a powerful and valid question. In Spain, people are asking it all the time. Why? Because professional politicians are professional liars.
A professional football player has to win championships. A professional chef has to win Michelin stars, good reviews, and clients. A professional lawyer has to win trials, and a professional politician has to win elections.
It is astonishing how low is the level of politicians today. They managed to make the rule of being mediocre, sociopathic, and lacking in any integrity.
So the exception is to be competent, human, and empathetic.
It is not different than any reality show. I wonder if we should have just good actors in front of the cameras and after them an army of skilled people doing the real work. We are not far from it.
It is a joke unless it is not funny anymore. For millions of people, politicians are their main problem. In Spain, politicians are seen by people as the country's main problem. Over unemployment and the virus.
How is this even possible? How people who are supposed to represent citizens became their main problem? The answer is simple. Politicians only work to win elections. The public service is part of another kind of professionals, not them.
In a macabre exercise, the Spanish far-right party said that Trump is not responsible for the assault on the Capitol because, in their own words.
“No political leader can be held responsible for the actions of citizens.”
I assume that they don´t remember Hitler´s suggestions to his followers. This is the quintessence of professional irresponsibility. Can you imagine any advisory board of a fraudulent company making a non-responsibility public statement about their CEO?
Sadly, sometimes we see this too. In 2008, some CEOs were immensely compensated when some investment companies were intentionally causing the global economic crisis. They call it bubble. I call it corporate terrorism.
Corporate terrorism is crimes committed to creating more consumers. Such as fraud, the spread of misleading propaganda, and bribing politicians to pass bills that force people to become consumers.
My question is, would you hire any of the CEOs or CFOs that caused one of the biggest economic crises of recent times for your own company?
If not, how is it possible that people vote for candidates clearly not prepared for a role in which decisions will affect any living creature on earth?
Politicians expect us to decide based on empty slogans, fake storytelling, and no proof of mental skills, emotional state, and experience.
Would you hire a delusional manager?
Would you go to any important job interview with a slogan on your t-shirt, a baseball cap while claiming I am the best, the other candidates are crap, I will make your company great again?
It feels so ridiculous that it is almost embarrassing. Well, this is what we do every 4 years. In Spain, only 36% of politicians have real working experience.
They know it is a problem. They know they look dumb and lacking credibility for what they do. The solution? They lie about their careers.
How is it possible that we, the regular people, have to achieve such an outstanding level of excellence to have a promising career, decent payment, and good life?
I remember 2 times when I applied for a Global Marketing Director job position. Step number 2 out of 5 was already a mental/intelligence/logic test.
It was a long, challenging, and time-controlled test. I didn´t pass, but I understand this process. If you leave your company´s most important decisions and strategies in someone else´s hands, you need to the 100% sure that I am the right person to do it.
In my last job, I had 7 interview rounds. This time I made it.
If I would have sponsors or, excuse me, donors. My own marketing team, a catchy slogan, a huge media investment, and fake storytelling like I am a self-made man with a superpower like King Midas, do you think I will pass every interview I apply to?
Most probably not.
It feels like while society is constantly raising the bar, our politicians are lowering it.
Paul Arden wrote in his book titled “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be”:
It’s not what you know, it's who you know.
This is the most important mantra nowadays for politicians. It is not important that Angela Merkel is also a scientist who studied physics and claims since day one of the pandemic to trust science.
It is not important that New Zealand´s prime minister Jacinda Ardern is an honored-Harvard award-winning talent.
It is not what the people who are the exception to the rule of mediocrity know. It is always more important who they know.
How did we get to this point?
How did we disconnect from who are supposed to be our leaders?
How is it possible that the young people are more committed to building a better world but don´t see politicians as part of the solution?
“A LOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE WANT TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. BUT THEY DON’T NECESSARILY SEE POLITICS AS THE WAY TO DO IT.”
Scott Warren. Visiting fellow, SNF Agora Institute
Is this the consequence that the inbred circles of power are building for centuries?
Is our global leaders' level so low because the most engaged voters are today the less educated, more extremist, and easier to cheat?
The relationship between educational attainment and partisan preference has flipped: Now, college-educated voters are more likely to support putative workers’ parties, while non-college-educated ones tend to favor conservatives.
There is a saying that goes like this: Society has the leaders it deserves.
Maybe it is true. Honestly, I don´t see how we can fix this situation. Democracy clearly needs to evolve. After the Brexit, everybody saw (especially politicians) the power of weaponizing social media.
As seen in the documentary “The Great Hack” and “The Social Dilemma.” Social platforms are turned against us to transform the world into a big farm to squeeze out our data.
If you think that “against us” is a bit exaggerated, let me tell you something.
After the Brexit vote, one of the most searched terms on Google was “what is the E..”. Searches also included questions about Brexit and the most elemental questions you can imagine about the process's nature.
Guess what? Mid last year, the experts started to point out the potential disaster of breaking up with the E.U.
A study made by YouGov reflects Cambridge Analytica did not intoxicate the opinion of Brits after some time when they probably had way more information and their lives.
Our beloved protectors, the politicians, maybe didn´t think about the catastrophic consequences for hundreds of thousands of small businesses.
Allow me to ask once again the same question.
Would you hire an advisor or a manager who would drive your business straight to the cliff while passing the responsibility to the immigrants?
The world is facing one of its most challenging moments.
Leadership, cooperation, and a solid strategy should be top priorities for any global leader. Politicians are in the eye of the storm, but sadly they don´t seem to make the cut.
It all starts with trust. From religions to the stock market, it all requires this primary human emotion to move forward.
How is it possible that governments' trust levels are mostly at 50% and lower in 7 of the 12 countries rated?
It is alarming that Spain has the lowest percentage in Europe by far, sharing numbers with Russia. If this is not clear enough, Spain is also the most hit country in Europe by the recession.
It reveals how weak, slow, and lost my country is right now. But in the middle of a global pandemic, Politicians are still more worried about their elections than helping people get food.
These numbers show an important contradiction between what we see in the mainstream news (including social media) and what numbers say.
Do we have the leaders that the new world requires?
Are we facing the most decadent moment of the history of politics?
Are politicians just playing for radicalized people to be the next trending topic?
Is the western democracy ready for a world that is clearly showing that collective societies are better adapted than individualist societies?
Social media's weaponization is just another example of how politicians are interested in doing just one thing. Winning elections.
I am afraid that in a hyperpolarized world, where everything seems to be with me or against me, politicians have created their perfect scenario, the eternal conflict.
Politics are an important part of our society, but it is very distant from how it should be in a modern and advanced society.
We all need to trust in our doctors, in our accountants, in our surgeons, psychiatrists… The people whom we put our lives in their hands.
Why don´t we have better options for people whose decisions affect thousands or millions of people's daily lives?
And most important, why do they seem completely disconnected from reality?
Are they just a reflection of us, our society?
Are the solutions cryptocurrencies, algorithms, and block-chain self-government systems?
I´m afraid that I don´t have positive answers.
I feel an entire global generation of young people screaming a kind of leadership according to what the world needs today.
Stay healthy.
Oliver.