On flag runners and the art of persuasion.

In think tanks, where smart people brain storm about how a product or direction will have influence on a company, or a policy, it is easy to head down the path of crazy.  There are usually two types of influential people in these groups -the flag runners, and the logical ones.

Flag runners are emotional, fired up. They believe that their idea is the best thing since the iPhone. And no matter how much Siri does not work well with people with dialects, flag runners believe and promote their idea, and usually get support.  The logical ones, on the other hand sit around quietly pondering the theatrics, and quietly tries to explain the complexities of the problem at hand, but depending on how they communicate their ideas they often go ignored (The quiet ones also are good fire fighters, since they usually get tasked with  putting  out the fires caused by the flag runners).

Of course in that same room of high level thinkers, there are deciders.  Sadly, the deciders are too shortsighted by their limited MBA, or ME degrees that their decision is also based on emotion.  When people don’t understand a problem, they vote with their gut.  Understanding this dynamic, and transposing this limited understanding of the human element, I would like to make a huge leap to political elections. Here the deciders are supposedly more diverse. But they are also limited by their lack of information. Many voters have limited knowledge about how government works, how programs, or departments get built, and about the role of government in business, civics and society. Sure governments tend to decide these issues for themselves,  but implementation of an idea takes time, dedication and resources.

I used to think that government could be run by computers. But I have come to realize that computers are not smart enough.. yet. Governing is complex.  Leaders have to consider the billions of needs of individuals, towns, communities, businesses. It then has to prioritize the needs, take care of the ones that gets screwed by the big ideas, while sill appearing to care for all.  At the same time it has to be not for profit, make a profit and feed itself. Then, it has to pander to specific groups, (more to those that “donate” more, be legal, appear moral and like Google, make the bold statement that they will not be evil.  I wonder how many cores that computer would need, and how many Facebook timelines it would need to follow. Or both.

But back to persuasion. One can be logical, but emotional.  But what flag runners need, like most successful people, is a good altruistic, logical, empathetic, introverted spouse.