I’m no good at politics. Never have been. From a politician’s point of view, I suffer from one fatal character flaw. Call me naive, but I honestly and earnestly believe the best of people as opposed to expecting the worst.
In recent days, I’ve witnessed the workings of two Cabals, independent of each other and yet both behave in exactly the same way.
The thing about Cabals is they are composed almost entirely of individuals who want to be right, and they want to be right more than anything else in the world. And they want the world to know that they’re right too. Even when they’re wrong.
Take group a) for instance. They witter on and bitch endlessly about this and that. In reality, it’s a thinly disguised pissing contest. A self-reinforcing pissing contest too. Do they care about the damage that they do both to people and that person’s reputation? No, they don’t. Are they interested in the genuine facts? No, they are not. Even when those facts are laid out in front of them, they simply look the other way and return to their original mantra.
Does the world at large care a damn about what they say or think? No, it doesn’t. Not one iota. Does this stop them wittering on? No. They do it anyway. Self important, self-deluding pricks. File under mostly harmless.
Now take group b). For years and years they lay dormant, happy to remain ignorant of the world around them, content to allow one virtually autonomous individual to enact all of their business arrangements on their behalf. It doesn’t take a Nobel prize winner to figure out that an autonomous individual working largely in isolation will occasionally need guidance. A lack of steering invites problems, mistakes and a drift in policy.
More so, because of their apparent hands off approach to management, these lofty isolated and disconnected individuals developed a reputation for being reclusive and difficult to work with. The local papers adopted a position of ‘no smoke without fire’ and so editorials began to appear asking for explanations, digging for dirt.
When their lynch pin suffered a personal tragedy - the death of her husband of many, many years - group b) suddenly found themselves faced with a mountain of problems. Having utterly failed to manage and direct their business for years, they suddenly found that they didn’t really know what was going on.
And so they turned on their lynch pin, an individual who had served them for many, many years and who was both liked and trusted by those who knew her. Rather than a slow, gentle transition between management systems, they were utterly determined to be right, and, in short, their lynch pin was fired. She and she alone was blamed for their shortcomings. There was no re-numeration package. Not even a farewell gift. Her employment was terminated. Goodbye.
Yes, I thought it was shameful too.
Since then, yes, they’ve done a good job at resurrecting their business. They’re more in control than they were. They’ve installed new IT equipment and are generally more open in their dealings with the general public. They’ve won a large number of battles, some public, many private. Good for them, you might think.
But now they’ve become a little too big, a little too confident. They’re at the stage when they’re bullying those around them and possibly exceeding their already slender remit. They’re using their magazine to criticize anyone who doesn’t tow the party line, actively naming and shaming those who don’t meet their standards.
There’s currently a general feeling that they’ve over-stepped their mark, become bossy. They’re stifling discussion too, and now they’re picking fights with people and organisations who may, in the long run, get the upper hand again. Expect the worst. A slighted politician has a habit of repaying old debts in kind.
To date, I’ve been fairly close to the action, certainly close enough to see for myself what’s going on, and, right now, at this very instant, I have an uncanny sense that it might just be a good idea to put a little distance between us, to step back a little before I get sucked in to a fight that I want no part of.
Much the same applies to group a). Placing too much emphasis on the meanderings of a collection of largely irrelevant individuals is guaranteed to skew your take on business. It could even push you into making bad moves. Again, I feel the urge to push them away, forget ‘em. If they really mattered then…
So maybe I’m better at politics than I thought. :)
- January 11
- , 2011
