Misperceptions

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The philosophers tell us that whilst the screen on the desk in front of me may well have an objective existence of its own, we can only ever perceive it through our senses, so no two of us will ever “see” precisely the same screen.  The same applies to statements and words, too, and I, like everyone else, sometimes forget that not everyone understands the perspective from which I start.  It can apply to motivation as well; it’s all too easy to see the actions of others through the prism of one’s own motivations, and misunderstand them as a result.

I was once talking to a working colleague about our different approaches to staff development.  For him, everything revolved around helping people to prepare for promotion to the next level.  I asked something along the lines of “What about those who don’t want promotion?  How do we develop them?”  I don’t think he understood the question.

It works both ways.  Just as some people don’t ‘get’ the idea of a lack of personal ambition, so some of us, myself included, have never really been able to ‘get’ the idea of personal ambition as a driver.  I like to do things which interest me, but I often end up doing things which don’t, either because someone asks me to, or just because somebody needs to do them in order to achieve a particular end.  Making sure that the goal is scored – and that it’s the right goal to be scoring - have always been more important to me than who actually kicks the ball over the line.

I’ve been around long enough to know that people will not all see things in the same way, and will not necessarily understand that that’s where I’m coming from, but as my post last week showed, I can still get caught out.  I think I’m pursuing a point of interest because it matters; others assume that I’m pursuing a personal agenda of some sort, or criticising other people.

I want to see a politics where differentiation between parties is based more on substance than on image; where we have a range of different faces and voices; and where we are harnessing the best talents of all our people for the benefit of society as a whole.  It would be an absolute bonus if we also created a bit more space for freethinkers and mavericks, although that will send a shiver down the spine of some party managers.

The increasingly narrow range of backgrounds from which people are entering politics is one of a number of factors militating against that, and is therefore an important one.  Understanding why people would – or, more importantly, would not – want to be elected to Parliament or the Assembly is part of the key to addressing that.  It’s an issue to which I shall return.  But it really isn't one on which I have any personal agenda.