Have you read Mark Zuckerberg’s Building Global Community? From the title, you may think that “Global Community” is a new product…otherwise he would have used the phrase “Building a Global Community” or “Building Global Communities.” It’s not a product, it’s his vision. Zuckerberg is creating his own vision about where he wants the world to be in the future and how he sees Facebook as being part of that world. This is an excellent way of thinking ahead as it provides people (Facebook users, Facebook employees, Facebook stakeholders..) with a vision, with an idea of what these actors can do to make a favourable circumstance happen.
This is a time when many of us around the world are reflecting on how we can have the most positive impact. I am reminded of my favorite saying about technology: “We always overestimate what we can do in two years, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years.”
This is where now political institutions in Europe (mainly referring to governments of various levels of governance) tend to fail: lack of vision. Lacking vision means providing lack of certainty and this is the key variable to keep analysing when working towards getting people’s trust.
The electorate is volatile and it is the responsibility of governments and “political managers” (I love this word and I will talk more about it in the future”) to make sure that decisions and policies serve “a vision” instead of a temporary set of desires.
Brexit is one of the most evident case of the theory I explain above. 52% of the people in the United Kingdom voted “Leave” and they day after “What is the EU” was among the most looked for items in Google in the UK. Still, nowadays we see how that decision was made out of complete lack of vision. This 52% just wanted out without knowing “how” to get out and what exactly they were getting out from. At this regard, I invite you to read this beautiful piece by Andy Bodle 68 dumb-f**k reasons for leaving the EU.
Now, why am I making this comparison? Because big tech successful companies like Facebook, Google or Tesla are instilling trust in people simply by providing a vision. It is that simple. But then, how do they go about making that vision a reality? They create that vision and play all the necessary scenarios backwards in order to see which are the necessary steps to make it happen. This is actually the very core of successful entrepreneurship, but why is it so hard to apply this (in theory) simple principle to politics? A couple of visionary leaders in these terms can be seen in specific business-hubs like Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai. Of course, these cities are not a leading examples in the field of human rights and democracy however they created wealth out of nothing simply by playing this “backwards-scenario game.”
Another writer I particularly appreciate in this field of work is Dan Sobovitz, whom in his most recent article he says “..popular trust in digital service providers and #BigData is higher than the current trust in political institutions (which is dangerously low), sometimes even higher than our trust in our own cognitive ability.” I agree with this statement. Politics is bound to make people happy, but people want everything now. This goes into contrast with building and providing society with a vision on the long term.
Moderate politics in Europe is failing in this game, which is causing an absurd rise in populism. The basis of populism, as recent history teaches us, is the exploitation of people’s uncertainty. The idea of a united, free and prosperous Europe is a solid vision and it is the categorical imperative of the European union to provide this vision against the destruction that populism and short term nationalism is bringing.
Recently, I called EU communicators to stand their ground and I want to reiterate this invite by advocating the defense of this vision of Europe, which remains the most ambitious political project in human history and a Union of benefits for its citizens when they stand together.
It’s crazy to think that big tech companies are achieving this trust from the people, but I see no shame in taking inspiration from it and apply these principles to the political domain.