About two years ago I had the honor to join the ‘BKB Academie’. The ‘BKB Academie’ is an academy which is part of the Dutch campaigning office BKB. The academy teaches you the ins and outs of political campaigning.
[BKB Academie members Sywert van Lienden (middle) + Ieteke Schouten (second left)]
Sometimes its sessions were very confronting. Especially one session where we you got to learn how the Dutch government is being formed. We played a simple game: a group of 25 were given each:
- a name of a prominent politician;
- a party;
- two goals: one personal and one political.
I was Ivo Opstelten of the VVD (Dutch Liberal Party), my goals:
- To become Minister of Foreign Affairs and;
- To make sure the extreme right Freedom Party would not be part of our coalition;
I failed tremendously. Simply said because the game was disgusting. People got rid of all their values and were only eager to get what they precisely wanted. Getting their goals with as little compromises as possible.
What I learned were mainly two things:
- The best debater always wins;
- Giving up values makes ‘playing’ politics a lot easier;
[Industrial Design Engineering Students in Delft]
At the faculty of industrial design engineering in Delft I learnt two things about the process of designing a successful product:
- Never criticize your coworkers in an idea phase: endorse every single idea, because it may lead to better ideas;
- Make a list of requirements and wishes that you think are needed;
Funny thing: Politicians do the exact opposite, they have:
- one goal;
- no will or reason to compromise on that goal;
- no interest in long term solutions (since it doesn’t generate quick result in order to get more voters);
Competition in politics is what crushes good people with good ideas. So in order to rethink politics, we should learn from our designers:
- Never criticize, there’s no competition;
- Make a list op priorities (requirements and wishes);
Until the day that politics does not change I will never have any ambition to become a politician. How do you think we can change current political systems in order to make it more solution focussed? Comment or answer on Quora (or on FB) what you think.
PS: Here’s the full Delft Design Guide for you to take and learn
PS II: My next blogpost will be about: how we can make politics more productive, using design methodology.
