This morning (1/11/13) The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 was discussing a planned strike by Fire-fighters in England and Wales. It's a dispute over pensions.
As soon as pensions were mentioned I snorted and thought "well, no one can afford pensions these days...". Then I took a moment and realised that I'd been sucked into one of the great financial narratives of recent times.
No one can afford pensions....
Organisations across the country are changing their pension plans due to "short falls" or in other words "we trusted our investments would work, but they didn't" and employee after employee has seen the value of their plan fall.
When I was in the BBC I saw my final salary scheme come to an end, and I accepted it...
The problem is... This isn't a story about pension deficit this is a story about pension entitlement and redundancy, but it fits so neatly into the default narrative of pension black holes.
I immediately wrote it off as another organisation stung by the financial down turn moaning about bad investments that the financial world said would be fine and then were ruined by another group of financial experts. You know, the old story.
Default Narrative is hugely powerful, it informs out gut reactions to complex stories, it makes us see stories from the wrong angle, with the wrong colour, and the wrong shape. When we remove our default, (like getting the person seated in front of us at the theatre to remove their comedy oversized 'My Fair Lady' hat) we can see the whole story and not just the bits that press our buttons.
This morning I was lying in the bath thinking about Louise Mensch MP...
I was listening to The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 and a representative of the PCC was interviewed to respond to Mrs Menschs' Comments on the Sun newspaper publishing pictures of Prince Harry playing naked pool in Vegas.
As I lay in the water (wondering when the electrician was going to come to fix the shower) I thought "Oh good Louise Mensch is cross about something, I now know what to support today" and I paused...
You see, Louise Mensch has for a long time been my barometer for right and wrong; if she thinks it's right then it must be wrong, phew I don't have to form my own opinions today, I've got one ready made.
I paused... and thought a little more.
I'm against child slavery, war, and famine, and you know what, I bet Louise Mensch is too. Oh, this felt a little radical, could I be becoming a Tory in my middle age? Had it finally happened? I hit 38 and now I'm in tweedy decline?
No, I just started thinking.
The problem was I was caught up in my liberal "default narrative". "Conservative views and conservatives are evil" and that's all there is to it. When I go into organisations I make sure that we cover their "default narrative" we break into groups and discuss it from different stakeholder viewpoints, we examine how opinions about related matters can change default, and how the default from inside organisation is never what it is from the outside.
Mrs Mensch I apologise, next time I'll listen without the baggage or your default, I'll listen with an open mind, and if we all did that then I wouldn't need to train people.
David Cameron was on The Today Programme this morning. His presentation is always confident and slick, to the point where he makes Tony Blair at his Teflon coated best look like Count Arthur Strong.
Well done him.
The thing that really stood out for me was the use of the current 'tag line' of the Conservative Party / Coalition Government. It was mentioned more than once and, sorry Dave, but like all good tag lines it means nothing. It's an emotional signifier that positions the government, but it's devoid of real meaning.
That's what you want from a tag line or corporate slogan, the last thing that you want is addled old hacks picking away at it as if you've lied...
These are some of my favourite meaning free emotion heavy tag-lines.
1) "Hard working families, trying to do the right thing." - David Cameron 2012.
Both 'hard working' and 'right thing' are hugely subjective. They rely on a moral compass judgement. There may be some families who feel that the 'right thing' is to begin a terrorist cell and bring down the government; as for 'Hard working', my idea of hard work is probably different from the PM's.
2) "The better music mix". - GWR Stations from 1997 to 2001 (ish)
GWR Radio stations adopted one of the best lines in radio programming ever. I love the idea that 'better' and 'mix' are quantifiable. It doesn't even say that the music is better than competitors; because they can't say that, chart stations all play the same music. What they do is drop the emotive word 'better' next to the idea that the 'mix' of music played is vastly important. Genius.
3) "Change we can believe in." - Barack Obama campaign slogan 2008
There's a chain of thought that sites this slogan for reducing the presidents popularity. It goes that change means many things to many people and the change that felt promised (an overhaul of governance and 'the system') never came, instead the change that did come felt too small and too laboured. The change was fought for, batted back, and then compromised. Change happened, but CHANGE! didn't happen. Lovely undefinable 'change' got defined by the people not the president.
4) "The best a man can get". - Gillette 1989 to present.
Here's the full version of the 80's classic
Oh it's just horrible, it really is, but the slogan will remain one of the greats. It has so much weight behind it. It's not just the best razor, oh no, it's the best a man can get... it's the whole package, it's the whole life, and it reached it's height with the 60 second spot and the best power ballad of the age. The slogan itself has been boiled down to have all of the meaning evaporated off and you're just left with a thick sickly emotion filled goo.
So the last thing that you want to be in this slogan / tag line / sound bite world is S.M.A.R.T. so forget your training and come up with something vague...
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