PC Party of Alberta–The Importance of a Post-Mortem

“Survival my only hope. Success my only revenge” ― Patricia Cornwell, Postmortem

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination. - Vin Scully

Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics. - Steven Pinker

There are two ways of lying. One, not telling the truth and the other, making up statistics. - Josefina Vazquez Mota

When I was a young, impressionable lad growing up in a small town in Newfoundland, I would sometimes sit spellbound as older generations would tell ghost stories designed to frighten anyone.  A theme often used was the notion of someone who had died violently and without warning and as a result, their ghost was doomed to haunt the area where they had died because their spirit did not know that the body had expired.

Watching the PC Party of Alberta go down in a stinging defeat tonight in the Calgary-Foothills election, I wonder if I am witnessing a similar type of ghost – a political party that has died but which doesn’t know it yet.

When the PC Party was unceremoniously dumped in the general election in May of this year, they were accused of many things, including being dishonest, elitist, arrogant, indifferent and ignorant of the needs of the people (and those are the polite comments).

When the by-election process began in Calgary-Foothills, the PC Party candidate had some alleged discrepancies in education claimed versus education obtained, drawing comments from many (including myself in the post PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy?) about the potential dishonesty of the candidate.  The comments were never responded to by the candidate or his party.

The PC Party Interim Leader routinely quoted unnamed polls which claimed the candidate to be taking the riding by storm while no verifiable poll showed the candidate as even coming close.  There were even cries of violations of the Elections Act when a robocall from the Interim Leader cited unverifiable poll results without citing the source.

And then there were insidious personal claims regarding the candidate’s past which, fortunately for him, did not make the light of day.  Had the race been closer, I have no doubt that some unscrupulous person would have used them in a desperate bid for a victory over him.

Despite numerous requests for clarification regarding the allegations against the candidate and the sources of data for the so-called poll results, the candidate and the Interim Leader remained silent.

When I questioned an MLA about the dishonesty that was apparent in the campaign, I was told that what mattered was that the candidate needed to win.

It was this level of general dishonesty and values abandonment that caused me to re-examine the PC Party’s values and I came upon these items on their website:

It reminded me that there is a significant difference between putting a lot of nice sounding phrases on a website and living them when it counts – when it is tempting to do anything but live one’s professed values.

So what happens next - the courage to examine one’s strengths and faults

The PC Party demonstrated that between the general election and this by-election, they have in fact learned absolutely nothing and repeated many of their earlier mistakes.

In the private sector, when we win or lose big, it is often of value to conduct a post-mortem, either to understand how the big win came about so we can recreate it or how the big loss came about so we can avoid it.

It is clear from how this election was conducted that this was either not done at all after the general election loss, not done well or done well but whose results were completely ignored, making it necessary to revisit the need for a post-mortem analysis to have some shot at improving the future of the Party.

A classic post-mortem has some primary elements in it, including but not limited to the following:

• Allowing the appropriate amount of time to transpire between the event being analyzed and the post-mortem itself, allowing people to catch their breath and gather data but not allowing so much time to pass that people forget the need to have a post-mortem because “the sting” has faded.
• Setting an appropriate post-mortem meeting format, including having specific time contracts and agendas that contain realistic, measurable expectations and outcomes.  Meaningless “it wasn’t my fault”, “it was someone else’s fault” or “we are completely helpless victims” messages in the form of witch hunts, gripe sessions or expressions of victimhood merely massage or destroy egos but don’t produce solutions.
• Honesty in understanding what went right without inflating one’s ego too much.
• Honesty in understanding what went wrong without destroying anyone’s ego too severely.
• Understanding the real reasons for the win or the loss and knowing how to apply the right levels of discernment in identifying useful, valid information while rejecting the rest.
• Inviting the right people to the meeting.  Not everyone deserves a voice and some voices that would prefer to be silent need to be heard.
• Ensuring that the post-mortem be conducted by an objective, outside observer who has no vested interest in the team itself but instead, has as their purpose the need to produce a valuable post-mortem.
• Ensuring that the post-mortem is respectful, honest, humble, ego-less, fact-focused and thorough, with measurable action items, assignable accountability / responsibility and delivery dates being a result of the process.
• Ensuring that the leadership, leading up to, during and following the post-mortem, clearly motivate, communicate and monitor expectations, communication mechanisms, collaboration and results.  Servant leaders who successfully cast a positive vision are much more useful than bullies and dictators.
• Ensuring that the results of the post-mortem are actually followed up on with appropriate communication and support mechanisms in place to ensure success.  Great ideas with no follow-up or success-focused mechanisms for support become sources of “I told you so” later (if anyone is left standing to say it).

Teams that are not afraid to examine themselves, to identify where they went wrong, to champion where they went right and to find a way to produce better results through intelligent strategic and tactical correction produce winning teams.

The others?

Well – they usually end up as examples for others to avoid:

Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

The Bottom Line:

Winning when the wins come easy often take little effort and little is learned from such victories.

Losing requires a lot less effort than winning and little is learned if one’s ego or resources don’t allow for analysis of the loss.

Winning after having experienced a loss (especially a potentially catastrophic or fatal loss) requires significant levels of effort, courage, honesty, transparency, collaboration, respect, knowledge, data, strategy, intelligence, wisdom and humility.  While many who have experienced easy wins often go on and on about how great they are, the true measure of greatness is in how well one comes back after a difficult or staggering loss.

Will the PC Party of Alberta bounce back from the embarrassing losses of this year or is this how we will remember them?

I guess it depends on how well they are able to examine themselves and if they are willing to do whatever it takes to become relevant again.

Do you think they are willing to do whatever it takes to turn their fortunes around?

Do you think they have what it takes to accomplish this?

Do you think they have the humility to see the importance of performing a post-mortem and the importance of executing it well based on their findings?

Does what they think even matter anymore?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

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Addendum – The Inevitable Spin and Closing Thoughts

Many in the PC Party of Alberta (and some columnists) are spinning this loss as a victory for the PC Party because their third place finish was so close to the second place NDP.

Unfortunately, when one takes a riding that has always been dominated by one Party (even as recently as the general election four months prior to the by-election) and that same Party finishes almost 17% points behind the winner four months later, that’s definitely not a win.

That’s an embarrassment, plain and simple.

The truth that the PC Party doesn’t want to discuss is that the Asian voters in the riding almost always vote for the PCs so the Party was guaranteed a certain percentage of the vote – a reality that will change over time as other parties begin to dominate the political landscape in the riding and across the Province.

Such a difference in how one sees such a loss is a primary example of the different lenses that a politician and someone in business use to view the world.

Meanwhile, the Interim Leader of the PC Party noted this on Twitter:

Unfortunately, this positive spin ignores a dishonest campaign but this will be forgotten in the memory of a Party striving for relevance.

But then again, this is what a politician is best at – spinning a loss into a win no matter what the data says to the contrary.

On a side note but related to the concept of “how does one spin something unfortunate”, the revelation a couple of days before the by-election that sitting PC MLA Sandra Jansen would be speaking at a Federal Liberal Party fund raiser demonstrates that the Party has lost its control over optics, message management and internal communication.  While I applaud her right to be bipartisan (we might be better off if more politicians did this), the poor timing and optics gave the PC Party more jabs to ward off in the critical days leading up to the election.  In politics and in business, we must define our own message lest someone else define one on our behalf, possibly to our detriment.

There is much to do within the PC Party of Alberta.

Do they have the will, the resources, the humility, the intelligence and the time to climb out of the death spiral that they are in?

Time will tell although history in Albert politics is not on their side, since every political party up to now has ceased to exist shortly after being removed from power and their initial stab at proving that they have changed hasn’t demonstrated much if any change at all.

Meanwhile …..

This is likely my last musing on the PC Party of Alberta – it’s time to move onto things that are more relevant.

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Related posts:

PC Party of Alberta – Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

Politics and the Mutability of Human Values

PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy?

PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?

PC Party of Alberta–Proving Einstein and Churchill Right?

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PC Party of Alberta – Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. - Pope Benedict XVI

I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one's strengths and weaknesses are. - Ray Dalio

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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It was a quiet evening in the church as the parish priest waited in the confessional in silence.  He sighed, looked at his watch and prepared to leave for the evening when he heard someone enter the confessional.

He drew open the small door between them and waited.

“Bless them, Father, but I honestly have no idea how many years it’s been since their last confession”, said a voice quietly.

“Bless them, my son?”, the priest asked quizzically.

“Well, of course”, replied the confessor, “We have worked for a very long time to convince the people that we are the only solution for their every need and they just don’t get it.  Clearly they have an issue that they need to deal with and I am here to discover how to help them.”

“I see”, replied the priest as he frowned in the darkened confessional, “And what makes you think it is they who have the issue when it potentially may be you?”

“I have no idea what you are referring to”, said the confessor huffily, “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“We?”, asked the priest, “Why don’t we just focus on you, shall we?”

“I don’t see why that is necessary”, replied the confessor, feeling his agitation begin to rise.

“Well”, began the priest, “While I don’t ordinarily do this, I see we are an impasse and so I have no choice but to identify you.  While I won’t name you specifically, my son, I know your voice to be that of a well-known politician in the Province.  Why don’t we begin our conversation again with that understanding, shall we?”

“Hmmmmm”, the confessor frowned, “Very well.  Here is my struggle, Father.  We lost the last election badly and now in the current by-election, people are all over us claiming that we have not changed at all and that we don’t deserve to win this by-election as a result.  Their argument for this has absolutely no merit at all and I am struggling to understand what they need to do to change their outlook on things.”

“Is this in regards to the candidate who has some issues in his background that portray his campaign and your support of his campaign as slightly dishonest?”, the priest asked quietly.

“Sort of”, replied the confessor, “But it’s more than just honesty or dishonesty.  Yes, we are being sort of dishonest about his background and I will admit that we are ignoring calls for transparency around this, but dishonesty for the greater good is a noble principle, is it not?  I mean , when it comes to winning, whether it be in politics or business, isn’t it better to do whatever it takes to win?  A small amount of dishonesty doesn’t hurt anybody, especially when it gets the best person elected for the job.”

“Perhaps”, answered the priest, “but how do you define the difference between a small amount of dishonesty and a lot?  Who defines what is an acceptable amount of dishonesty?  And if we accept a little dishonesty now, can we claim to be disappointed later if other examples of dishonesty are found within the individual or the Party he represents?”

As the priest spoke, the confessor listened carefully to his voice and suddenly a light dawned on him.

“I know you”, said the confessor, ignoring the priest’s observation, “You used to be a well-known politician.”

“Very true, my son”, replied the priest quietly, “But after what I thought was going to be a lifetime of public service, I decided to leave that Life and begin a lifetime of atonement for what I did in my political career and to really serve the people.”

“So you know what I am going through, Father”, said the confessor earnestly, “You should be able to tell me what’s wrong with the voters.”

He shivered in excitement as he realized he was getting closer to the answer he sought.

“Slow down”, replied the priest, “I have been watching the demise of your political party for some time.  I remember some years ago when a member of your party wrote about the struggles within your party and he suggested that there was either a mole in your party who was deliberately tearing the party apart or that your party was the victim of excessive ego or incompetence.  Let me think …… ah yes … if I remember correctly, the piece was called The Trojan Horse of the 21st Century.”

“That’s preposterous”, expostulated the confessor, “There is no mole in our party trying to deliberately undermine us.”

“Well”, replied the priest, “He did suggest that it was either a mole, excessive ego or excessive incompetence.”

“Like I said”, emphasized the confessor, “There are no moles in our Party.  I am sure of it.”

“Well that leaves only two options, doesn’t it?”, the priest asked somewhat sarcastically, “Listen my son, when you come here to seek the forgiveness of our Lord, you must do it with a humble and contrite heart.  Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

“So you are saying there is nothing you can do for me?”, asked the confessor.

“Not at this time, my son”, replied the priest.

“Hmmmmmmph”, grunted the confessor and he stood up to leave, “I expected much more of you than this, Father.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you, my son”, replied the priest, “Tell me.  I am preparing to retire for the evening.  Is anyone else waiting for confession.”

The confessor opened the door and looked at the long line of people waiting, most of whom being his colleagues.

“There’s a lot of them”, he said as he stepped outside, “Goodnight, Father.”

“God bless you”, replied the priest, “Remember what I said.”

As the confessor walked away from the confessional, the next confessor in line gestured with his hands and asked, “Well?  How did it go?”

“Very well”, smiled the confessor, “He said that I was so good that there was nothing he could do for me.”

The confessor in line smiled and gave him a two-thumbs-up as he entered the confessional.

And with that, the confessor walked to the back of the Church, blessed himself and walked out.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

When I watch a group that has been as badly burned as the PC Party of Alberta was in the last election and when I watch that same group show no change in transparency, accountability, leadership, awareness, strategy or execution as they are exhibiting in the current by-election in Calgary-Foothills, I can’t help but wonder if this continued behavior is because someone:

• wants the Party to die (a mole)
• doesn’t believe the Party did anything wrong, either in the past or in the present (excessive incompetence, indifference or ego)
• doesn’t know how to fix the execution and the results of the Party but doesn’t have the humility to ask others for help either (excessive ego).

Unfortunately, unless a cranial defibrillator is applied to members within the Party, any of these will produce the same result, none of which are in alignment with what the PC Party of Alberta desires.

A Final Albeit Important Thought:

Is it fair to throw Calgary-Foothills candidate Blair Houston under the bus for their failings or is he ruining their chances with his failings (or is it a combination of both)?  Either way, by sticking it out when he should have stopped running, he and the Party are inviting people to find more dirt on him in a rabid attempt to skewer him. 

It’s one thing for people to strongly encourage him to stop running.

It’s another thing to ruin him if he doesn’t comply.

In such situations, he runs the risk of being ruined personally and professionally as well as politically if he persists in running anyway.

The question is:

Is he persisting willingly, begrudgingly or blindly?

The answer would be very revealing of both the party and the candidate.

Unfortunately, some answers may hasten the demise of the Party as well as the candidate if they are not careful.

This reminds me of a post I did some time ago, National Security: Saying Everything By Saying Nothing, where I referenced The 9 Ways of Being an Accessory to Another’s Sin as described in the Roman Catholic Daily Missal:

I. By counsel
II. By command
III. By consent
IV. By provocation
V. By praise or flattery
VI. By concealment
VII. By partaking
VIII. By silence
IX. By defense of the ill done

I’d say many people have checked most, if not all, of this list off in this by-election.

What do you think?

This musing is related to earlier blog posts, including but not limited to:

• Politics and the Mutability of Human Values
• PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy?
• PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?
• PC Party of Alberta–Proving Einstein and Churchill Right?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?

The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow. - Jim Hightower

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. - Coco Chanel

The heavy response to my blog from a couple of days ago, PC Party of Alberta – Proving Einstein and Churchill Right? and earlier posts such as To Demand Better of Your Politicians, Demand Better of Yourself, Going Bat Sh*T Crazy with Alberta Premier Jim Prentice and other posts remind me of a funny children’s story I read as a young boy.

The story, Who Will Bell the Cat (and its variants), goes like this:

A group of mice were arguing in a mouse hole one day about a cat that had been terrorizing them.  With every passing day, the cat would sneak up on one of them without warning and would make off with the unsuspecting victim.  The mice were now tired of this and were arguing about what to do about the villain.

One mouse suggested that if they put a bell on the cat’s neck, then he would no longer be able to creep up on them unawares.

Recognizing the brilliance of the solution, the mice spent considerable time congratulating themselves on how they had solved the problem when their celebration was interrupted by a lone voice in the back of the mouse hole.

“The solution may be brilliant”, observed a wise old mouse, “but who will bell the cat?”

Silence filled the mouse hole and eventually the mice went about their business, realizing that there is a big difference between being full of ideas and having the courage to carry them out.

The PC Party of Alberta has been plagued by difficulty for some time, with a significant amount of dissension within the ranks regarding a number of things, including but not limited to very interesting personal interests and habits of former MLAs that have not been revealed to the public, interesting personal interests and habits of current MLAs, significant unhappiness with the current Party President and her lack of publicly visible leadership, significant concern over the potentially unethical, immoral (and possibly illegal) actions of some MLAs in the last election, the performance of the current interim leader, the belief by some that the last election wasn’t really lost (really?) and other things.

Then there are the Party members who discourage dialog by shouting down anyone who dares to suggest that something might be wrong and the grotesquely diabolical who actively discouraged dialog around change before the election (because everything was perfect), came to an amazing epiphany after the election that dialog around change was welcomed and needed (and wrote beautifully moving passages to promote this) and yet who work behind the scenes to make sure that such dialog is still controlled, restricted or prevented.

Whew … take a breath.

Meanwhile, members pound tables in frustration in coffee shops, covertly send emails and text messages back and forth and post vague or thinly disguised messages of concern on social media.

Interestingly, many of these messages (including the private ones) end up on my laptop and phone, with people saying “you should say something about this”, which is curious enough, but it is always followed by “but make sure you don’t quote me”.

The content is so intriguing, titillating and damning and its delivery so covert that I feel like The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Occasionally, I make observations about the PC Party (and other political parties, to be fair) and there is a public gasp of “I can’t believe he said that” and a private whisper of “Thank you for saying that – you have much more courage than I do.”

My suggestion to members of the PC Party of Alberta is this:

If you see ways to make the Party better for the sake of the Party itself, its members and the people of Alberta, such ideas won’t see the light of day if you choose not to take action or if you insist that the ideas only be discussed in dark recesses and alcoves that allow you to whisper your ideas without someone discovering your identity.

It takes courage to make change.

Lack of courage with plenty of ideas merely produces dissent, cynicism, frustration and wasted energy.

And it doesn’t get you re-elected.

After all, drinking the Kool-Aid is like drinking vehicle coolant – both have the potential to produce blindness.

People kept quiet in the past, often selling their own souls, their ethics and their morals, so that they wouldn’t be thrown out of power.

But the difficulty now is that doing the same thing keeps one from improving, both from within the Party to root the rot out and to present a stronger Party that is more in tune with the people of Alberta in the 21st century.

Until this happens, the ethical, moral, ideological and yes, legal foundation will never be there to form another government …. ever.

The problems have been identified.

The “villains” have been outed.

Many great ideas and brilliant people exist (especially younger people) to make a significant, positive difference to the Party and to the Province of Alberta.

However, brilliant ideas and an endless supply of passion require courage in action to bring these ideas to fruition.

So … the only question remaining is …..

….. who wants to bell the cat?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

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Addendum – Members Weigh In …. Anonymously

A number of members have emailed or texted me to thank me for posting this musing.  Ironically, they prefer to remain anonymous, thus demonstrating the depth, breadth and scale of the problem that exists within the Party.

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Addendum 2 – The Importance of Data – August 24, 2015

After the PC debate in Calgary-Foothills tonight, this item was posted by a PC Party supporter (click on image for larger version):

The data used by Ms. Walker to confirm that Mr. Houston is the best candidate is either humorous or pathetic, depending on how you look at it.  With powerful insight like this, how can the Party go wrong?

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Addendum 3 – Questioning the Strategy – August 28, 2015

Watching the lackluster performance of Mr. Houston in several debates and recognizing that he is a perpetual candidate who has ran for various seats over the years without winning any of them, I wonder why the PC Party chose him over a “ringer”, especially if the riding is as important to the Party as they claim.

Is this a strategic failure on the part of someone within the PC Party or did they believe or fear they were going to lose despite their desire for a win, thus not wanting to sacrifice a more important player?

Only a select few know.

When Social Media Reveals Our Character … Or Our Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is not a way of getting back to the moral high ground. Pretending you're moral, saying your moral is not the same as acting morally. - Alan Dershowitz

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. - William Hazlitt

Back in December of 2013, a then member of the public communication team (which in the modern era means social media team) for then Premier of Alberta Alison Redford had an interesting response to a simple question from a member of the public.

The “public communications expert” tweeted this to the citizen:

"You are a truly disgusting human being #ableg"

As a member of the same political party to which this “expert” belonged, I thought this and other tweets attributed to the team he was a member of were terribly impolite and unprofessional to citizens merely asking for accountability and so I demanded from the Premier that we choose our words more carefully when addressing the public at large.

Curiously enough, I didn’t give this individual much thought after that until last week when I was making some comments (politely as I usually do) in a political forum and the same individual surfaced again with these observations directed at me:

So yes, I can speak about good government. I was given a first hand lesson by voters. One you apparently have opted not to learn. Care to address the issue or do you just want to attack the PC's?

There was the same attitude again, confrontational and insulting, to someone merely asking questions.  When I challenged the author of the statements as to why he continued to be so insulting to people on social media, he wrapped up a reply with these words.

Do you know that after the "terrible human being" tweet I cried for hours in my office and offered my resignation three times for the disgrace I caused? For the cruelty I showed towards Michael. That it was on my suggestion that I should apologize personally because I felt it was the right thing to do?

Followed later by ….

None of this belongs on Facebook Harry, I would welcome the chance to actually sit down and have a friendly conversation with you.

And with those words, I thought “Fair enough – the guy indicated he was remorseful for that foul event in the past and had sought to make amends for his error.”

I accepted his Facebook request with an eye toward fruitful dialog, after which he then chastised me again in private.

So much for remorse.  It reminded me of this Despair.com poster of people who cannot rationally discuss pretty much anything.

Arrogance: The best leaders inspire by example.  When that's not an option, brute intimidation works pretty well too.

I don’t dwell on such stuff and so I moved on until it was revealed this week that an executive of the PC Party made an inappropriate jab at the weight of the new Health Minister of Alberta as noted in McIver to investigate after PC executive mocks weight of Alberta Health minister (the executive has since apologized when he noted on Twitter – “I recognize I made a dumb comment. I apologize to Sarah Hoffman and all who read it for my insensitive remark. Once again, I'm sorry”).

Now I could make an observation that good people should never think such things, let alone say them, but given that none of us are perfect, I let the original mistake go since we are supposed to accept apologies and move on.

However, I was surprised by the public reappearance of the afore mentioned former member of the Premier’s communication staff who made this statement on social media in response to the PC executive’s faux pas (click on the image for a larger copy – *warning* harsh language).

While much can be suggested or inferred from such a response including the need for a more positive view of himself, it is also clear that while this individual demands forgiveness for his mistakes, he is quick to judge the mistakes of others.  It is also interesting to note that when paid by the PC Party, he attacked others ruthlessly but once released from the employ of the Party, he now takes offense at others who do the same for the same Party.

Even his Twitter bio reveals some hypocrisy:

He falls into the classic trap of social media – the notion of feeling empowered to say something that:

1. We wouldn’t have the courage to say to someone’s face
2. We wouldn’t want said to us if we made a mistake
3. May not be a reflection of who we really are (good or bad)
4. Oftentimes is made before we have taken a moment to rationally think the statement through instead of letting anger carry the day.

It reminds me of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant from Matthew 18:21-34:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.  Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.  Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’  The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’, he demanded.

His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.  Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”

The Bottom Line

The PC Executive’s disparaging remarks against the Health Minister were not professional, ethical or fair (and not very intelligent, to be honest).

However, when we see something that needs to be fixed, how we call out the person who made the error and how we choose to address the issue reveals much about our character – possibly more than the character that we choose to criticize in others.

Demanding a higher standard is not enough.

We must live it.

Do you live to a higher standard or merely demand it of others?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum:

I didn’t share his Twitter or Facebook profiles because while I believe he serves as an example of what not to do in social media, I didn’t want to make this post about him personally.

When I pointed out to the individual in question about his inconsistency between how he expects forgiveness for himself but gives none to others, he blocked me on social media.  It is unfortunate when “blocking” is used as a shield to hide one’s ignorance, hypocrisy or lack of authenticity instead of recognizing that they had an opportunity to make things right as they expected it to be made right for them in the past.

It’s also a shame when people don’t realize that “blocking” doesn’t really block anything nor does it prevent their rants from becoming public.

But sometimes when we allow anger to be our guide, lucid, rational, respectful, solution-focused thinking takes a backseat to pretty much anything and oftentimes reveals our true character.

For those who are vehemently defending his current actions, perhaps they should review his past, lest they be corralled into something else moving forward. 

We are, after all,  the company that we keep … or “like” …. or “retweet”.

The Poison Pill in the Wildrose Defection

I'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor. - Aldrich Ames

“You lose your voice for your constituents and you lose your voice to advocate,” – Danielle Smith – November 26, 2014 (when asked about the defection of Kerry Towle to the PC Party)

“We’re here to just make sure that Albertans are taken care of and that when the government makes mistakes they’re called out on them.  They make an awful lot of mistakes so it keeps us pretty busy.” – Danielle Smith – November 26, 2014 (when asked about the defection of Kerry Towle to the PC Party)

As news breaks of the potential defection of major players from the Wildrose Party to the PC Party, including Opposition Leader Danielle Smith, Rob Anderson, Jeff Wilson, Gary Bikman, Jason Hale and Blake Pedersen (maybe more to be announced), I can’t help but think of the poison pill this represents to the PC Party.

The fact that leaders of a political party could abandon their party when “the times get tough” is a major reflection upon their character and their dedication to their former organization and the people within that organization.

The fact that one of the defectors, Rob Anderson, has done this more than once (having defected from the PC Party to the Wildrose and now is attempting to return to the PC Party) is a damning conviction in regards to his character and his opportunistic nature.  In doing so, he has slammed both parties and therefore is worthy of neither.

When one considers the venomous attacks against the PC Party by this merry band of roving politicians, one has to wonder what exorcism, voodoo or other transformational process was imparted upon them that converted their hate into love.

Do they suddenly believe (or want us to believe) that the party they hated is suddenly worth embracing in order to meet their constituent's needs or should we call it for what it probably is – a selfish or self-serving gesture that suggests that they believe that they cannot beat Jim Prentice in the next election and so it is better to join the winning side early rather than go down to defeat.

Why would the PC Party accept them?

It would make sense if the PC Party were desperate to increase its control of the Legislature but the Legislature is already well in-hand, so the extra votes aren’t needed.

Do the defectors bring any skills to the PC Party that the Party does not currently have?  If the defectors’ public actions are to be used as the litmus test, the answer would be no.

However, absorbing them into a Party that has its future well in-hand opens the door to internal rifts as Wildrose-leaning insiders and original PC Party members begin to clash on policy, platform, candidate nomination / selection, etc.

The rumor that the defectors will be provided with uncontested nominations for their ridings in the upcoming election will also alienate long-time PC supporters and deepen this rift.

To add insult to injury, what happens if some of the defectors are offered plum ministerial portfolios while long-time members of the PC Party who stood by the Party when times were difficult are passed over?

And let us not forget that the existence of a strong opposition (as far as it is) ensures transparency and accountability in government.  The Wildrose Party has created more insight into the workings of the Alberta PC Party than has been seen in the Province for many years.  The fact that receiving the defectors would even be considered by the PC Party is a warning that there would be no solid opposition remaining to question the action, something that should concern the citizens of Alberta.

The Wildrose Party has also contributed to the overthrowing of two Alberta Premiers so their track record is actually not too shabby.

The Bottom Line

Once someone demonstrates that they can’t be trusted with another party, why would you suddenly believe they are trustworthy in your own camp, unless you are so desperate for their support that you can look blindly past the obvious as politicians often do in order to accomplish their objectives.

And so with no obvious upside and plenty of opportunity for downside, the PC Party should reject the Wildrose defectors as being of insufficient character and values for the Party and being a potential poison pill in the future.

If they are rejected and return to take over the helm of the Wildrose Party, it would be justice for that Party to reject them also for once a self-serving traitor’s motives have been exposed, can you ever really trust them in the future?

After all, this is what this event is all about – an evaluation of character, values and trust of both the PC and Wildrose Parties and the question of whether these attributes can be found in the people who serve the Province.

Let us not forget that in the end, the constituents must come first.

Do the elected officials in question remember this?

If the Wildrose Party does take them back (should they be rejected by the PCs), maybe the Wildrose Party should be renamed something more appropriate … maybe something like the Benedict Arnold Party.

Because that name appears to be a more accurate reflection of the character and values of many (not all) of the players leading it.

I think that the people within the Wildrose and PC Parties and the people of Alberta deserve better.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS When I see actions such as those taken by the defectors, I think of posters like this:

or this:

Addendum – Maybe Not What It Seems - December 17, 2014

Watching some PC MLAs say that they can “look beyond the past” implies that said MLAs don’t care about the company that they keep as long as the company that they keep appears to serve their own needs.

I wonder if the backlash against the defectors would be so great that they would go down to defeat in the next election anyway (regardless of the party they serve) and if that were to happen, is acceptance of the defectors just a waste of time and energy or is it part of a masterful plan to skewer the Wildrose Party, using the self-serving nature of the defectors against themselves?

Or …. is this the greatest political takeover in Alberta history, with in fact the Wildrose policies becoming the PC Party policies, bringing true conservatism back to the PC Party and making the Wildrose experiment one of the more brilliant ones in Canadian political history.  This scenario would bode well for the defectors with potential plum ministerial positions being offered to them but would alienate the left-leaning members of the PC Party, thus encouraging them to move on if they don’t like what they see. 

Time will tell.

Final Addendum – The Deal is Done – December 18, 2014

As the dust settles at the time I write this, 9 members of the Wildrose Party have joined the PC Party, simultaneously gutting the Official Opposition, practically wiping out the Party that stood in opposition and providing guaranteed jobs to the 9 self-serving individuals who put themselves above their Party, their colleagues, their friends and the people they serve.  The backlash from both PC and Wildrose Party members has been strong.  However, to the many who donated significant time, energy and money to the Wildrose Party, the feeling of betrayal appears to be especially strong as Ms. Smith and company stabbed them in the back without remorse.

It doesn’t matter to the floor crossers.  They are, after all, politicians.  Should we have dared to expect anything better from the people who dared to insist they were different than the team they have just joined?

Shame on them or shame on us?

While the gushing, positive language in Ms. Smith’s press presentation was all around “like minds coming together”, the words sounded empty and hypocritical.  She carefully evaded providing specific answers to any questions posed by the press and successfully said a lot about nothing (or nothing about a lot, depending on your interpretation).  She is a politician first.

In business and in Life, I believe that a large part of how people perceive me is based on the company I keep.  I personally wouldn’t take anyone on any team of mine whose selfish needs destroy others in the process.  Not only would that person’s character reflect poorly on my own character, but the reality is that I would never know when the person would do the same to me.  Some of these floor crossers have demonstrated such repeat behavior already.

The world of politics is very different.  While people can campaign on things like character and values, such attributes take second place to accomplishing the needs of the politicians, needs that hopefully intersect somewhere with the needs of the people. The Premier didn’t need to accept the floor crossers, having the legislative weight to accomplish his intentions but he did so anyway, accepting people of lesser character into his team.

If it is a reflection on the Premier and the PC Party, at this point it doesn’t matter.  He has a legislative juggernaut that doesn’t need to pay attention to the people and is no longer faced with the challenge of answering to an opposition. 

These events also send a message to the members of the PC Party who stuck it out when times got difficult.  The message is two-fold:

1. Your ongoing support is appreciated but may not be rewarded as the floor crossers secure plum positions in lieu of those who worked hard for the Party.
2. Character and values are optional, except when being promoted to the electorate at election time as essential attributes that differentiate the Party from others.

While people insist that this is not a merger of two parties, I have read confidential documents from unhappy participants in this event that suggest that the PC Party is about to move much further to the right.

Where does that leave Red Tories, both candidates and the people who support them?

Time and the level of electorate amnesia that is common with such events will prove to be very revealing.

And finally, while I was never a fan of the Wildrose Party, I did admire their tenacity in being a strong opposition despite their small size.  Their ferocity and perseverance accomplished a lot within the Legislature that benefitted the people of Alberta.  Are the days of someone holding the Government accountable and responsible gone for the people?

Time will tell.

The Wildrose Party – Just the Facts, Ma’am

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - Mark Twain

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. - John Adams

I was intrigued to see this little invite issued by the Wildrose Party pass through my inbox yesterday.

I found it intriguing given that since it appears to be a Wildrose Party fundraiser for the constituency of Calgary SE, it would suggest that one of the “hogs to be booted from the trough” would be Calgary SE MLA Rick Fraser, Associate Minister - Public Safety and Associate Minister - Recovery and Reconstruction of High River.

While it is the role of political parties to whip up controversy or “live on the edge”, we as citizens should insist that they stick to the facts and the data.

Unfortunately, we have a basic law of democracy that pervades our political culture:

Governments in power rely on facts, data and results while opposition parties rely on emotion and never the twain shall meet.

Also unfortunately, emotions sway people much more easily and effectively than facts.

If one examines Associate Minister Fraser’s record, whether it be in regards to new schools being built in Calgary SE, his tireless efforts in High River (very few people would have wanted this difficult job) and his contributions in other areas, I would posit that his commitment to results and to the people he serves are as good as or better than any politician we will find.

If you examine his expense disclosure reports, they are extremely modest at best, especially given the portfolios he holds as Associate Minister.

And so I would suggest that if other parties are going to take on any incumbent, especially one with a strong track record and a commitment to service, that they do so with specific, measurable counters to the actions, intentions and results of the incumbent and not imply that “dirt” is present when there likely isn’t any for the individual in question.

I also understand that Associate Minister Fraser was allegedly confronted by senior Wildrose Party officials in regards to allegations of corruption and when he reacted strongly about the perceived personal attack, the Wildrose officials backed off and said “We’re not talking about you.  We are referring to members of the PC Party”.

I don’t know about you, but when someone slags a private citizen as being potentially corrupt, it sounds like the basis for a slander or liable suit to me.

And while we’re on the subject of revisionism or accusations

I posted on a Wildrose Party official’s Facebook page, asking if the “hogs from the trough” campaign was legitimate and while he admitted that it was, he also altered part of the content of my message.  I questioned why he did it and he responded that he found it interesting that it was possible and that it was good to know such things.

While I’m not sure that the ability to do this is useful (or should even be allowed) and while his alteration was in gest, it caused me to think about social media and it’s powerful influence in the political sphere.  With this in mind and with the intention of proving a point, I in turn changed a Facebook interaction I had with him (with names blanked out for privacy) from this:

to this:

I’ve transformed him from an innocent commenter on a benign post into a traitorous tool against his own party (which I know he is not but subsequent posters to this post will sure be surprised to see his sudden political reversal).

The Bottom Line

We all know that emotion is a more useful and valuable tool than any amount of facts and data.  The sad reality is that most people are so busy making their way from one day to the next that they don’t have time to listen to, understand or comprehend the overwhelming amount of data thrown at them daily (although curiously enough, many of these same people can cite an amazing amount of info regarding the next iPhone).  I mused about the power of emotion in regards to manipulating people in my post Anger: Setting Yourself Up For Manipulation.

However, if we don’t take the time to actually pay attention to the information being sent our way (or to the words that people are putting into our mouths as in my fun little Facebook experiment), then anything is possible.

And the fact that anything is possible does not imply or guarantee that the result is necessarily a positive one.

Nor does it come with a money back guarantee when we cry foul that we didn’t pay attention the first time nor did we read the fine print.

Remember this when someone comes to your door with emotion-laden rhetoric (regardless of the party affiliation) but with no data:

Propaganda: What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies right to our faces.

As the great philosopher Elmer Fudd once said:

Be ve-w-w-wy, ve-w-w-wy careful.

Especially when it comes to information, its sources, the medium used to deliver it and the intention behind it.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

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PS My unwitting accomplice in my Facebook example is a good family man, a strong volunteer in his community and believes strongly in his political ideals.  He is what I believe to be a strong contributor to society.  My example was meant to demonstrate how social media can easily twist a good person into something else.  Be cautious about how you embrace social media. 

It is important to define how you use social media – don’t allow it to use or define you.

It is also important to avoid generalizations, especially when describing individuals.  Efforts to tar everyone with a single brush often do more damage to the person wielding the brush than it does the intended subject.

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