New Politics – New You?

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times is discussing the idea of “new politics”, in the light of the very new (well, very hasn’t-happened-for-a-while) political situation in the UK – coalition government.  How can we have new politics when politicians are still just people and are still responding to the same incentives?

But the most useful thing that studying evolutionary psychology has taught me is humility about how much politics can really change us. So much of human behaviour is innate, hard-wired, the result of adaptations made thousands of years ago. It is, in a twisted sort of a way, almost amusing to watch us try to change human nature with a government scheme or the banning of fatty food adverts during Jackanory.

The trick is not to will a change in behaviour, but to change the incentives so as to make it inevitable.  For example, in a flush of post-election enthusiasm the coalition are committing to publishing far more details of government expenditure.  This should remove the incentive for politicians to dissemble and be evasive about how our money is spent – because the information will already be out there.  Therefore there will be more incentive to be frank and admit when their are problems, and address how the problems will be solved.  If information is not in the public domain, with the best will in the world politicians will still find it easier to dissemble and evade.  Change the incentives, change the behaviour.

As with politics, so with you and me.  Do you wish to change your behaviour, how you approach life?  I do.  Have you tried to do this just by willing your self to do do?  I have.  Has it worked?  It hasn’t worked for me.

I’ve changed my incentives.  I’ve given up a day of earning a week and this has forced me to start being productive because otherwise I have reduced my income for nothing.  So I’m writing blogs, writing articles, looking for the next opportunity because if I don’t do this I am losing out for no gain.  I could do these things in my spare time, in the evening and at weekends.  But I have tried this, and for me this does not work.  If you keep trying and it doesn’t work – don’t try the same thing again.  Same situation, same result.  Change your incentives.

Learning Curve

In this post I described how I had reduced my hours to a 4-day week, to allow me to have a day a week in which to pursue various projects, paid or otherwise.  I haven’t been quite as productive as I would have hoped, but it is still early days.  My major accomplishment so far has been a sudden dollop of self-knowledge.

I consider myself a reliable person.  At university, I always got work in on time and to an appropriate standard (not always great, but good enough).  My salaried work is in project-based consultancy – specific deliverables by a specific deadline.  Sure, things get held up sometimes, but that is just the way it goes.

I thought that this would stand me in good stead for working independently.  So far it hasn’t worked out quite as well as I would have hoped but I have worked out why.

I am reliable when other people rely on me.  If I haven’t made a promise to someone else, it may well not get done.

This isn’t as bad as it sounds for someone with aspirations to work independently.  Firstly, if I have clients then they are relying on me so that is not a problem.  It gets tricky around “development” projects, when I am doing something for its own sake or with an indeterminate timescale or uncertain pay-off.  Like this blog!  Now that I have realised this about myself, how do I respond to this new information?  I need a strategy that goes with the grain of my character.  Thinking to myself “Just get on with it” doesn’t work.  I need to make rash promises and commitments to as many people as possible, so that I feel that I would be letting them down (or at least making myself look stupid) if I didn’t deliver.

To this end I promise you, dear reader, to post three times a week here.  If I don’t, tell me how disappointed you are…