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Rules, Tools & Best Practices

Submitted by Max Borders on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 11:57
in

I got a lot of feedback on this post. Seems like people are eager to Reboot. Rebuild. Rebrand. But one thing folks told me they’d like elaboration on is the following: “Rules, tools and best practices give rise to all the good stuff that comes from the bottom up.” So let’s elaborate.

Rules

  1. Keep the Vision & Mission on the horizon at all times. Such includes formulating strategy and tactics. Formulate subsidiary Missions (sub-Missions) at each project, level of organization or “node” in the network. (Where the Vision, to repeat, is liberty/limited government and the Mission is getting people to think and vote like us.
  2. Empower people to be evangelists for your Vision. Empower people to act.
  3. Distribute memes, messages, inspiration and best practices throughout your network.
  4. Align incentives with the Vision & Mission.
  5. Put the Movement before personal ambition. Identify and reward high performers.
  6. Enable innovation. Create feedback mechanisms for innovation. Allow the best innovations to rise to the top. Drive “creative destruction.”
  7. Prioritize based on limited resources. (Need I write this?)
  8. View everyone as a customer.
  9. Leverage your network.
  10. Offer tools for 1-9.

 

Tools

It’s very simple: whether the tool is a technological, organizational or a human resource, answer this question: What helps you implement the rules? Investment in tools will have opportunity costs. If using X social media tool yields better results than Y for a similar outcome, use X. If you don’t understand the tool, find someone who does. It’s important to parse whether the chosen tool is merely a fashion or effective means of executing the Mission. 

Best Practices

Sadly, most people thinking positive social change happens through gaining political power. As a libertarian, I find this unfortunate. But since this is the reality we’re given, we must play the game. So the Freedom Movement must offer our team as a product people want to invest in. We must offer them not just negatives like “anybody but X,” but something positive. That’s the product. But how do you do that? Look left. What are they doing well? What are the best practices? You may have to take a shower after you stare into the beast, but find out what the left does well and embrace/extend it. (Just don’t forget the context you’re working in, i.e. tailor it to your audience.)

When it comes to rebuilding, we need to treat our movement like a business. The left does. They are peddling something—which is to say they are offering something of value in exchange for something else of value. (Nevermind the bollocks about selfless activism. People got high on Obama like some Christians get high on Jesus. The money rolled in and so did the votes.) Well, are we giving our customers what they want? Are we creating new customers? And how do we deliver the best product, both within our Movement and without? 

(Cross posted here.)

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Comments

Have you been to Keesler AFB recently?

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 15:09.

The newest motto being pushed is, "Reload, Rebuild, Renew". Sounds pretty similar. The Vision and Mission comments are intelligent too. What do you think would be a good Mission statement for the Republican Party? What about TheNextRight?

I think a mission and vision statement would be a great starting point.

 

Incentives and responsibilites need to be a focus

Submitted by Jeffrey Sykes on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 15:47.

@Max:"Align incentives with the Vision & Mission. "

Max: I think your number 4 above is very important for local parties. There seems to be a lack of responsibilty for tracking tasks in my local party operations. I am trying to get them to assign responsibility to specific people (fundraising, message, political ops) and have measurable performance indicators.

So far, very little traction. I think if my local party had a mission statement, we could then tie all efforts into that and track performance.

Adopting a business model at the local level is a good first step for small, rural county parties.

Glad to find you busy here.

Jeff

A lack of measurables

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 16:17.

Is one of my biggest problems with the Iraq War. I ask for metrics and get, "When they can defend themself" but no one can seemingly define that.

Then you haven't been paying attention

Submitted by Keith_Indy on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 16:24.

For instance:

This one has been fairly even handed all these years.

http://www.brookings.edu/saban/iraq-index.aspx

There's reports such as this:

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/109048.htm

Today Anbar Becomes The 11th Out Of 18 Provinces To Return To Provincial Iraqi Control.

And then you have to DOD report to congress, which it's done since 2006 or so.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/d20080930iraq.pdf

Of course, you wouldn't get this from the mainstream media.  But I know Q&O and several other prominent blogs carried the releases of the DOD and Brookings reports.

Oh, and what of those benchmarks that the Democratic Congress was so hot and heavy to measure by?  Have you heard anything about them since the first reports?  Seems they lost interest once there was progress.

Not just a reboot. New software.

Submitted by lgm on Thu, 01/08/2009 - 22:49.

Your computer hangs (becomes unresponsive).  You don't know what went wrong, so you turn it off and reboot.  The same softward as before starts running with the same annoying habit of freezing.  That's not a fix.

 "the Vision is liberty/limited government" is not enough.  You need positions on global warming, defense, education, etc. It will not help to reboot (replace the staff and the posters) without figuring out what's wrong with your message. 

Americans by large margins want government to help with health care more than it does not.  You need a proposal, consistent with "limited government" that answers that.  McCain's platform: "leave our great health care system alone." was a flop. 

Thatcher wooped the Torries for a decade.  The got re-elected not by rebooting with old fashion "working man unionism socialism", but with modern Blairism.  (OK, he flew too close to Bush and fell into the sea.  But that's another story.)

If Republicans cling to their old message like guns and religion, they will never make a comeback. 

Not to mention

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 08:19.

They need to explain the reason why liberty is good in some places (economic structures) and why it should be limited in others (FISA, lack of habeas corpus for suspected terrorists).

because being dead denies citizens liberty?

Submitted by Ironman on Sat, 01/10/2009 - 09:25.

Please re-read Justice Jackson's opinion from the 1950's on this concept.

Oh give me a break

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 06:06.

In that case, have you seen how many deaths there are due to car accidents in this country alone?

Are you running about proclaiming that we need to outlaw cars? If not, then use a line of reasoning that is higher than a 2nd graders.

conservative views on health care

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 13:00.

I understand what you are saying, but here's the problem.  You write:

Americans by large margins want government to help with health care more than it does not.  You need a proposal, consistent with "limited government" that answers that.

We already do.  We have:

  • medical savings accounts
  • individual deductibility for health insurance premiums
  • reduction and/or elimination of wasteful state-level insurance mandates
  • permit competition for health insurance between plans in different states

The Cato Institute in particular has done a lot of work on this topic.  Check out books like Healthy Competition and Crisis of Abundance.  Also see this web site from Cato that has lots of policy papers and links.

But if we take your statement at face value that Americans "want government to help with health care", then these ideas are tough sells, especially compared to the liberal vision of "free" health care.  After all enabling you to creating medical savings accounts isn't exactly equivalent to the interventionist type of help that Democrats promise.  So we first have to persuade the public that asking for government dependency is a bad idea in the first place, and then we have to present to the public our alternatives.  It's a two-step process.

And our healthcare is broken.

Submitted by In between on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 13:31.

And our healthcare is broken. I don't know what the answer is, but we know we have major problems in healthcare.

What do you do with those without healtchare, and what do you do about rising costs?

I recently had a colonoscopy and I know my insurance was padded by the hospital. Why? Because half the people come have no health insurance. The only way out for hospitals is to pad those that have healthcare. So that means my employer has to pay higher premiums because the hospital pads the costs on my insurance. So employers are paying for those that have no insurance and never worked for them. The system is totally broken. 

The Hippocratic Oath

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 15:34.

Pretty much means hospitals will end up paying for helping those who don't have insurance. Maybe we just need doctors who don't follow the Hippocratic Oath? lol

Well, it means as what I have

Submitted by In between on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 15:53.

Well, it means as what I have said before. Employers and businesses will pay the price, with the insurance on their employees. The hospitals pad the bills. Oh well. Hospitals are not paying for it. Businesses will. 

and where there are not enough businesses

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 16:36.

hospitals close.

Check out those books

Submitted by chemjeff on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 22:38.

In Between, check out those books I cited above.  They aren't technical, they are easy reads.  I think they make a compelling case that what's needed is not more government intervention, but less.  After all:

We don't have state-run grocery stores, yet the vast majority of people are able to find enough food to eat.  In fact obesity is a much bigger problem than malnutrition in this country.

We don't have a nationalized housing market yet the vast majority of people are able to find shelter.

And these are every bit as necessities as health care.  Of course sadly there are underfed and homeless people, but we all recognize that a proposed "solution" to homelessness that involved nationalizing the entire housing industry would be way overkill.

I hear ya. Doesn't excuse the

Submitted by In between on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 23:36.

I hear ya. Doesn't excuse the fact this country went backwards for 8 years. 

none of those seem to likely prevent

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 16:35.

40 cents on a dollar being spent on denying me care.

America does not want public intervention -- they simply want a system that works. Now, ifyou can effectively explain to me how we can rollback twenty years and get our 1992 health care system back --WHICH NONE OF YOUR PROPOSALS WOULD. Then I'm willing to listen.

Global Warmism

Submitted by Cahnman on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 12:28.

lgm wrote:

You need positions on global warming

Ok, how about that it's a fraudlent hoax designed to destroy global capitalism.

 

not a winning position

Submitted by lgm on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 22:20.

This was thoroughly focus group tested in that great focus group called the Presidential election.  It was rejected.  What makes you think it will work better in the next cycle when the evidence for global warming is even stronger?

Not only Americans by and large accept global warming as a fact and a danger, they accept the broader notion that they should trust what scientists say about what their consensus is in such issues.  If the National Academy of Sciences says it's real, and all the professional societies and all heads of scientific groups specializing in the subject, the public is ready to believe.  They will not trust politicians putting their personal feelings above scientific consensus. 

 

Unfortunate

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 06:26.

... that the properties of a gas should become a political issue. 

Except that...

Submitted by Cahnman on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 22:38.

...the whole thng is total BS.

h/t Jonah Goldberg

Anything with Goldberg on it

Submitted by Progressive Tra... on Sun, 01/11/2009 - 22:41.

... is of questionable authenticity.  That's a neocon through and through.

Read Neocon as "without morals" and maybe you'll get it. 

Vote moving issues

Submitted by Cahnman on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 23:41.

As per Grover's book, the only people who vote on this issue are kook environmentalists.  They won't vote for us anyway.

As for the greater masses, ask them about this topic next week.

and hunters

Submitted by RisingTide on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 15:40.

70% of whom have seen changes in their local ecosystem.

Hunters care a lot more than the average shmoo about where the ducks nest.

Great list with a suggested reading assignment

Submitted by kathteach on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 13:34.

 

Turn the Left’s apparent strengths (brand, power, media adoration, momentum) into weaknesses, a la Sun Tzu.   OK – I remember reading Sun Tzu in the 90’s as a big business school text – and, as an operative metaphor, good advice - weakness into strength or visa versa (LOL – I may have to read it again or is it really as circular as all that?). It works but is too broad. It is very YESTERDAY. I recommend that folks ALSO READ (and write in the margins – there will be a test - SAUL ALINSKY so we can fight fire with fire. Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is no small thing – it really does espouse the explicit strategy of the Obama radicals. BTW it is a well documented, intentional strategy of the ‘academies’ far and wide – including the London School of Economics/Harvard/egghead crowd that now sits in power in greater numbers than you would believe (Soros and Orzag – both grads – Geitner too – unbelievable alumni list – even the Senator Burris (D-IL) challenger RINO Senator Kirk from Illinois – you remember, one of the 8 cap and tra8ders- is a grad – no surprise ).  They have broken it all down – a long time ago – and so far it’s been working out quite well for them. We need to get to school on this strategy to plan effectively. Here is Alinsky in a nutshell – Make things SO bad and dysfunctional through the existing system(s) that you get wide support for any kind of reform to simply ease the pain and stop the bleeding.  Boils down to an emergency room triage process – and even juries are instructed to take into account the mayhem of life and death procedures patched together in emergency room chaos and time constraints – (get the paddles!) for the mess they purposely (Axelrod – the PR King of Astroturffing) created. I love your entire list and plan on getting some people I know away from their computers and onto the pavement. As an academic, I will tell you I think #20 is one of your strongest suggestions to bring in the coveted 18-36 crowd – this is how they best acquire opinion and discern arguments – trust me.