Delegate or representative?
To be a success in 2023 you will be a representative or a delegate [see photo]. Delegates use his/her voice to boost collective/group/ideology agendas [collective wants]. Representatives use his/her voice to boost individual/personal/unique agendas [individual needs].
As a delegate you care more about the process than the outcome. As a delegate you know that the means [process] is much more important than the outcome [ends]. This is why those who act as delegates will often "fail upwards"; that is they can fail to produce desirable ends yet still be promoted because they are "rusted" onto the process/means. Because delegates care more about the process than the outcome they can be "trusted". In turn they are held in high esteem because they are predictable. So promotions that often look like acts of pure nepotism are not that at all because this is not about the "person" but the process.
As a representative you care much more about the ends [outcomes] than the means [processes]. If you focus steadfastly on the ends [outcome] then you are prone to become somewhat "careless" about the means [processes]. Indeed as a representative you have an infinite number of ways and means you can use to achieve a desirable outcome. However the complexities of this way of resolving issues can lead you to conclude that too often a desirable outcome is not a feasible one. This leads the representative to become much more imaginative/inventive/innovative when exploring the means to his/her ends.
Let explain the key differences between living as a representative and as a delegate. Take the complex issue of Climate Change. Both the representative and the delegate can agree that less carbon should be pumped into the atmosphere over the next 10 years. Given that agreement we should expect a "cooperative approach" towards solving this problem by the representatives and the delegates. But that is not the case. The delegates have settled on their preferred means [processes] to achieve lower carbon emissions. They will use the government sector to impose carbon taxes, to regulate transport pollution levels, to build wind turbines, and to mandate that renewables be our future energy engine. Meanwhile the representative aim to reach a specific goal on carbon outputs which can be expressed in quantitative terms. They might seek to regulate transport pollution, to impose carbon taxes, and to embrace renewables; but they will also consider nuclear, hydrogen, water turbines, etc. Representatives might unsure about the key processes they need to tame Climate Change; but, they will be sure about their most feasible and desirable outcomes.
Richard.
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