Do you have a job, or do you hold an office? Apparently there’s a difference. And do you twitter in your office?
There is a debate going on about how our MP’s use the long recess from parliament. It seems that some have second jobs, others take a holiday, and some enthusiasts use it to stay in touch with their constituency.
Whilst listening to a radio show with 2 MP’s yesterday (sorry, didn’t get the channel) the interviewer asked them, ‘you work hard at your job, so surely you deserve to take a good break?’ The reply astounded me as it had so much more magnitude than the subject of the interview. The reply came back, ‘my dear chap, being an MP isn’t a job, it’s an office’.
Sadly the interviewer didn’t pick up on this – I wish I had been in his chair because if I had, the interview would have continued with the following questions:
- So, what’s the difference between a job and an office?
- If a job is something you do to contribute to society and earn a living is an office something you have, but don’t do?
- So as an office holder, what do you actually do?
I was also intrigued to see video on the TV of MP’s in the House using twitter on their handheld devices when they should have been paying attention to the speaker – ingenious! Now you can be busy whilst you’re ignoring the speaker.
If we are going to radically change our political system, then we could start by collapsing the ancient anchors in the fine building in parliament square which are keeping our politicians associated with childish and rude behaviour. An anchor is a stimulus which elicits a certain response, which very quickly becomes a habit. Every single aspect of this building is anchoring its inhabitants to ancient rituals.
Do politicians know about anchors? Probably not. They’re too busy reacting to them to realise what they are. Many politicians do sterling work for their communities and the country, but I wonder if they could embrace modern communication and decision-making methods whether much more could be done, more quickly, with less stress and fuss, and more cooperation.
I saw an article today about companies which use play at work to encourage and stimulate innovation. This would be very useful for our politicians, and I for one would like to see it happen. Read the article.
David Molden, FCIPD
Quadrant 1 International
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