Bipartisan? Try Collaboration. Seriously. (Please!)

So I promised to say more about Congress actually having to work together. At the time I wrote that Sunday evening I was hopeful that Monday would see passage of a bill that would help our country recover economically. And then Monday came. The bill was voted down and the stock market reported its largest one day loss in value.

Last week, a tagline in The Trail column of The Washington Post aptly read: "Obama urges calm | McCain blames Dems."

In all this economic bailout rescue mess, the word "bipartisan" has been ballyhooed as the only way to resolve this crisis. Curiously, there was bipartisan agreement between the most liberal and most conservative wings of the house as they voted down the bailout bill earlier this week. There was also bipartisan agreement between the moderates on both sides in voting for the bill - only not enough of them.

I would like to request a change of language. I do not like the word bipartisan. It's a false word. The "bi" of bipartisan means two. As in there are two options; yes/no; up/down; republican/democrat; liberal/conservative, etc. The truth is that as humans we are more complex than these binaries.

What is needed is not bipartisanship, which implies taking a bit from one side and a bit from the other and cobbling together a patchwork, but collaboration. Collaboration is something wholly other.

So for those members of Congress and the administration, here's a briefing on Collaboration. A person who acts collaboratively will typically behave in these ways:-

Soliciting input
Soliciting input occurs when you ask people for their points of view. Please note that this behavior takes both time and humility. It implies you do not have all the answers and are open to other people's wisdom.

Giving credit
This step is essentially reinforcing the self-esteem of the Other by acknowledging their point of view, actions, or wisdom. This step requires both the ability to think critically and humility.

Finding areas of agreement
This behavior was modeled by Obama in Friday's debate. Please note that his finding areas of agreement between his point of view and McCain's was seen and advertised by the McCain camp as a weakness on Obama's part. It is a key component of collaboration because if you are only oppositional, you cannot collaborate.

Identifying and pushing for solutions
This behavior means working to find the right outcome that best serves the majority or the situation, rather than being attached to your own point of view. This step also requires humility.

Showing fairness
Being fair requires integrity and accountability. To me, it means that you are empathic enough to see perspectives from other sides and are humble enough to act ethically to put what's right ahead of your own agenda. Please note that this is not the same as standing on principle nor being a maverick (aka loose cannon).

Keeping people informed
In order to collaborate, your view must be known. To persuade people, you must tell them what you are up to and be honest. The secretive Treasury Secretary Paulson issued a 3-page ransom note to the public two weeks ago demanding $700,000,000,000 or else. Else what? No one knew for sure except that it would be really bad. Really very bad. Double plus ungood. The public was confused. The Congress was confused. The administration failed to keep people informed and the bail out bill failed (that is, until $110,000,000,000 of other spending was added by the Senate).

Building consensus
To create consensus, you must demonstrate many of the behaviors already discussed: keeping people informed, showing fairness, and finding areas of agreement. You cannot build consensus through bullying and threats -- or $700,000,000,000 ransom notes. You have to maintain the self-esteem of the Other while bringing the Other into the conversation to gain their buy-in. It requires self-confidence and desire to find a solution.

Listening to all points of view
You cannot build consensus in a vacuum (cf. Keeping People Informed).

Getting cooperation of others
Cooperation requires putting yourself on equal footing with the Other and wanting the Other to be successful with you. It's an interpersonal skill.

When the bill finally passed it passed in part because some of these indicators were demonstrated: more points of view were included, the public was better informed and the Congress played nice with each other in the sandbox.

Please note that in speeches given after the bill's passage, Congressional leaders praised each other for really working together as they had never seen before. That is both telling and terrifying. If our leadership (and I include the Administration) knew how to collaborate regularly without the house burning down maybe we could actually get somewhere as a country and a world.

For those of you who missed the mutual admiration society, I give you the Daily Show (see 6:00 minute point). (Some strong bleeped language.)

Evidence on Grandstanding as Spectacle

Evidence that perhaps the spectacle around the bail out in part served to distract from the Couric interview care of The Fix (see paragraph 3) of The Washington Post.

Again, consider that McCain upped the spectacle last week with his posturing.

Spectacle: McCain's Grandstanding and the Couric Interview

Watch CBS Videos Online

UPFRONT DISCLOSURE: I am still learning how to embed so I apologize to my readers for the CBS commercials that play before Couric's interview. As an artist, I want copyright to be honored so I'm going with what the CBS news site offered rather than using a bootleg. Speed ahead after the rotten commercial to mark 1:46 to watch the question at hand.

So I've been pretty quiet on my blog in the last few weeks. I've been keeping up with the daily ups and downs of this election, trying to make some sort of sense of it all. I will post more frequently as my understanding and questions grow.

What I am left with after the past few weeks is that the McCain campaign is using spectacle to distract the American public. What is the spectacle? To me, the spectacle is using non-events to shift focus from what matters onto a subject that is meaningless, relatively speaking, in order to keep the public from focusing on what is really important. Palin's nomination, lipstick on pigs and pit bulls were spectacle but that was nothing compared to this week.

So let's look at this past week. Earlier in the week, McCain said he hadn't had a chance to read the THREE page Paulson bailout plan, even though this had been a top issue for days. Then on Wednesday, he cancels an interview with David Letterman, who allegedly is too funny for these serious times, citing that he had to return to Washington immediately to work on the bailout.

He stayed in New York for another 22 hours giving interviews and speaking.

When he returned to Washington, he met with Republican leaders in the House and the hereto for tentatively agreed to plan was kiboshed.

At the same time, CBS - a little under the radar with all these news events occurring - was broadcasting Palin's intereviews with Couric which I caught on the internet. In case you missed it, Palin was woefully incoherent. Some conservative commentators (men and women) have called on her to step down.

What I am not clear on is how successful that spectacle strategy has been. To me, someone who has been watching 3-4 hours of political coverage and reading yards of commentary (conservative and liberal) a day, I am not convinced that it has been working. Can people really not see what I see? That said, perhaps not. Outside the Beltway, 60,000 people showed up at a recent rally for Palin.

My question is: was the spectacle of calling off the debate, suspending the campaign actually a move to distract people from the Couric interview? Was the McCain campaign looking for a bold strategy, as they are fond of saying, to give us something - something bright and shiny - to distract the electorate from the interview in which Palin (see mark 1:46) blithered about the bailout. Her incoherence is stunning. The McCain campaign knew this. Was the grandstanding of Senator McCain designed to keep us from focusing too much on her?

Next...my thoughts on Congress actually having to work.

Orwell and Palin

From Orange Crate Art
Said well. Double plus good. Strategery. Reformer. Maverick.

Can someone please help? It's getting really embarassing.

Introducing Briony Canadine Bayne

Until Wednesday, November 5th I am asking friends and family to call my Briony Bayne.