'Big' is broken in all walks of life, not just politics

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/may/29/big-broken-politics-business

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We live in the shadows of larger-than-life leaders who had big ideas and made an impact. I’m thinking of Lenin, Franklin Roosevelt, Mao Zedong, Mahatma Gandhi, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They all secured their place in history by identifying big problems and implementing big solutions to them.

Love them or hate them, what they thought, what they did and how they did it had massive repercussions beyond their own time and place. They fulfilled people’s need for leaders and fostered the belief that there is a fix for the problems of complex modern societies. All it takes is the right leader with the right ideology.

Now, halfway through 2015, we have a lot more big problems to tackle. Just off the top of my head: climate change, water shortages, species extinction, obesity, cybercrime, nuclear proliferation, conflict in the Middle East, unemployment and messed-up finances. Each of these alone is a complicated problem that is hard to understand, let alone solve. Put them together and the complexity is beyond imaginable. It’s certainly beyond what history and education have prepared us for.

Back in time, people had to deal with a lot of immediate day-to-day problems just looking for food, clothing and shelter. Those were tough enough to deal with, but on the plus side they didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle delivering constant angst about problems outside their local area. By contrast, we are immersed in information 24/7. Even if you limit yourself to dipping into one news title , you find a world of pain and problems demanding your attention.

Like good marketers, journalists work hard to create an emotional connection with their audience, to make them care about the subject and move them to action. So you find yourself reading about proposed solutions to all those problems, or thinking up your own solutions. The net effect: not only are you worrying about juggling your finances and losing those stubborn extra pounds , but you’re also fretting about the economy, people suffering in conflict zones, disappearing glaciers and endangered species.

After all, you are a concerned citizen who cares about important things. But you can’t let yourself get carried away. Rational thinking and pragmatic friends tell you that you can’t take all the world’s problems on your shoulders. It’s not your job; it’s the job of politicians and maybe the job of business leaders and their brands. So you look for a political party, an ideology or a political figure that cares about the same problems and has a programme of solutions that make sense to you.

People around the world have been going through this experience and increasingly coming to the conclusion that today’s politicians aren’t up to the job. Today’s great hope is doomed to be tomorrow’s disappointment. In the US, Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election on a wave of hope that swept the world. By 2012, the enthusiasm had waned and he won mainly thanks to his opponent’s lack of appeal. Now even fans of the president confess their disappointment.

The French couldn’t wait to get rid of centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy and took their first chance to dump him in 2012. Within just a couple of years, his Socialist successor, François Hollande, is the most unpopular president of modern France and Sarkozy is eyeing a comeback.

Related: Miliband and Brand: the good, the bad and the ugly political endorsements

Ahead of the 2015 UK general election, Russell Brand garnered huge attention and sparked debate with his “I don’t vote” stand. Broadcaster Jeremy Paxman lent weight to that idea when he admitted: “In one recent election, I decided not to vote, because I thought the choice so unappetising.” Brand eventually changed his mind and backed Labour. Prime minister David Cameron’s Conservative party won with a slim majority and Labour slumped, with a senior figure losing out to a 20-year-old student fielded by the SNP in Scotland.

So what has changed from the glory days when the world had great political leaders and when parties championed clear ideologies? Pretty much everything. In this age of long lenses, digital leaks, citizen journalism and instant communication, it would be impossible for a president to disguise his physical disability or for a prime minister to have a reputation for heavy drinking. Politicians operate under intense scrutiny now. They are driven as much by focus groups, momentum polling and the news cycle as they are by ideology. But above all, what has changed is the size and complexity of the problems they’re supposed to deal with.

The word on the street – or at least among political pundits – is that politics is broken. That might be true, but I have a different take. My take is that big is broken in all walks of life, not just politics. Ordinary citizens no longer buy into big political ideas, and they’ve come to mistrust big in general. From the perspective of citizens and consumers, big is increasingly a negative term, and not just for libertarians railing against big government.

Banks are not only too big to fail; they’re also too big to manage – a notion that is being applied to other massive businesses. Some geeky types might drool at the promise of big data, but when ordinary people put big in front of an industry, it means they don’t like it, whether it’s big business, big oil, big pharma, big food, big sugar, big finance or big agriculture. Big means self-interested and uncaring. Big means remote and out of touch. Above all, it means out of control at a time when people want more control in their life. Big problems seem like they’re too big to solve, and big organisations seem too slow and unwieldy to offer much hope.

Big organisations will, of course, lumber on under their own momentum, but people are looking for other ways to take control and make a difference. Watch for the rise of all things small, local and personal as a counter to big, global and remote.

Marian Salzman is the CEO of Havas PR North America

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