No candidate is an objective participant in their own campaign.
Here’s today’s tip: No candidate is an objective participant in their own campaign.
Some of the worst candidates I’ve ever seen have a lot of experience running campaigns. That seems counterintuitive, right? The problem usually doesn’t arise from them having bad ideas about what it takes to win a campaign, but rather from refusing to delegate tasks and take good advice.
When you become a candidate, you lose all objectivity about your election contest. I’ve seen people who have run successful campaigns make awful rookie mistakes and experienced business leaders lose all ability to delegate tasks. Pre-campaign experience is critical to winning but you shouldn’t pretend like it’s going to be the same. Your brain is going to behave differently when you take on this new role.
Whatever your experience and background are, you need to select a core group who will help widen your aperture. They are the eyes watching your blind-spots. Ask them regularly to tell you what they think you’re missing…or the things that you see but where your perception is off.
Prepare to be attacked before you are.
Here’s today’s tip: Prepare to be attacked before you are.
Anybody familiar with politics or political campaigns has heard about opposition research. That’s where you find out everything possible about your opponent, both to know where they are strong and weak.
The flip side of that coin is far less well-known and tragically so. What I’m talking about is a vulnerability study, or self-oppo.
If you saw yourself as an easy target for attack or someone has done things he or she can’t answer for, you’re probably not going to be running for public office. And in that false security lies the fatal deceit that has ended so many campaigns.
You should never be too busy to listen.
Here’s today’s tip: You should never be too busy to listen.
Some of the most destructive campaign mistakes I’ve seen originate with a candidate who neglects to follow this tip.
You’re in the middle of a campaign. You’re juggling family and job and volunteers and donors and somewhere in the middle, your ears start shutting down. It can seem like they’re acting of their own accord.
It’s easy to understand how that happens right? It’s simply human.
The best way to keep from falling prey to this mid-campaign deafness is to prepare for the threat early in the campaign planning process.
Don’t run for a job you can’t excel at.
Here’s today’s tip: Don’t run for a job you can’t excel at.
This one seems so simple that some of you are probably saying, “How stupid do you think we are, Raz?!”
The simple fact is that far too often, fitness for the actual job of being an elected official is near the bottom of the list of reasons that motivate a candidate to run.
Everything from simply thinking that it’s an easy race to win, or that it’d have really cool job perks to general love of service are all reasons I’ve seen motivate a candidate to run much more powerfully than that they truly believe they’d be the best person to execute the job they seek.