Confidential: Recommendations for leaders who want to win elections, win in business & make change in a post-truth world. [part of ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts 2017’]
Controversy is your friend.
Media manipulates and is easily manipulated. Understand how it works today and in the coming months (typical driver is money — understand the business model & upcoming threats and opportunities they perceive).
The media is not a whole entity either. Someone always must be first, then others need to choose to follow.
Strongly consider to BuzzFeedify your politics & policies — “7 reasons why my opponent is a loser, and you don’t believe the final one”
Be aggressive — if you want to lead, lead. Not physically aggressive of course, but verbally.
Push the boundaries to get heard by the media, force your opponent to acknowledge you and catch & maintain the attention of your supporters. No one notices or cares about wusses (Bremainers in UK take note, no Dunkirk spirit in 2016–17 — ‘go meekly into the night’)
Only attack one opponent at a time — irrespective of how many you have now. If you are smart you can defeat them one by one, or have the leading ones attack each other first leaving space for you whilst taking advantage of their mutual damage.
Focus on the end goal — so any activity is explicitly designed over time to move towards and achieve the goal
Define your enemy with 1–2 words
Know how the opposition will attack you… and let them — using judo trick of turning their attack against themselves. You can do this with research and planning in advance.
Be brutal in a way that is also reasonable — it is fair to call an opponent, if they have the traits, a ‘psychopath’ for instance.
Then change the rules. 2017 belongs to the rule breakers as people are largely bored of the current way that things work.
Do random things — do not become predictable unless your plan is to lure them in with common behavior to surprise later.
Deeply understand the rules of your system — be it electoral college, first past the post, etc.
If you have time to prepare, take time to design tests to see how your opponent operates, how fast and how they respond.
Set traps for your opponent — and their surrogates / henchmen. More often now leaders use surrogates to repeat and reinforce their messages.
Then get your own surrogates to extend your own message, and tweak while the story is in flow to refine and maintain.
Control the news cycle — depending on the country it may be every two days (US), week (UK), or longer.
Have one or more contingency plans — what would you do if…
More important than that, have an actual multi-month / year plan. Hope is not a strategy. An actual strategy is a strategy.
Be ready to take advantage of any situation. We do not know what the news is but there will be news. Be ready to hijack any news and twist to your message, whilst attacking your nearest enemy.
With this you can craft a winnable strategy.
And if someone uses this for ill-purposes, there are techniques to combat them (for another day, or another audience…). Even Harry Potter had to learn Defence Against the Dark Arts. Lack of knowledge = likely lack of success. Ignoring bad actors merely gives them a greater chance of success.
And remember, shhh.
Don’t share this information.