Obama as Joker: Campaign Will Gain Traction with Profound Implications

The metaphor is simple.  President Obama tricked us.  If we put aside the obvious political intent for a moment we can derive some answers to questions about this expression.  Broadly, what are the levers of influence that are being pulled and what are the implications? Specifically, will this campaign gain traction?

The Levers of Influence

Our six intuitive roles  are: Father – Mother – Child – Trickster – Wise Old Man – Hero.  This a well researched continuum with specific values, fears, philosophies , etc. associated with each.  We all intuitively understand this at some level.  Jung proved that a century ago.  The Hoye Mastery Center added some additional structure and research to this knowledge making it a powerful analytical tool.

President Obama was elected as a ‘Wise Old Man’.  He was expected to bring reasoned, principled, and independent action to the Oval Office.  This was an important contrast to President Bush who had been cast as a ‘fool’ (a form of the Trickster).    But President Obama is not naturally a ‘Wise Old Man’.  He is naturally a ‘Hero’,  a doer, a man on a mission to remake and reshape America into something different: his vision of America.  As a result, his aggressive approach to change and rapid timelines is not delivering the feeling that was expected by many of his supporters.

I use the word ‘feeling’ with specific intent.  Many if not most of his supporters agreed with his stated rational policy plans.  If that is the case, then why the plunging poll numbers?  It really is quite simple once you have the tool to view the situation.  He is not making people feel the way they wanted him to make them feel when he was elected.   He is not satisfying their emotional hungers the way they thought he would.

Of course, all of the conversation is about specific policy actions, or legislative ham-handedness but these are just rationalizations.  And this Joker poster proves the previous statement.

Portraying President Obama as a Joker converts him from role of ‘Wise Old Man’ to that of ‘Trickster’.  The “socialism” claim is barely relevant to the lever of influence that is being activated.

Implications

The primary implication will be an erosion of trust. The Trickster role is about being absurd, contrary, mocking, and unpredictable.  President Obama has behaved in a way that makes this claim credible.  He recently inserted himself into petty squabbles among private citizens.  (The President and Leader of the 300 million citizens of The United States looks petty when he gets publicly involved in the misdemeanor arrest of a single citizen).  He mocked the police.  He then had to contradict himself appearing unmeasured and looking unpredictable.

This is not him at his best.  Again, he is a ‘Hero’.  He is impelled to action.  But the current lack of focus is making him a target for this type of ridicule.

The secondary implication is that his vision for the country won’t be taken seriously. The Trickster is not widely respected as a visionary. His role is extremely important in pointing out the absurdity of the vision of others (think Dennis Miller) but it is rare when a Trickster is widely respected as a visionary.

Prediction

This campaign will continue to gain traction because it is connecting with the fact that the expectations of his supporters are not being met.  Specifically, they are not feeling the way that they expected to feel about his presidency.

With time, he will become recognized for his natural role as a Hero and that his mission is aggressive.   This will be rationalized as “visionary” by his die-hard supporters, but ultimately will be out of balance with the emotional needs of most Americans and will greatly diminish, likely irrecoverably, the chances of Obama being re-elected for a second term.  This opens the door for a Father, or possibly a less-aggressive, more experienced Hero, to have a good chance at winning and, importantly, being recorded in history as a tremendous success if they present themselves authentically.

Analysis

If someone’s intuitive natural role is as a…	When they supported Obama they expected to feel…	But instead they feel…
Father	He would take reasoned, independent approaches to major issues facing our nation	He is creating a lack of stability… (very unnerving for the Father role)
Mother	That he would bring us together and begin to heal divisions in the country	That his aggressiveness is hurting relationships and making it more difficult to create positive connections
Child	Secure and taken care of	This doesn’t feel safe and I don’t know where my protection is
Trickster	That he provides potential for disruption to the status quo	Enjoying the fact that they were accurate
Wise Old Man	He is one of us and will provide clear vision of future without worrying about petty obstacles	He is getting bogged down and is losing his sense of purpose
Hero	We have a new mission and are taking our country in a great new direction	We might fail early and I don’t like surprises

NBC Doesn’t Understand It’s Audience: Conan Will Likely Sink The Tonight Show

Who is surprised that Conan is sinking in The Tonight Show slot?  I am a fan of Conan O’Brian; his off kilter humor is squarely up in the dark little space in my mind between a couple of buildings where the trash is picked up.  But I am not surprised that he is struggling in The Tonight Show slot.  And why this was going to be the case should have been clear to those who are well paid to understand such matters.

The marketing gurus will go on about how Conan is a break from the equity of the show, and that he is driving a new demographic to the show, etc…  But what does that mean?  Well, it means that he doesn’t match up with the expectations of the audience.

The current back room debate is about whether or not Conan can survive long enough to create his own equity in the slot.  My prediction is “No”.  This is not just an educated guess, but an analysis based on an understanding of the emotional reaction that the audience is having to Conan.

First, let’s start with some context about what the audience is expecting from The Tonight Show.  Jay was different than Johnny and Jay’s live act is very different than his television persona, but they still both fit well with the role required of them in the formula of The Tonight Show.  People knew what to expect, and that was comforting.  People getting ready for bed could, in this order:  1. Hear the lighter side of the current events and have a laugh.  2.  Catch up on the latest movie releases and find out a little about some of the beautiful people and maybe even say to themselves, “Hey (insert favorite actor/actress) is a pretty down to earth person and maybe someone who I could hang out with,” and finally, 3.  Hear about the latest band or comic making the tour.  But most importantly, all of these elements were comfortably connected for us by a fun-loving host who, above all else, wanted us to feel welcome and comfortable as we wound down and punctuated our less-than-predictable days.

Conan is not predictable.  His entire sense of humor is quirky.  Triumph the Insult Dog is not Main Street humor.  The guy is a little twisted, and twisted is not predictable.  After midnight, in his old slot, people were of a much different mindset than the 8-6 crowd that watches The Tonight Show before bed.

So what new understanding do I bring to the discussion?  Well, see the table below.  This is how people are reacting to Conan based on their intuitive and very natural roles:

If someone’s intuitive natural role is as a…	They feel this way about Johnny and Jay…	They feel this way about Conan…
Father	Predictable humor that wasn’t subtle and didn’t require me to figure it out	Makes me wonder what I’m missing
Mother	This was a show that I could talk about with my friends because I got the humor and liked how Jay talked to the Stars and sometimes I was the first in my group to let others know about something new	Not sure how others feel about Conan.  He seems to make others uncomfortable and that makes me uncomfortable in sharing this with others
Child	This is fun and I know where its going	This may be fun but it doesn’t feel safe
Trickster	Don’t care for the predictable formula. I watch it for hot girls, action heros and the occasional decent comic	Love the fact that I don’t know where this guy is going.  Half the time he is skewering people and they don’t even know it.  I feel like I am in on the joke.
Wise Old Man	I will watch if there is someone or something that I want to see	I will watch if there is someone or something that I want to see
Hero	I feel a good sense of where this is going and may learn about something new	I don’t feel comfortable with where this is going to take me, if anywhere.

When the marketing guys at NBC do their research they are hearing bits and pieces of this story.  But this is the critical emotional element that a lot of qualitative research just really struggles to get to because 1) people have a very hard time adequately articulating how they feel about things and 2) the researchers don’t have an accurate tool for understanding respondents when they are articulate about their feelings.

Based on the table above you see that more people are turned-off than are turned-on by Conan in the context of how they would like to feel when watching The Tonight Show.  This will result in the ratings continuing to slide unless changes are made to bring the show back to where the audience would like it to be.

Post-Script:

Unscientific research using the comments section of The New York Times story titled “High Ratings for Conan’s Premiere” adds additional perspective.  The majority of the comments are favorable of Conan (35 favs/18 unfavs as of writing this) but deserving more attention are the many comments about the demographic shift expected to happen in the audience because of Conan’s presence.  They deserve attention because there is potential danger here for any execs making decisions about what to do next:  people don’t make their personal choices based solely on their demographic.  In fact, it is a very coarse measure of understanding someone.  In contrast, one’s patterns of decision at the emotional level tend to be very consistent throughout one’s life.  They are predictable. Yet, because it is the commonly measureable element of the audience, demographics continue to stand as a less-useful measure of evaluation.

So, even in the face of these favorable comments my analysis still predicts declining ratings.  Because my way of understanding uses universal intuitive roles, emotional motivations don’t shift with the year someone is born – which, frankly, is the truth.  (That said, there are generational ties to certain roles but that is a discussion for another post.)  My prediction (Sorry Conan, because I am a fan) is that the ratings will slip too low to drive the show forward as is.

Recommendation: Put him back on late!

Pundits are Missing It …Sotomayor’s Feelings are What Matter to Obama’s Mission

Predictably, the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Federal Supreme Court has immediately given rise to the chattering classes and their political analysis.  Much of the discussion revolves around Sotomayor, a Latina woman, giving President Obama leverage in the political arena because of the growing U.S. Hispanic population.  Then there are the more subtle discussions about diversity and bringing a new perspective to the court.

But what good is that discussion if we don’t fully understand the perspectives expressed and why they are valuable.  Though conversations on the political elements of the choices involved are abundant, what are the emotional elements of the perspectives involved?  How does this choice match President Obama’s emotional motivations and vision for the court?

We haven’t always been able to give great answers to these questions.  But an analytical tool that we developed allows us to more accurately, understand the political, economic, social and even technological impact of this and other decisions that affect cultures, companies, and groups of any size; even, perhaps most importantly, individuals.  It does this by making the most misunderstood, yet most predictive, element of decision making and communication understandable and therefore usable:  the emotional component.

In the matter of Sonia Sotomayor, her ascension to the bench provides much more than a political balance.  The cultural balance she brings is far more important because in this case it is the weightiest vessel carrying emotions, the most predictive driving forces for decision making and influence.  For all of the discussion about judicial objectivity the reality is the brain just doesn’t work that way.  All of the information that reaches our frontal lobes to be “objectively analyzed” has been filtered through the instinctual or reptilian part of the brain then the limbic or emotional part of the brain and when the analysis is completed it must travel back through those filters before action can be taken.  Ultimately, though we manage them with logic, our choices are chiefly determined by the way they make us feel – even for Supreme Court judges.

We are all the sum of our individual experiences.  But our unique individual experiences often happen within a more common experience, or culture.  This is not news to social scientists and anthropologists but this new tool provides the capability for anyone to accurately analyze what the impact of the relationships involved is.  Until we get to know Sotomayor better we will have to wait on predicting her unique personal emotional influencers, but the relationship of cultures involved is easily analyzed with accuracy.

There are six intrinsic and intuitively understood (i.e. universal) roles of man, each of which is predictive of the emotional elements in play.  But for the case of this discussion we are going to look at the intuitive cultural roles of Puerto Rican and American Culture, those cultures presumably most familiar to Sotomayor.  Many Hispanic cultures fall into similar cultural roles, but not all, so it is important to be specific.

Based on the Hoye Model we intuitively understand that the American cultural role, and the natural role of President Obama, is the role of the HERO.  And the Puerto Rican cultural role is that of the MOTHER.  So let’s analyze the differences in emotional motivations and the relationship between these roles in a few areas of national importance:

	The Hero’s Motivation	The Mother’s Motivation
Political	We aggressively seek resources to support our missions.	We aggressively seek resources to make a better community.
Economic	Monetary milestones help us to determine if we are reaching our goals and moving forward.	We want to work to support our community our families and ourselves.
Social	As a group we need a mission.	As family we are here for each other.
Technological	Technology has the answers we are seeking.	Technology should bring us together not come between us.

Clearly, there are counter-balancing opinions, but what do you do with this knowledge?

In this case it is simple.  We use this model  to analyze Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination from a more important perspective than the political discussion.  In this case the clear determination is that her nomination meets President Obama’s goal to shift the US culture to a more MOTHER based experience.  This allows us to understand the importance of this nomination from a less judgmental and more intuitive manner.

Most of us have given up on the political process as a force for good because all of the conversations surrounding political analysis are about leverage and beating the other team.  This divisive language just doesn’t speak to the authentic American experience.  Where our neighbors and friends all feel the same way we do about wanting a brighter future for our children and grandchildren and the vitriol and duplicity in Washington is tiresome and painful to watch and follow for the those of us who have day jobs.  With shared knowledge of this tool we can lead the discussion in a new and powerful way.

Now genuine appreciation becomes effortless, choices of others are easily understood and choices of our own can be made with the most complete understanding for the best possible results.