To politicians, solved problems represent a dire threat — of unemployment and poverty. That's why no problem ever tackled by the government has ever been solved. What they want is lots of problems they can promise to solve, so that we'll keep electing them — or letting them keep their jobs in a bureaucracy metastasizing like cancer.

Politicians of all stripes are always in danger at looking at every problem from an abstract point of view or being briefed by officials, academics, or economists who know every science but the science of human nature.

I think there’s a danger in politics of being too risk-averse. I’ve fallen into that trap in the past and I'm not going to fall into it again. I'm now more honest about what I think.

There are numerous bugbears in the profession of a politician. First, ordinary life suffers. Second, there are many temptations to ruin you and those around you. And I suppose third, and this is rarely discussed, people at the top generally have no friends.

Political problem requires political solution.

There is always the risk in parliament that political opinions might be expressed.

The possibility of an external hit like a windfall tax, export ban, or other such political measures risk keeping potential suppliers on the sidelines

This is an undeniable fact and since this has a political root cause, the political leaders need to find a solution to this.

Everything is political. Our wounds and our worship. We want our faith to transcend the political, but we can only do that when we exist in sameness. When barriers collapse, our wounds are revealed, and wounds are political because they involve pain.

This approach will help them avoid risks that arise from enthusiasm without sufficient knowledge. From my own experience, I can confirm that, in politics, people sometimes suffer due to a lack of awareness and understanding.

We must bring politics back to Europe. [...] This separation between democratic politics and decision-making is the tragedy of Europe. [...] Grand narratives also need to become decisions. If, on the other hand, real power is entrusted to technocracies and politics becomes an empty exercise, I believe that democracy is at risk. [...] The real problem is this: it is not about getting rid of politics, but about politics reclaiming its function, which is to guide social processes and change people's lives.

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.

As I developed as a CEO, I found two key techniques to be useful in minimizing politics. 1. Hire people with the right kind of ambition. The cases that I described above might involve people who are ambitious but not necessarily inherently political. All cases are not like this. The surest way to turn your company into the political equivalent of the U.S. Senate is to hire people with the wrong kind of ambition. As defined by Andy Grove, the right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executive’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory. The wrong kind of ambition is ambition for the executive’s personal success regardless of the company’s outcome. 2. Build strict processes for potentially political issues and do not deviate. Certain activities attract political behavior. These activities include: Performance evaluation and compensation Organizational design and territory Promotions Let’s examine each case and how you might build and execute a process that insulates the company from bad behavior and politically motivated outcomes.

...Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.

The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.

But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way....