Fear in the minds of men can be eradicated, if not erased, if for the sake of reputation management, our new President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be the same as before when he was Defence Secretary.
by Victor Cherubim
Patterns of behaviour exist in nature and more so in humans. We always want to be known and be identified as who or what we are, to be recognised as special. By influencing and controlling an individual’s or group reputation, weare able to assess the ability, capacity and potential of the outcome.
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| Gotabya Rajapaksa |
The other day I visited an Accident & Emergency Ward at a local Hospital for a check up for a sudden bout of sore throat, cough and pestering cold due to the equally sudden change in cold weather which we experienced during this time of the year. After the now customary wait of a minimum of four hours to be seen by a Doctor, I was prescribed an antibiotic for speedy relief. Unlike when I was a young lad many moons ago in Sri Lanka,when my family doctor would prescribe a throat paint and a cough mixture, I was sent home post haste with an “overdose” of an anti-resistant drug which I knew, was to coax me not to visit the A&E department again. Hardly had I come home that I received an SMS on my mobile to give my review, my feedback of the service provided by the Hospital. By tapping into the power of reviews, I guess the Hospital wanted my “satisfaction report.”
All toooften, everything in today’s world is reputation management, when in years past reference was earned not demanded.
What is RM?
Reputation Management means different things to different people. For some it is the be all and end all of life. For others it is not necessarily important. It was part of what was originally termed as “public relations”. But with the growth of immediacy of result thanks to the use of the internet and social media, search results are a core of reputation online. Everyone, almost everyone is now weaned on “growth by result”.
By giving users the power to select the most reviews, the choice of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), we are influenced and told, we are able to improve customer experience, while businesses are able to stay ahead of their competitors. Everything, almost every experience, is monitored, in rankings in search results, increasing clicks, visits, the number of prospects and the resultant sales.
People can no longer be normal, and leaders can no longer lead?
The monitoring of patterns of behaviour has now become an art, in fact it is a mathematical science.
Many people have layers and nuances and very often people think they know a person, but truly human feelings have yet to be monitored, although with Artificial Intelligence (AI) every effort has been made to break this barrier.
Patterns and cycles of the past investigated by researchers such as Peter Turchin, a Professor of Mathematics at University of Connecticut, U.S.A. have “set out to determine whether history, like Physics follows certain laws”. He made a prediction in 2010 that by 2020 “search engines will be able to decode your brain waves,” that experimental devices connected to the internet would deduce our search queries by directly monitoring our brain signals. He also ventured to make other predictions. These have hardly come about. But it could well be the taste of things to come? Historians and academics who study the correlation of the past and present, by explaining why something happened once is very different from predicting how and when it will happen again. He has come against the views of many historians against his mathematical approach to history to be untenable and problematic. Lessons drawn from the past can be accepted to show a pattern only in a limited way to predict the future.
Can the same can be said of political leaders?
No one can be sure that there will always be a pattern of behaviour which will automatically follow the reputation of our political leaders. If someone was considered autocratic in past actions, it really does not automatically follow, like the day follows night, that this pattern of behaviour will continue endlessly.
Fear in the minds of men can be eradicated, if not erased, if for the sake of reputation management, our new President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be the same as before when he was Defence Secretary. Within minutes of assuming his new responsibilities, he has revealed a new personality, and this is the essence of humanity, which machines cannot duplicate.
The world and the people of Sri Lanka of all races, creeds and persuasions look forward to a new and a different and innovative approach to our problems in the months and years ahead. One thing that has been visible already after the announcement of his result is his laid back approach and that he is taking over as President of all of Sri Lanka.
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