One challenging thing about management consulting is cutting through the “fog of war” — specifically the uncertainty that surrounds the untested beliefs of management. These assumptions are the result of not testing assumptions against data, something which makes the already difficult job of management much harder. After all, how can you manage a company (or advise someone on how to manage a company) if you don’t understand the situation “on the ground”?
In the same vein, how do you choose the right politician if you can’t pierce through the “fog of propaganda” — the attack ads, the “commonsense” knowledge that nobody’s ever bothered testing? Of course, a big deal of politics is about the voter’s values (no statistic in the world will tell you if gay marriage is right or if greater income equality at the expense of total income is a justifiable sacrifice). But how can someone choose the most effective candidate – the candidate whose policies align most closely with a given set of values — without some objective means of testing?
While the hapless entry-level consultant is most likely responsible for the arduous task of fact-checking, today’s American voter has access to two websites which provide objective analyses of political claims: FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com. While the two sites can’t tell you whether or not a given policy will succeed or whether or not a given position is morally right or wrong, they serve as good “reality checks” which will hopefully make it easier to see through the fog and make a more educated choice.
It’s a valuable service, the analog of which in the business world (the various information sources that business analysts and groups sell) is so valuable that it costs an enormous sum to have access to. Hopefully, more people use the site to assess their politicians and hold them accountable for their actions, their claims, and their promises.
Random thought: I wonder what one would do if the two websites did an analysis of each other . . . (“this just in, PolitiFact.com is not as cool as we are”)