They don't get it

One of my favourite quotes is that of Kenneth Boulding: "All organizational structures tend to produce false images in the decision-maker." Two recent examples show his point.
First, Jack Straw "has let it be known" (as journos say) that he has doubts about Brown's plans to bang up Muslims for 42 days without charge, but plans to vote for the measure anyway.
In doing this, Straw was probably thinking that this was a way to placate both his constitutents and the PM. But in fact, we just think: "what a slimy duplicitous unprincipled little bastard - Ed Balls is right for once."
Then there's this letter to the Times from one Alastair Campbell praising Terminal 5.
When we read this, do we think: "T5 isn't as bad as thought"?   
No. We think: "This is the Alastair Campbell who worked with Tom Kelly in Downing Street, probably using him to do his dirty work. And Tom Kelly is now head of PR at BAA. So Campbell's just returning a little favour."
But neither Straw nor Campbell seem aware of these reactions. Instead, they persist in the idiotic illusion that we believe what they say. They don't realize they have negative credibility - many statements only become plausible once the likes of Campbell and Straw deny them.
And here's what puzzles me. Why do they continue to do this? Is is because they're too thick to realize what the public think of them? Or is that they know but have become so corrupted by power that they just don't care? Or is that that they do know and do care, but just have no idea how to behave differently?

Comments

[Peter Briffa]

Yes but we've all met people who know we don't like them, but they can't quite figure out why. Nine times out of ten they don't avoid us, they just go on trying to ingratiate themselves, which only increases our antipathy.

I reckon that's it.

[Rowland Manthorpe]

Occasionally they do realise.

Remember the period when the Tories decided to stop releasing policy ideas on the grounds that whatever they said was automatically unpopular?

It was a golden time.

[Tom Freeman]

If you can forgive the management-speak: they've failed to distinguish outputs (published letter supportive of T5) from outcomes (members of public with improved views of T5).

[Meh]

I've never paid that much attention to Jack Straw, but I've been exposed to a number of interviews with Alistair Campbell and it's pretty clear that his self-image is radically different to the image just about everyone else on the planet (apart from his wife, perhaps) has of him.

I don't think you can put down that level of self-delusion to the dysfunctions of organisational structures, it's rather clearly (in this case at least) a feature of the individual in question.

[dearieme]

Campbell has been bonkers, which does not preclude his currently being bonkers.

Your point is good: further to it, I've always wondered how cunning, duplicitous French diplomacy can ever work when the French routinely boast about how cunningly duplicitous their diplomacy is.

PS I recommend that you treat us to some gratuitous Mme Sarkozy de temps en temps; the wife not the mother.

[ejh]

Isn't it possible that they realise it doesn't actually matter what we think of them? We have no largesse to offer them, no directorships. Even if Straw were to be voted out he'd not suffer much as a result.

[Dave Cole]

I can't get trackback to work... I wrote a reply, of sorts, over here: http://davecole.org/blog/2008/04/14/through-a-press-release-darkly/