The Political Lens Principle

I’m watching the Health Care Summit right now  and a few things hit me.

1. If this is typical of how things work in Congress, I’m glad I’ve never watched it before.
2. Since they get paid to speak, I would expect nationally elected speakers to be better speakers.
3. Applying the Lens Principle to what politicians say can lead to a black hole in brain function.

Many years ago, I learned about the Lens Principle.  I learned it the way a lot of us are exposed to life’s lessons, the hard way, through experience.  I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but I figured out that a lot of the stuff that irritates you about other people are things you don’t like about yourself.  That is a crude interpretation of the Lens Principle but that’s how I phrased it.

Generally speaking, if someone has a hard time trusting other people’s word, they tend to not be trustworthy in themselves.   This also applies to the way we interpret other people’s motives.

It wasn’t until I started studying John Maxwell (you can follow John on twitter @JohnCMaxwell) that I learned a better name (and phrasing) of this idea: The Lens Principle.  Thanks to Google Books, you can read about it yourself in Winning With People.  The chapter is only 9 pages long, so it’s a quick read.

Who We Are Determines How We See Others.

Who you are determines the way see everything.

~John Maxwell

So back to the Health Care Summit, listening to politicians attack each other and talk about underhanded tricks or backdoor deals makes me wonder about where they’re coming from.

I wonder if  this is what Otto von Bismarck was thinking about when he famously said:

Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.

~Otto von Bismarck