Politics should not be different…

As any professional facilitator of events knows, the architecture of a conference/seminar/workshop/meeting space determines how conversations will (or will not) take place. E.g. having participants seated at a distance from each other, with tables in between, gives licence to aggression and heated exchanges – it creates an “us” and “them” mindset, and I am separated by a safe distance with obstacles, so I do not need to feel so much empathy…

Moreover, the methods employed (Death by Powerpoint/frontal ex cathedra/object oriented with visualisation/…) also plays a massive role.

Finally, even in big events, I try to make sure that people get to know each other, and setting the right tone as the facilitator. After all, what is the point of being in a room, if you do not meet those around you? Presumably you are all there as you are interested in the same issue (otherwise you would not be there…) and if you are given the mandate to meet others in the room, you will make a lot more useful encounters than would have been the case in a usual coffee break (people tend to go to only others they know already…)

This is why we all spend a lot of time planning each step of the event – usually more time than the length of the event itself.

So why should politics be any different? The article below gives a hint of how wildly different outcomes could possibly be reached if only our politics learnt some very basic principles – and I am not even talking about AI, but precisely the principles of use of space, of method employed in the meeting, and of how to facilitate human interaction mentioned above.

https://lnkd.in/eXYkaifs
What do you think? Is politics ready to make a great leap forward from parliamentary procedures established in the 18th Century?