David Cameron and Barack Obama: Time for change means taking time to think
Tory leader David Cameron and Barack Obama certainly have a lot in common, including a shared belief that “thinking time” and relaxation are essential to fulfilling the offices they both aspire to.
In the year since he became the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, the charismatic 41-year old Cameron has reinvented British conservatism and revitalized his party to such an extent that it now maintains a 20-point lead in polls ahead of the incumbent Labour party, led by the wildly unpopular Gordon Brown.
Cameron and Obama have become the faces of the ideology of Change that citizens on both sides of the Atlantic are clamoring for.
And as men who have both been on rigorous campaigns and in interruption-laden jobs, they also share an understanding that it’s simply not possible to fulfill your duties by “working” 100% of the time.
Obama met with Cameron earlier today as one of the last stops on his international tour, and in a private conversation picked up by ABC, Cameron asked Obama if he’d gotten a break yet.
“You should be on the beach,” Cameron told Obama. “You need a break. Well, you need to be able to keep your head together.”
“You’ve got to refresh yourself,” agreed Obama.
“Do you have a break at all?” asked Cameron.
“I have not,” said Obama. “I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who — not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process – said that, should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be — ”
“These guys just chalk your diary up,” said Cameron, referring to a packed schedule.
“Right,” Obama said. “In 15 minute increments …”
“We call it the dentist’s waiting room,” Cameron said. “You have to scrap that because you’ve got to have time.”
“And, well, and you start making mistakes,” Obama said, “or you lose the big picture. Or you lose a sense of, I think you lose a feel– ”
“Your feeling,” interrupted Cameron. “And that is exactly what politics is all about. The judgment you bring to make decisions.”
“That’s exactly right,” Obama said. “And the truth is that we’ve got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know ten times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so if what you’re trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you.”
(Conversation quoted from ABC’s Political Punch)
The residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and 10 Downing St. have two of the most intense and stressful jobs in the world, and that their next residents already recognize the need to deal with these stresses is a good sign.
Certainly there’s such a thing as overdoing it, but there’s a marked distinction between mindless vacation and thinking time. Thinking time is like sleep, processing information and recombining it along with reducing physical and mental stress (in fact, sleep absolutely constitutes thinking time).
So to those who believe in the philosophy of 200% efficiency 100% of the time, take a minute to reflect on the thoughts of the next leaders of the free world; you might just come up with your next great idea in that moment of reflection.
