By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.

A friend just sent me a copy of an article about the presidential campaign from back in late May.  At first I wondered if she just thought I was so far out of touch that I needed to do some catching up.  She pointed out instead that my Alpha Factor model was playing out right before our eyes in this campaign.  I agree.

The article was written by Bernie DeGroat at the University of Michigan.  It quoted research conducted by another university colleague about the value of “experience” in getting the presidential nomination.

Here’s part of what he said: “A new study by D. Scott DeRue of the U-M’s Ross School of Business and colleague Jennifer Nahrgang of Michigan State University shows that the number of years of political experience doesn’t matter much when it comes to getting nominated.”

According to DeRue, “It is clearly not experience, so there is something else about Obama… Obama’s personality and charisma have captured the hearts of the American people.”

Guess what?  That’s exactly what I found in my research regarding how people make decisions.  Rationality is not dead.  It never existed.

We all grow up believing that people make rational decisions based upon clear lists of performance or other “factual” criteria.  It’s just not true.

People are emotional beings and that’s where their decisions are made.  Make people feel good about themselves (I refer to that as “Self-satisfaction”) or help them believe that other people will feel better about them (I call that “Personal Significance”), and you are tuned into the “buying channel.”  That’s where all buying decisions really occur.

When researchers ask people why they made a buying decision, they always give a litany of rational reasons’

• it works better;
• it costs less;
• it fits better;
• it has more features;
• blah, blah, blah.

None of those proved out to be real reasons, according to my research.  They were just the way people believe they need to explain their decisions to other people.

The real reasons for their buying decisions were far more controversial and emotional.

• it makes me feel better about myself;
• it makes me believe that other people will notice me more;
• it makes me believe other people will think better of me;
• it makes me feel that I am more the person I wish I were;
• it makes me believe that more people will love me.

It’s all emotional fulfillment that drives decisions.

Companies could learn a lot from the current presidential campaign.

John McCain may have all the experience that Obama lacks (a rational factor), but he has proven himself incapable of making people feel good about themselves or of making them believe that anyone will think better of them for voting for him.  Hence, Obama has strong support among a broad cross-section of the population in both political parties.   McCain doesn’t.

This has nothing at all to do with my personal political preferences.  I personally wish the Republicans had a “real” candidate – someone who could inspire people and make them desire to be part of his campaign.  They don’t.

What does this say about leadership?

If you think you can run a company on purely rational factors, you’ve lost before you start.

If you think you can steer a corporation without making people feel good about themselves and about being part of what you’re doing, then you will certainly fail.

Every Alpha company I have tracked that has lost its way got lost on this issue.

Although every CEO knows that he has to manage the rational side of the business, he better also understand that the emotional side is where the key to his real success lies.

How do you handle the emotional factor?

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By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.

OK, here’s the deal.

• We all know that short-term, tactical management is killing American business, right?

• We all recognize that top-level managers in publicly-held corporations are being driven crazy with external pressures from investors and stock analysts so they can’t do the “visionary leadership” job they need to do.

• Most of us have experienced the destructive effects of this corporate ADD as it filters down to the ranks of “worker bees” who are really keeping the company going, yet feel unappreciated.

• We have all seen the exodus of good people who wanted to make a difference for their employer, yet felt they were just wasting their time.

So why does it go on and on?  I even see it in privately-held companies, and it frightens me that they would want to embrace this self-destructive behavior.

I’m beginning to believe it’s an impossible problem.  So…

I’m throwing out a challenge today for anyone who can show me a publicly-held company that doesn’t have this problem.  I want to see that someone has figured out how to overcome this and has been successful at it.  I want to believe that it is possible, because I was certainly able to do it in my company – but mine was a privately-held business, so I could ignore people on the outside of my company.

Please, show me that I’m wrong.

Your comments—priceless

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