What politics can learn from entrepreneurs

I often wonder why there aren’t more entrepreneurs in politics. People who, with their knowledge and experience in the real world of work, have learned to solve problems every day and to do business successfully. I fear the answer is obvious. Politicians can learn a lot from entrepreneurs.

If you run a successful company, you would probably go nuts in politics. If I ran my company the way our politicians run our country, we would have been insolvent for a long time. Politicians could learn a lot from entrepreneurs. Three examples.

Experts are essential

In a company, the distribution of roles is clear. There are different departments and each department has employees who are specialists in their field. IT people work in my IT department, finance professionals work in my finance department and my marketing department is responsible for the correct external presentation.

What would happen if our marketing suddenly took over the finance department? Right, we would sink into chaos. We entrepreneurs know about the expertise of our employees. And use the people with expert knowledge accordingly.

Why isn’t that the case in politics? Why are there defense ministers who have never served or economics ministers who are actually Germanists? I would have rejected these applications.

There is an end

What happens when employees leave the company? We say thank you, say goodbye and that’s it from a professional point of view. There is no salary, no office and no employees. So what is completely self-evident for us entrepreneurs does not seem to apply in politics.

How can it be that former politicians are still given offices and staff for years at the taxpayer’s expense? If we don’t draw a clear line here, this cost factor will only increase. This is simply not economical.

After all, a court has now decided that our former chancellor is no longer entitled to those benefits. Better late than never.

Change takes time – but not infinitely

A fundamental change process in a company usually takes between four and five years. A time in which an idea is first developed, implemented and then manifested. The regular term of office of a federal government is also four years.

This means that politicians should actually have enough time to initiate and implement the promises made during the election campaign. But why does that not work so often? Are you not concentrating on the essentials? It is not working effectively.

Digitization, simplified and shortened processes, short decision-making processes, fast implementation are expected of every company. I think we can expect the same from politicians.

Those responsible should orient themselves more towards successful companies instead of just thinking from one election campaign to the next. Effective cooperation with business associations and implementation of lessons learned could help.

What politics can learn from companies: Knowledge

I would like to make a statement from my initial question: We need more entrepreneurs, professionals and experts in politics! But for this we also need the willingness to renew established processes and to adjust the framework conditions for politicians accordingly.

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