Maxim Behar comments on the leaders in politics and business for Studio Banker

03.11.2020

The PR specialist Maxim Behar is a guest at the Banker studio, hosted by Emil Yanev, to comment on political systems, the crisis of leadership and business worldwide.

Host: This is Banker Studio, I'm Emil Yanev. Tomorrow is coming very soon, and we are in five minutes to the new world. What all this means will be told by one of the world known PR experts, former chairman, president of the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) and the only Bulgarian listed in the World PR Hall of Fame in London. Of course, we are talking about the guru of Bulgarian PR Maxim Behar. Hello, Maxim.

Maxim Behar: Good afternoon. Hello, Emo.

Host: Now, before tomorrow comes, we will first look at the five minutes that remain until tomorrow, and before we dive into the five minutes - a very interesting correspondence is obtained in the title. A few months ago, Ivan Krastev also wrote a visionary book entitled "Is Tomorrow Already". You seem to give him an answer and tell him "It's not tomorrow, but there are five minutes left" until tomorrow. Is there any correspondence, any dialogue between these two visionary works?

Maxim Behar: There is correspondence with what is happening now in the world and in particular in Bulgaria. And with what we all anticipate could happen. Like Ivan Krastev, I read his book, so what I did was actually an attempt to predict what would happen and how the world would change. However, I focus on business. Because these are my impressions, this is my experience, and I believe that changes in business will actually lead to gigantic changes in the whole society. We are limited, we stay at home for a few months, and no one knows if this is going to happen again, we are closed, we have some psychological worries, that we cannot escape of no matter what we do, even if we drink one or two brandies, watch a movie or read a book. Anyway, somehow a lot of people hope to get through these difficulties. However, when business suffers, I return to politics because I mentioned Ivan Krastev at the beginning…

Host: There is no way to escape politics. Not possible.

Maxim Behar: We cannot expect big changes there. On the contrary, I think there will be negative changes. But focusing on business - huge departments are, in fact, on the verge of bankruptcy. Tourism, hospitality, airlines, many other sectors, which requires the employees’ personal presence. There are large industries that could shut down. Thousands of factories with tens of thousands of workers in Germany, France and Italy have stopped car production, for example.

If business suffers, that will reflect on our life and change it drastically, and therefore, the society will start living differently. And I think that's going to happen. Even in the title I made a… not to say so much "warning", but a slight hint that we have five minutes. And we need to understand that life is changing, it will never be the same, I don't want to say that, but it's a fact. And if each of us, 4-5 billion people on the planet, especially 7 million people in Bulgaria, do not adapt, change, work, and make money, we are on the losing side. If we are on the winning side, we should know how to manage it even better so that it never loses? If we do not have answers to these questions, our lives will be very difficult, and I cannot imagine it.

Host: Are you saying that at 11:55 pm we can change what will happen next in five minutes?

Maxim Behar: This is a symbol, of course, and an image.

Host: Yes, but it's very short, five minutes.

Maxim Behar: We are lacking time, because all the changes are developing fast, the dynamics are exceptional, just 200 km / h. On top of that, the changes in the world ten years ago happened thanks to social media and the new way of communication. We all know everything, everyone can write what they want, where they want…

Host: Technology has changed the world, in fact, fundamentally.

Maxim Behar: Yes, the basis is technology, but the result is social media. And when we already have this gigantic flow of information and we can't separate and we can't decide what's important, what's not important, what's true, what's not true, or fake news. The fact that everyone can invent whatever they want, it creates a giant chaos in the whole flow of information. And you know, there are people, and we meet them all the time, some of whom say, "The coronavirus is fiction that only causes fear in people’s lives. Absurd." Others say, "There are 1,000 people infected." Others say, "No, there are 100 people infected." Fourth say "They pay people to be able to say that…", complete nonsense and complete chaos in information. I mention this in my book, so that everyone can determine their priorities, reconsider who can be trusted, how to check information, how to change their personal and working life. Of course, this is my point of view. I wrote The Morning After a month ago, and it came out in literally two weeks. If I was still writing it now, maybe I would add other things and it will develop even more, because for these ten days since it has been on the market, this is the second edition and I guess a third has already being printed. But the important thing is that all of us, with or without the book, should realize what is happening, how we should live from now on, how we should do business.

Host: Yes, but most experts, financial and economic experts predict a V-shaped, not a U-shaped crisis, i.e. crisis with a deep bottom, but with a rapid ascent. This means that tomorrow may come very soon, especially if the information about some vaccines is confirmed and these testing periods pass faster, then the world can return to normal or at least return to its previous state much faster, than foretold.

Maxim Behar: Life will never return to its previous state. Of course, there will be vaccines, there will be treatment, we will all be a little more confident. I hope we can meet as soon as possible, discuss together, communicate. However, it will never be the same because we have all reconsidered our priorities, the way we live, whether we could live with less money and less luxury, to think about the future in a completely different way, because only until the end of the year did we think that our the future is almost predetermined. "Yes, we will live, there will be some crises, but it will be a financial crisis."

Host: It can be compared to the Second World War to some extent, although the periods are different.

Maxim Behar: Yes, I do not want to compare it with wars, although there are many people in science who actually compare the 2020 pandemic with the Second, with the First World War, given the damage it has inflicted not only on people but the economy, as well as victims. But the world is different mainly because we have social media, and we are all informed by various random people. They cannot be regulated.

Host: So, aren't we also victims to a parallel infodemia, which is also talked about a lot and which may have a more avalanche-like development even than the curve of the virus itself?

Maxim Behar: We become victims if we do not know how to manage the flow of information we have.

Host: How should we manage it? Probably your book is focused on that.

Maxim Behar: Yes, of course there is a chapter that is focused on such matters. I think that first of all we are all victims of fake news. And it seems to me that the sooner governments, parliaments in the countries manage to criminalize fake news, this will somehow put them in a category where most people will rethink…

Host: It was suggested… The "Censorship" alarm will light up immediately.

Maxim Behar: Well, yes, this is not censorship.

Host: It's very subjective.

Maxim Behar: No, no, wait, this is not censorship when you publish fake news.

Host: Yes.

Maxim Behar: This is the prevention of a crime or a lie.

Host: It still has articles in the Penal Code on which fake and slanderous news can…

Maxim Behar: Probably. Yes, probably when someone suffers the consequences of being slandered. On the one hand, regulating fake news and actions that could deceive or damage us. On the other hand, everyone needs to build a system on how to protect themselves from the large flow of information. I will give you an example with cars, todays cars. 120 years ago, when Henry Ford introduced his petrol carriage, as it was called back then, and today a modern car, many people said, "There is no future. There is no way we can get petrol to fill it up. What if we broke the engine? Moreover, an accident can happen and kill a person. There is no future for this." Yes, but today we do not travel in carts, we drive our own cars and we know when to press the brake or the clutch, when to accelerate, when to stop, when to give priority on the road, i.e. We have rules that we follow, and this image is a bit close to our situation. I think it is quite adequate, and we must proceed in the same way with the news. We must know which ones to read, which are the sources that can tell us accurate news or not, which are the analytical sources. And in all this chaos we humans, Homo Sapiens, must participate actively to protect ourselves, to analyse, to be able to do our business differently. And this book we're talking about right now is really focused solely on leadership due to the fact that leaders are the ones who could help humanity a lot. But we all see leaders nowadays, political leaders…

Host: There is a very serious crisis of leadership worldwide.

Maxim Behar: We all can see that some leaders look like cartoons.

Host: Yes.

Maxim Behar: Like something we did 20 years ago, living in the time of Thatcher, Cole, Mitterrand…

Host: To Deng Xiaoping, even if you want.

Maxim Behar: Even Deng Xiaoping, a visionary.

Host: Yes.

Maxim Behar: And the leaders are the ones who should realize the importance of their responsibilities now in 2020. And in the future to be able to show, mainly in business, to people, to Homo Sapiens, to their colleagues, to their boards, to management structures, how to approach businesses in order to achieve success. This is a great subtlety, this is a great professionalism. While writing the book, I discovered the simple difference between a manager and a leader. Especially in the Bulgarian language it is so simple and so obvious - the manager manages, he has to manage, take risks, set rules to his people or even discipline them. Overall, he manages, but the leader guides. This is a prefix. Such a simple difference. The leader should not focus on…

Host: The leader is a strategist; the manager is a tactician.

Maxim Behar: You can say that, although the tactics can be shared or guided by the leader as well. But he has to be a visionary, to look at the big picture, the important things and to show both the management and his colleagues how they can move forward. These are very important issues. Business is suffering at the moment, business is at a crossroads and if there are literate people who can explain in simple, human, prepositional, predicate, complementary terms, without complicating, without such big scientific phrases, definitions and everything else, they can explain and tell the businessmen how they need to change in order to succeed. Not to mention caring for people, in the first place, definitely in a crisis. To every colleague, to every person. And from there, the opportunity to bring out every single positive trait of each of your colleagues, so that the company as a whole, as a team, can succeed.

Host: Yes, but the biggest global companies, metaphorically speaking, are the nations and especially the big nations. The current sanitary situation, as you say, will change everything. Also, people's lives and way of thinking. Is it possible for us to hope that people can sober up, sober up somehow, and start choosing people like the ones we mentioned before - Cole, Thatcher, Reagan, Kennedy, instead of the clowns and cartoon figures we talked about a while ago?

Maxim Behar: This will definitely happen. In my opinion, these people at the moment, the so-called leaders are transitional people, transitional leaders. These are the people of total chaos on social media, of total chaos in information who share and influence the public.

Host: Yes.

Maxim Behar: Because people who vote for their leaders are totally confused about who they can trust. Everyone who speaks random things 24/7, gets up in the morning and says one thing and before he goes to bed says something completely different, all these people will disappear.

Host: Isn't this the state of the so-called post-truth in which the emotional prevails over the rational?

Maxim Behar: Yes, but it is shared by the mass media. Because if we go back in time and remember this period from 15-20 years ago, who were the influential people? Television hosts, politicians, of course, athletes, showmen - those people who appeared "on television", because they were the only one who could use media. Whether it will be a newspaper, radio, and mostly television. You also have a vision, but these people were influential, and they influenced public opinion. Today's influential people use social media that reaches more users than TV does. There are billions of people from around the world. They take advantage of these media and they also take advantage of the fact that people are not totally oriented, and that's what I'm focused on in the book - who you should trust and how. It seems to me that this whole wave will be swept away in 10 years, and then we will all wake up and say, "Wait a minute, who are we choosing?".

Host: Maybe the role of journalism as a filter of information will return. I remember one time, when I was a student and we lived in another world, I was very impressed. I read one of the rules for recreating the BBC, which said something like that a journalist should be like a bank clerk and work with facts the way a bank clerk manages money, as if they are not his property.

Maxim Behar: That's right. That time will return. Maybe not in this type of journalism that we or our colleagues from the journalism faculty at the university imagine. They know that when they graduate, they will go to a newspaper, radio or television, journalism of intelligent, influential and trusted people will appear on social media. They will be influenced by journalists’ advices, analyses, comments and opinions. People who will also enter politics, because you can trust them. These people will write truths and accurate analyses, and I think they will have the opportunity to lead societies and make them better, to influence people and make them better. However, nowadays there are no such people.

Host: Well, now to quote some big headlines, large-scale burdens in the global exchange of information such as Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian. Do you trust these institutions as journalists?

Maxim Behar: Largely yes, because…

Host: I say right away, because there were some very curious, not even curious, but quite unambiguous comments about the situation in our country, which from this point of view were called "paid", "slanderous", etc. You are a global PR man.

Maxim Behar: No, they are not slanderous, nor paid.

Host: That's right, but that's how they were stated.

Maxim Behar: But they were nominated by people who first want to use some political dividends…

Host: People in power. Directly people in power.

Maxim Behar: Yes, of course. And they think that stating such thing … by the way, a lot of people can really believe them.

Host: Yes, I saw that many people believed them.

Maxim Behar: People who don't have access to global media and aren't interested in it say, "Of course, someone took out ? 1,000 and gave it to a journalist from The Guardian."

Host: A boy from close to the politicians said that it was actually very easy and actually not expensive at all to pay Der Spiegel, who we all know rules the world in one form or another. To pay Der Spiegel with a small amount and have him write what you want.

Maxim Behar: Well, this boy, I don't know who he is, he understands so much. It is not possible, these are institutions that have existed for decades, some of them hundreds and have their own regulations and laws. If, for example, you could buy Der Spiegel or Le Monde, or the New York Times, these institutions would not be called that, they would not exist. It is not possible. For example, Time Magazine would probably take money for one word, even for one comma. But these are institutions. I am talking about the new institutions that will appear and are already appearing and which have a much greater impact than the traditional institutions. Because if you post a video on YouTube, it reaches millions of times more people than an article in Time magazine, which is even paid media.

Host: But still the severity is different.

Maxim Behar: Yes, the severity is different, but also the target is different, i.e. the target is not massive. Time magazine or any other large institution is trusted by 1,000 people or 100,000 people. A potential number of billion people can access YouTube. And that's why it seems to me that the new leaders will use only social media. By the way, one of them, without calling him a new leader, from the White House, from Washington, uses only social media. There was a secretary of state, a businessman, I think he was the boss of a big oil company, I don't even remember his name, before this one, the previous secretary of state who said, "My job is very easy. I get up in the morning to read what the president wrote on Twitter and I know what my tasks will be today." On the one hand, this leads to great transparency within politics, but on the other hand, to a great risk of someone saying something stupid or writing something that is not correct … And this is happening more and more often. It seems to me that the new leaders will come from the new generation. These people, who are now 20 years old, the so-called Millennium, in 5-10 years will develop the ability to work with social media, and therefore influence and trust people.

Host: There is no way to escape from that in our country. And because it is precisely these people who are on the crest of the wave in the events that are taking place in the squares. Do you see such people, are there such people, will these people appear?

Maxim Behar: I’ve seen such people; they will appear one day and start leading. However, the problem is neither in these people, nor in the people who are currently leading and managing their communications and their messages in an inappropriate way.

Host: My next question is about the PR of the government.

Maxim Behar: I think that these people who are currently either in the squares or standing in front of their screens, behind their keyboards, their laptops and wish for better world, better, transparent, richer, happier Bulgaria, these people are stopped by the system itself. The system, which we still call democracy for some reason, does not work. I have been repeating this for years. In previous book, The Global PR Revolution, there is a whole chapter, maybe 30 pages about it. This system does not work. Even if the most qualified, intelligent, and capable person appears in the Council of Ministers or any ministry in Bulgaria, he will be instantly overshadowed, both by the system and by the political parties and the officials in that ministry or institution. The world needs to change completely, and I am a little disappointed and deceived by the fact that Donald Trump with his great abilities could break this system, and something new should be built from the very beginning.

Host: What could this new thing be? If the foundations of democracy are broken, what can come up?

Maxim Behar: I think a country could…

Host: The Chinese version?

Maxim Behar: No, no, no.

Host: One-party system, regulations, rapid explosion of the economy.

Maxim Behar: It seems to me that a country could be governed on the principle of a company or a large corporation. There is a board of directors, this board has a chairman or chief executive officer who…

Host: But how is he chosen? This is the question, is he appointed or elected?

Maxim Behar: The board of directors is elected by the shareholders. The shareholders in a country are all people. Hence the first prerequisite - if there are majoritarian elections, entirely and only majoritarian, based on concepts, visions, views, the parties themselves will disappear. The parties will disappear. Then the people, the shareholders, the public, the people elected by the masses - they will be the main shareholders who will elect the board of directors of a country, they will be able to gather according to the interests and wishes of that country and make it better. And if the CEO of the board fails, he will be able to leave immediately. Globally you have to wait 4-year elections, ballots (millions, tens of hundreds of millions).

Host: Well, but how is this system can be immune, this potential new system on the principle of shareholder political participation from corruption? How can it be vaccinated so that corruption can penetrate there, and everything can be tarnished very quickly?

Maxim Behar: No one in business has been vaccinated against corruption.

Host: Yes, even there is more possible.

Maxim Behar: Probably yes, because the control is weaker. However, that is why there are judges and a court.

Host: There must be a free judiciary.

Maxim Behar: There must be an independent court.

Host: Yes, but isn't it better to start from there?

Maxim Behar: Independent Prosecutor's Office.

Host: Ah, an independent prosecutor's office.

Maxim Behar: Are we talking about Bulgaria?

Host: Yes, of course. Whatever we talk about, we always talk about Bulgaria.

Maxim Behar: Globally the free system does not reflect at all on the changes in the way we elect our MPs or the way a country is governed. The judiciary, the prosecution, must be totally…

Host: The prosecutor's office should not be in the judiciary at all.

Maxim Behar: It must be in the country.

Host: Of course.

Maxim Behar: As in many countries, of course, the Minister of…

Host: This is called a lawyer of the people.

Maxim Behar: There the Minister of Justice is the Chief Prosecutor and things are easily resolved. By the way, in America, as far as I know, it is very well developed. With these jurors who are independent, who are anonymous, who are ordinary people and who already have the responsibility of deciding human destinies, and they are many enough that no one can influence others, or an amateur voice can influence an important sentence. But these are already details. More importantly, it seems to me that the parties are interfering and the election system itself is also so outdated, I can't imagine. You know, our whole life will change - a new way of communication, a new way of living, a new way of connecting with each other, exchanging visions, thoughts and everything else. Only the electoral systems and the party systems are the same as they were a hundred and a half years ago. This is not possible. Therefore, if the people from the squares, whether in Bulgaria, in Tel Aviv, in Prague or Warsaw, or in Paris, or anywhere, have to take on their role as leaders, they must first try to change the system. If not, this system will fail by itself. If the house is not pushed, the house itself will rot and fall by itself, but it will be a little late. I hope in our lives, and I am convinced, this will happen very soon.

Host: Okay, we're done, our time is running out. As a professional, as an expert, how do you see the PR of the jeep, which is practiced here every day in our country?

Maxim Behar: From my point of view, it is a failure. From my point of view, a prime minister must address his messages in a different way. In the Council of Ministers…

Host: He sent them until the public went after him, but then he went to the village and started sending messages from the jeep again.

Maxim Behar: However, my point of view does not necessarily coincide with the point of view of many people he meets or many people who watch shows on their phones on YouTube or Facebook. However, I think I would really like to see a little more serious messages, a little more serious attitude. Money cannot be distributed, so one person cannot be…

Host: I don't see anything right in that.

Maxim Behar: Whoever he is, one person cannot repair everything that breaks somewhere. This is not the modern government we have just talked about, quite the opposite. People in power must be serious, prepared, and educated.

Host: This leads me to the old idea of meritocracy, which, however, is difficult to implement.

Maxim Behar: Yes, it is almost impossible nowadays.

Host: It is utopian.

Maxim Behar: But we all know that some young people swam across the Atlantic with their handmade boat…

Host: Yes, father and son, an inspiring adventure.

Maxim Behar: They are having dinner at home tonight, as they are also my friends and we helped them a lot. When they invited us to dinner in their home, we saw the boat in the garage in the making, right at the beginning. And when they landed in Barbados, I sent Stefcho a message on Viber and told him "Swear that the first dinner will be at home." It will be tonight. The reason I am telling you that is that I watched Maxim Ivanov, 17 years old, at his school last day. According to a man who has swum across the Atlantic Ocean, Maxim has set a world record in the whole history for the age category under 17. They set several world records, but this is definite. And I said to myself, "That's the kind of example I want to have - a young man." The Prime Minister of Finland is 29 years old; the Prime Minister of New Zealand is 32-33 years old.

Host: The Canadian is also young.

Maxim Behar: But I do not want to take an example from other countries. I believe that Bulgaria has many, many intelligent people who would immediately govern our country in a good and very orderly way with a vision for the future.

Host: I hope so. Thank you for visiting.

Maxim Behar: It will happen, you know. It will happen very soon.

Host: I hope so too.

Maxim Behar: Thank you.

Watch the whole interview here.