Navigating the noise - change leadership in the age of engineered beliefs
Political strategists don't care what you think - they want to know what you can be led to believe.
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This issue in 20 seconds 🧭
- 🎤 Bridging Disciplines for Progress — In speaking engagements Ralph notes that every audience is seeking clarity and direction amid rapid change. True progress now depends on blending technology, economics, and human behavior.
- 🌐 Purpose of S3T — The S3T newsletter and podcast aim to help leaders see the larger pattern, find direction in complexity, and act with confidence by combining diverse “sets” of expertise.
- 🗳️ Elections Signal Shift — Recent U.S. local elections showed strong wins for progressive candidates, reflecting a possible turn toward pragmatic progressivism and prompting GOP reflection on voter priorities.
- 🧠 Manufacturing Consent Revisited — Drawing on Chomsky and Herman’s classic work, the issue explores how today’s AI-driven platforms amplify persuasion, using data from our streaming and social habits to shape beliefs and behaviors.
- 🎯 Modern Political Strategy — Political operatives don’t just seek to persuade but to profile, target, and even marginalize voters by exploiting emotional cues from digital behavior—revealing how easily perceptions can be engineered.
- 🧵 Change Leadership Mindset — The “Life as a Tapestry” segment encourages leaders to embrace multifaceted responsibilities, balancing today’s demands with tomorrow’s designs, and redefining focus as integration rather than exclusion.
Are you S3T?
Week before last, I spoke at an industry conference on AI in healthcare, and next week I’ll be speaking at a university faculty conference on Artificial General Intelligence. Across these very different audiences, one thing stands out: everyone is searching for a way forward — to have a positive impact, to adapt intelligently, and to lead effectively through rapid change.
In every room I step into, I sense the same urgency: people want to know what to do next — how to cope, strategize, and take meaningful action in a world where familiar playbooks no longer work. That’s what excites me most about speaking and engaging with leaders and innovators today.
The answers are out there — but they’re not always obvious. Many of the specialized disciplines that once helped us avoid missteps and seize opportunities can no longer deliver the full picture on their own. Real progress now depends on our ability to blend expertise across disciplines — connecting insights from technology, economics, and human behavior — to find clarity and momentum.
That’s the core of what I help audiences do: see the larger pattern, find direction amid complexity, and move forward with confidence.
It’s also the inspiration behind my newsletter and podcast, S3T — named for the power of combining SETs of skills and perspectives to accelerate beneficial change. I hope you'll sign up today, and if you've already signed up please consider sharing the newsletter and podcast with a friend so we can help others learn and get S3T for success as well.
Ralph
P.S. You can DM me on LinkedIn if you'd like to book me for a speaking engagement.
[perspective]
Mid-Term Elections & the modern manufacturing of consent
This week US voters across the country turned out for local elections. Cost of living emerged as a dominant issue, with the shutdown weighing heavily on people's minds. In nearly all the races the more progressive candidates appeared to win easily. Virgina's new governor Abigail Spanberger cast the results as a shift toward progressive pragmatism while NY Mayor elect Mamdani claimed a mandate for change. All of this leaves the GOP to consider whether their hard right ideology is no longer what matters most to voters.
Latest analysis on results, campaigns and voter behavior here:
- Sabato's Crystal Ball - Forecasts of election trends and winners from the Center for Politics
- Split Ticket - Excellent charts and analysis of US local and national elections
- Pew Research Center - surprising racial and ethnic diversity data from the 2024 election
SO it seems appropriate from 2 lenses, the results of this week's election and of course the upcoming midterms to look at the latest research and data on how the actions and beliefs of voters are shaped in the modern age. Today's AI powered communication platforms make large scale messaging and even manipulation more cost-effective than ever. But how many of us understand how that even works?
Getting ready for 2026
By this time next year, the US Mid Term Elections will be over. Meticulous planning and positioning is already underway to sway voters. See BallotReady's 2026 midterms in 6 charts.
So let's do deep dive into the way modern media and technologies are used to generate political viewpoints.
In their 1998 book, In Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued that mass media was essentially a powerful propaganda system that shaped public opinion to align with elite interests. This was done not by overt censorship but via selective framing, repetition, and omission.
Today’s digital tracking and algorithmic profiling supercharge this process—allowing political strategists to micro-target individuals with personalized narratives that exploit their emotions and biases, not to persuade them of truth, but to test and determine what they can be led to believe.
Citizens from all sides of the political spectrum often shake their heads in disbelief to see what their fellow-citizens - neighbors, family members, co-workers can be persuaded to vote for.
They wonder in amazement: How could they possibly have been duped into voting for (insert political party or candidate here)???
Where do political strategists get the insights they need to persuade voters so convincingly?
The answer is in your living room and in your pocket. As shared in the research below, insights from the our media consumption (streaming, social media scrolling) reveal way more than we realize. Marketing and political data analytics have advanced rapidly, and US voters have not kept up with just how sophisticated political opinion-making has become.
Consider all the clues available to someone who knows the following:
- What kind of shows you watch (dystopian themes? cooking shows?)
- How many episodes you binge-watch
- What you search for when you plop down on the couch
- Whether you watch only one news channel or several different ones
- What do you watch on your phone vs your TV or other devices?
- What do you pay for?
Even when we think we’re immune to persuasion, we may still be strategically influenced—just not in the direction we expected.
When strategists realize a voter won’t be persuaded to support their candidate, they shift tactics from conversion to marginalization through distraction, disillusionment, or division.
Today more than ever it is vital to inform ourselves about these not very well understood, but powerful techniques.
Political strategists don't care what you think - they want to know what you can be led to believe.
As change leaders, we want to understand this issue, and help others understand it as well, so we can make more intentional choices. To help spread the word, consider sharing the following summary of latest voter psychology research with your friends and colleagues:
📺 S3T Perspective: What your streaming and scrolling habits reveal to political strategists
This S3T Perspective is a summary with links to in-depth research on how our binge-watching and scrolling habits teach political strategists which manipulative messages we're most vulnerable to.
Resources for your Annual Reviews & Goals
- The Question Top Managers Ask During Performance Reviews
- Signaling and Perspective Taking During Annual Reviews
- Incorporating Change Leadership into your Annual Reviews and Goals
[change leadership learning series]
Change Leadership mindset: life as a tapestry
Embracing the multi-threaded nature of life is especially vital for change leaders who must often juggle responsibilities for today's operations, while designing and building the capabilities of tomorrow.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that focus, and prioritization and getting rid of the non-essentials is the way to succeed - and there's an element of truth to that.
But how you apply this principle makes all the difference.
Click the link above to access this week's Change Leadership learning segment and learn a better way to think about your less than perfectly focused life.
Opinions expressed are those of the individuals and do not reflect the official positions of companies or organizations those individuals may be affiliated with. Not financial, investment or legal advice, and no offers for securities or investment opportunities are intended. Mentions should not be construed as endorsements. Authors or guests may hold assets discussed or may have interests in companies mentioned.
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