Not only is there no succession debate, there is no factional bickering in Zanu PF. There is only strategic distraction. And the media is supporting this by setting the agenda for what the nation will think and talk about.
Opinion: Thembe Khumalo
This is the message I took away from a presentation made by Brian Kagoro on Wednesday.
He was speaking at a workshop on freedom of expression and access to information within Zimbabwe’s electoral cycle.
Kagoro’s thesis is that the current hullabaloo about factions is in the same vein as the hubbub that was created around Baba Jukwa (remember him?) ahead of the 2013 elections: A ploy to capture the attention of the nation, get them focused on non-issues so that they don’t concentrate on what is important; or think deeply about the things that matter.
I don’t know if Kagoro is right or wrong, and I don’t necessarily want to have a political discussion today.
What I do know is this; that the attention of audiences and consumers is the most valuable commodity to anyone selling anything — whether it be a product, service or ideology, if you are looking for customers, fans or followers, or even votes, the thing you must control in the information age is attention.
I also know that the greatest threat to the success of anything is distraction — whether you are an athlete, an entrepreneur or a regular Themba trying to move his life along from A to B, if you cannot resist distraction, your project will fail.
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Information overload is something we hear about and are vaguely aware of, but not something we take very seriously.
After all, we came from a generation where multi-tasking was considered a good thing, and those who chose to handle many things all at once were thought to be clever.
Now we know better. We have learnt that multi-tasking actually makes you stupid, and that you get less done when you are trying to do more than one thing at a time.
A McKinsey Global Institute study found that the average office worker spends 13 hours a week on email.
That’s more than two hours out of every work day!
It wouldn’t be so bad if that two hours was being consumed all in one chunk each day, but it’s not.
It is taken in little nibbles out of other projects where the mind cannot stay focused long enough to complete a task without breaking.
That’s bad news for our brain power.
Juggling between tasks not only slows you down on each task, but can reduce your IQ by as much as 10 points, it can have the same effect as losing a whole night of sleep, causes mental blanks, and can compromise your productivity by up to 40%.
I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t afford a 10-point drop in my IQ score!
I recently discovered the phrase monomaniacal focus (I have clever friends, who actually use words like this in regular daily conversation).
It describes a concerted focus on one idea, one goal, and is now touted as the new formula for success.
Monomaniacal focus is the kind of attention the Wright brothers paid to flying, or the Williams sisters pay to tennis.
Notice how those of us who don’t have this level of focus quickly we get distracted from Serena’s tennis prowess to her nude cover for the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine?
The publishers of Vanity Fair have no sinister agenda for taking your attention away from sport and onto her personal life, except their own monomaniacal focus on sales.
Capturing our attention is how they make their money.
In fact, capturing our attention is how many organisations, even those outside of the media space are making, not just money, but also impact.
So, if, in fact Kagoro’s assertions are correct, then the ruling party is employing a strategy very similar to that of Vanity Fair. It is capturing our attention in order to achieve its end goal — to prevent us from asking uncomfortable questions?
No one knows how to employ the public attention better than social media kings and queens.
According to adweek.com, the average person will spend more than five years of their lives on social media. The likes of Kim Kardashian rely on our capacity for distraction for their success.
And we, gullibly, willingly, surrender that attention to them, thinking we are being entertained.
But no one buys a ticket to get onto Twitter or WhatsApp the way you buy a ticket to watch a play or a music concert.
Most people aren’t scheduling bookings to spend time checking out their friends and rivals’ feed on Facebook or Instagram.
That time is being stolen —sneakily converted from productive hours into days and weeks and months’ worth of valuable attention.
This doesn’t apply to other people. It applies to you and to me. How many of us have gone onto YouTube to watch a specific useful thing, say a TED talk, or a message from a favourite motivational speaker; and yet found ourselves diverted to that irritating scholarship advert, or the one for luxury cars we will never afford.
Or worse still, to some other video telling us how to grow our hair or how to bake banana bread without bananas.
Because, once long ago you enquired about these things, and the internet has a long memory.
Watch what you want to watch not what you are being distracted into watching.
Think about this next time you are enticed by a story about fighting factions.
The headlines are telling you not just what to think about — but more importantly what the headlines aren’t saying is telling you what not to think about!
The battle for the attention of the nation is on.
Thembe Khumalo is a brand-builder, storyteller and social entrepreneur. Find out more on www.thembekhumalo.com or follow her social media accounts @thembekhumalo
