Kat: "you can't hang on to baby sentences and in the same way baby scenes... you can't have babies... means to an end. it's brutal"
me: hahaha kat that's so profound
Kat: "i didn't make that up... that's what we were told on the first day of newsroom class... and yet, people held on to babies in their reports... and got brutally edited"
These were the content of a conversation Kat and I were having a few weeks back. It was loosely about being able to suck up criticism and be making necessary changes. Well, this thought floated back to my mind now that I am finally done with the coordination of pitch training for the top 11 startups who are going to pitch at this event that I am organizing.
I noticed a trend (non-significant since it was only out of 11 startups) who had flashy decks and they were unusually resistant to feedback that Aneace dispensed. The result was that they made minimal changes to their deck which were merely cosmetic changes that does not include the fundamental elements that Aneace earlier suggested .
And this resistance was so obviously displayed by a startup asking Aneace, "so... what further advice would you give me on my deck... other than just changing the slides?". That question was posed after half an hour of suggestions from Aneace to improve on the startup's supposedly revised deck (which looked no different from the original deck)
It was really the cutest question ever!
The person was very obviously impervious to suggestions could lead to the possible detriment of his pitch.
I cannot comment as to whether I think it's wise or not for the person to listen to Aneace since I am not a VC with intrinsic interest in the value of the product, and neither have I participated in similar pitching competitions.
What really intrigued me was the resistance to change. It made me think about how erroneous it is to be unreceptive to change. I mean that's pretty obvious problem since there ARE self-help books targeting that problem and also Kat's advise on 'not holding on to babies'.
It seems unintuitive for humans to be so non-adaptive as to not take advise for a problem they have not begun to realise. Even when the problem is explicitly expounded (in this case Aneace stated the problems), it is pretty clear that the persons has just shut-down and decided to pick up only information that supported their own ideas. Interesting..
So what are the solutions which would make this advise-giving possible? What kind of approach should Aneace have adopted with these startups? How could he have identified them and thus the approach to use to reduce the resistance towards his advise?
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On a separate note, I was at my friend's place after dinner and he has this adorable nephew who refused to play with us 'strangers'.
I believe that baby is only a little more than a year old and what I couldn't help thinking was how the baby was able to discriminate familiars and strangers very quickly. It's like humans have an in-built mechanism for biasness. Sure, we have a very developed area in our brains (fusiform gyrus) that is dedicated to the differentiating of faces. And it seems that this ability to discriminate is this precursor for exclusion, leading to selfishness, prejudice, racism, chauvinism... the list goes on..
So to what extent can we forgive discriminatory behaviour as just purely human nature? To what extent should the behaviour be modified? What kind of re-education is needed for extensive prejudice?
Hmmmsss... there ARE interesting psychology papers on prejudice and stuff. Those that I mostly read upon (or remember) are about priming and Implicit Associations. Can't remember if there's anything about the amelioration of these behaviours.
okay, neither are anything new. Just random thought that blab out throughout the day. no wonder im so distracted.
i was giving thought about my supposed 'stoning behaviour' and i realised that it appears more often when i have more thoughts in my mind which makes me unfoccused in the present. It's sth worth investigating this whole thing about stoning. Or maybe a better word is 'daydreaming'.
I should find out if there's any lit on daydreaming. could be a possible thesis topic :P
