How to deal with other people's words

video https://youtu.be/aCouGYysRMU

Slides PDF How to deal with other people’s words 2020-06-13 Unexplored Junior Boost Conference NISHIO Hirokazu

Let many people know Often beneficial to project objectives

When many people know… Increases the probability of encountering people who react negatively.

• Positive responses include: “Interesting! “Fun!”
• People who respond negatively “boring” or “crap”.

Need to be able to go through it. Let’s learn to “not care” and “not take it so seriously.”

• If you take negative reactions seriously, they hurt you.
• be demotivated
• The project will not move forward.
• You are exposed to the virus of the word “boring,” and even you are infected with the feeling of being boring
• It is beneficial to “not take it too seriously.”

Parable of the Summer Cicadas Cicadas are loud and noisy in the summer.

• It’s not your fault the cicadas are noisy.
• Even after killing a few cicadas, there are still plenty of them, and they come out every year.
• Cicadas chirping in summer” is just a natural phenomenon.
• The “negative people when many people know about it” is just a natural phenomenon, don’t worry about it.

Do you want to argue?

• Especially when they’re saying things that aren’t right, you want to argue with them and say, “No, sir, you’re misguided.
• Some people may (or may not) change their minds when I argue with them.
• Those whose goal is to deny the project…

If they argue, they go to someone else. It’s all about denial.

Lost time never comes back.

Putting all my energy into my projects More beneficial to the project than refuting

Afraid of a negative reaction? Knowledge is the antidote to fear.

The parable of the frightened cat Aggressive people are like cats.

• A frightened cat tries to appear bigger, louder, and makes aggressive noises
• People who try to make themselves look big and make loud, aggressive comments resemble frightened cats.
• If you put your hand out, you’ll get bit.

Monarch Morality and Slave Morality Nietzsche pointed out that there are two different ideas of “goodness.”

• Herrenmoral (master morality, as a philosophical concept of Nietzsche)
  • Is it beneficial to the realization of the objectives?
  • Beneficial is good, harmful is bad.
• Sklavenmoral (slave morality, as a philosophical concept of Nietzsche)
  • Majority is good.
  • Bad because there are few monarchs or other rulers.
  • Good because they are the majority who are governed.

• Monarch Morality and Slave Morality (continued) Power and Equality

• Rulers have the power, we don’t.

  • → Having power is bad.
  • →It is bad that only a few people have power, equality is good.

• What exactly is power?

  • Programming skills, $500,000 budget, fast PCs, support from mentors, ability to attract an audience for results reporting sessions…
  • Beneficial for achieving project objectives

Empowering a select few. Good? Bad? (Monarch Moralist) Good because it is beneficial to the realization of the project’s objectives. (It’s not fair! Not equal! Not good! (Monarch Moralist) 500,000 x 12 projects is 6 million, there are 3 million high school students in the country, if you distribute equally to all of them, 2 yen per person, you won’t get anything done…

Monarch Morality and Slave Morality (Summary) Discussions with people who have different definitions of “goodness” are futile.

• For those who believe in the slave morality that “the majority is good,” the existence of a few selected unexplored juniors is evil in itself.
• Fundamentally unaffectionate ideology
  • = waste of time arguing about it.
  • = Not beneficial to the achievement of the project’s objectives

appendix

• So far we’ve talked about negative reactions.
• Talk about related positive reactions (advice, etc.)

You decide what is a useful opinion. Advice often misses the mark

• You understand the purpose of the project better than anyone else in the world.
• Compared to you who have thought about the project for dozens of hours, people who have only spent a few minutes to a few hours are not very good at understanding the project.
• The advice I got may be misguided.
• Let’s only do what you think is “beneficial” to you.
• When someone says to you, “You should do X,” and you do it without thinking for yourself, others will ask you, “Why did you do X?” When other people ask you, “Why did you do X?“…

Ask questions and get more information! To get a better idea of whether the comments are useful or not

• Example, “You should change it.”
  • →What? To what? How do you change it?
• Example, “You should change X to Y.”
  • I don’t know what problem you are trying to solve by making the change.
    • →Why? “What problem does the change solve?”
  • I don’t see how solving that problem relates to the project’s objectives.
    • →Why? “How does this relate to the project objectives?”

summary

• Need to be able to go through it.
• Lost time never comes back.
• Parable of the Summer Cicadas
• The parable of the frightened cat
• Discussions with people who have different definitions of “goodness” are futile.
• You decide what is useful advice.

References book

• Design Critique for Everyone: A Guide to Improving Collaboration and Communication to Achieve Your Goals

• Beyond Good and Evil

• Baltasar Gracián’s Philosophy of Success

• How to deal with other people’s words pre-writing memo

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