The Skeptic

Have you seen that movie Contact (1997). Has one of my favorite actors, Jodi Foster. I love that movie. It's got a message, a beautiful one, but scary nonetheless.... Every time you discover something new, depending on how radical your findings are, the opposition you receive is equally proportional. This leads to another thought, we human beings always tend to support existing rules more and have an aversion to new or radically ideas or thoughts.

The more you try to bring in a change, the stronger people will resist it. Often to the point, that logical explanations would be called lies or delusions of your mind.

So does that mean that I start being skeptic as well?

Think for a moment. How do we grow and evolve? How do we find new things? How do we create new things?

It all starts with a new and at times radical idea. If we all had followed the same rule over and over and over again, I guess we would still be living in forests and eating raw meat. So it's essential that we accept changes and be open to them. But only if things were as simple...

Consider this scenario - as part of my new job, I meet a lot of people. I tell them how to do a few things in a certain way, and how to improve the existing processes. I certainly don't have a degree in process optimization, but I make my presentations and a few people seem to like it.

So I recently met this gentleman who's a Regional Sales Manager with an electric equipment manufacturer. He told me his problem and I proposed a solution. He liked the idea of getting an outsider's view and agreed to let me help. I would obviously be paid a certain agreed amount if it worked, and a certain agreed minimum amount if he called off the whole project or did not like the results.

So that's how it started. After some two weeks of analysis of some data I felt were relevant, I suggested the necessary changes. And voila, the skeptic shows up. One of the people affected by my recommendations raised an objection. I presented the necessary facts based on the data collected and the mutually agreed assumptions. Very late into the discussions and after some two hours of long conversation I found out that the only reason he objected was because he thought that my Ideas were too radical. No one's ever tried it before. Maybe it works in the outsourcing industry, does not mean it will work equally well in the manufacturing industry. It is bound to fail. We reasoned a little and with a little help was able to convince, or let me admit, arm-twist him into doing it.

That brings me back to the original question, why resist something you don't really know about?

Is it really a part of our nature? Or is it the risk involved that stops us from trying new ideas?

Even after questioning myself so many times, I can't really reach a conclusion. Even I do the same thing every now n then. I just wrote a whole article on this topic, but I know that when I go the restaurant tonight, I will order my tried and tested dishes and the same good old drink I order every single time. Until the day, the Chef comes out and says that the new dish he added to the menu is just wonderful. Everybody liked it. I will like it too...

Wait a minute, that answers my question... Did it answer yours?