Day 103 in MIT Sloan Fellows Class 2023, Choice point "Shooting an Elephant"
What is "choice point"?
Choice points are the dilemmas and decisions we face in complex situations.
Navigating complex situations requires deep insight into human behaviour - your own and others' .
Great art is psychologically true to the human experience. We can replicate a lot of frictions in real life by reading fiction.
Unique points
This course is pretty unique in terms of its stance.
- It doesn't aim a clear step. It encourage you accept complex situation as it is.
- This course uses the old but legendary novels , dramas and musicals as textbooks.
- It's among only Sloan Fellows and Significant Others. So it secure incredible psychological safety.
Why I chose Choice point?
- Scifi novel would be a tremendous experimental environment to simulate my decision
- Sounds very unique and unforgettable
- Enable to involve significant others (wife)
The first class
Shooting an Elephant | The Orwell Foundation
We talked about non-fiction from George Orwell.
In a nutshell, this story is about a boy struggling with a gap between his internal voice and expectations from others.
He did not want to kill animals, especially large ones such as elephants. However, the pressure from the local people and the systematic duty of imperial guard push him to the wrong position, and finally, he stopped thinking.
It's extremely difficult to follow your authentic opinion because today's business has a lot of stakeholders, and sometimes leaders lose even their honest own opinions.
My takeaway from this story is the importance of taking back and trying to hear your internal opinion. Then, please take a moment to look through the situation carefully. Don't be upset about making a stupid decision.
Also, we reviewed Rilke's letters, and it captures the spirit “live the questions”.
I'm going to leave his quote as the summary of my takeaway.
“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”
