How should you dress before meeting your future investors? This is a crucial question, and one that many people struggle with between casual chic and classic. The world of start-ups has changed the game.
7:30 am Beep Beep Beep Beep. But you're already awake. In two hours, you'll be pitching to an investment fund. Computer, printed presentations, business cards, everything is ready. So, here we go: get up, shower, get dressed... Getting dressed? The question you never even asked yourself! What dress code would be best suited for a fundraiser?
You opt for your usual casual chic outfit: blue jeans, black jacket, white shirt. Verdict in front of the mirror. Your burgeoning beard looks more sloppy than stylish. Your shirt fits but needs ironing. Sneakers or black shoes? You imagine yourself shaking hands with wolves from Goldman Sachs. Faced with their black shoes with light leather, your white sneakers are a stain. You hesitate... Laura! She'll know! Laura is your partner. You whatsapp her:
You: Hello. what do I wear ?
Laura: This is crazy!
Laura: Classy, clean what. Put on your nice shirt.
You: OKAY. OKAY. We meet 15mn before.
Laura omitted to say to you that, the evening before, she tried out all the clothes and all her moods. When she takes off, her sofa is still strewn with clothes. You opt for sneakers, iron your shirt and shave your beard.
Dress codes have changed. Especially since the institution of Friday wear: every Friday, the traders of the trading rooms have traded their suits for a pair of jeans and polo shirts. Everything has become more casual. Even at Goldman Sachs. But today, as before, you have to navigate between two reefs: overdressed and underdressed. The worst is often the first.
It's all the more complicated because dressing up has become a way to assert one's personality.
Since the codes have become more flexible, the choices are multiplying. And that slows us down. Before, the executive was assisted. An assistant took his train ticket, booked his hotel, filled out his expense reports. He could concentrate on his work. Everything was taken care of.
Today, he does everything himself. Even if he is rigorous, he tends to forget things. Overbooked, he feels he is never in control. Part of his already cluttered processor is taken up with lots of micro-decisions that keep him from focusing on the big ones. As Roy Baumeister, a social psychology researcher at Florida State University, says, "Successful people don't make better decisions through willpower. Rather, they develop habits that reduce the number of decisions they have to make and, therefore, stress. "
So if Mark Zuckerberg is always in a hoodie, it's to avoid what consultants call "decision fatigue. Among the micro-decisions of everyday life, the CEO of Facebook decided not to have to think about his outfit. So it's more of a strategy than a provocation.
So go ahead. In the face of private equity, dare to wear a hoodie!
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