Your Competence Is More Valuable With a Healthy Dose of Confidence
We Overestimate Our Abilities and Underestimate the Abilities of Others
In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, at Cornell University did a series of psychological experiments studying our sense of humor and demonstrated that most of us overestimate our skills and knowledge, and we underestimate our weaknesses. Since that seminal experiment, researchers across many knowledge and skill domains have replicated the results and while there is evidence that the effects differ by culture, the impact on our behavior and the results that we get are immense. It has also been proven across many, many domains of competence. There is a mathematical pattern that shows up that, when overlayed on a graph of our actual competence building (what I call the Competence Continuum,) it looks like this:
The large blue peak on the left represents what has become known as “Stupid Mountain.” It represents this peak of confidence whenever we are exposed to a new domain of skill or knowledge. We charge into most domains with way more confidence than we should have and quickly realize how much we don’t know. The first trough, described by Dunning and Kruger, is often referred to as the “Trough of Despair.” Many people quit after they hit the trough. But if the skill or knowledge is important enough to you, you will dig in, learn it, apply it and over time, achieve some degree of mastery, represented by the red-dotted line.
I draw the confidence curve as an oscillating pattern that goes above and below our actual level of measurable competence. In my experience with teams, it is rare that our confidence levels perfectly match our competence levels. When we are operating with our confidence in the space above the competence line (shaded with blue) we can say that we are over-confident and have to work to keep our collective egos in check. When we are operating with our confidence below the competence line (shaded in green with lines,) we can say that we might have a case of impostor syndrome. The oscillations in the line diminish as we approach true mastery, but the best teams are always learning and working to reduce the oscillations between these lines. I added the 10,000-hour line in reference to the aptly titled chapter in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers” in which he describes a general rule of thumb to be considered by others, a “master” in any domain. The most successful entrepreneurs I have met, ride this line masterfully.
Success
I have met many business leaders and entrepreneurs in my travels and career. The successful ones are those who know how to ride this line of competence and confidence masterfully. If leadership is about leading people to create something that didn’t exist before, you have to have a bold vision of the future to step into. Some level of confidence in the face of the unknowns is needed to rally the team and inspire authentic competence building. Every team needs to have some confidence before you work to build the competence of your team to actually achieve it. The right visions and an environment where people can safely experiment, grow and learn can lead to unbelievable accomplishments. On the flip-side, I have seen dramatic failures when over-confidence is taken to the extreme and teams are sent on death marches with no chance of success in their future. This is often because their leaders are either not aware of their confidence levels or not focused on powerfully growing their people and teams along the way. It is important to keep a healthy pulse on your team’s actual confidence so that you can ride the line masterfully.
References:
The Dunning Kruger Effect: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect
Replicated Results across many Domains:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/overestimate
Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
How We Learn, by Benedict Carey:
https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Learn-Surprising-Happens/dp/0812984293
