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People value confidence over competency. If you always question things because you known enough to know that you don't know enough, people aren't going to take
by j_m_b 9y ago
People value confidence over competency. If you always question things because you known enough to know that you don't know enough, people aren't going to take you very seriously. Better for yourself if you fake it till you make it. At least then you will have opportunities to advance in life. I rather suffer from Dunning-Kruger than impostor syndrome.
- jcadam 9y agoAbsolutely. You've no idea the number of times I've sat in a meeting and watched someone who clearly had no idea WTF he was talking about sway a decision maker because he presented his BS (and also swatted down more knowledgeable dissenters) with extreme confidence.
- marnett 9y agowhat is the best way to combat individuals like this? People that swat down ideas with fallacies of logic, etc.
- albertgoeswoof 9y agoLearn what their goals and objectives are and position your solution to go after that. Use tricks like “that’s a great idea, my only concern is that it might fail in X scenario, Y solution is similar but doesn’t suffer from that specific issue. What do you think?”
- ryandrake 9y agoThis is probably the one and only "work scenario" I've seen play out again and again at every company I've ever worked at, without exception. These people are everywhere.
- albertgoeswoof 9y agoI have never seen this... which makes me wonder if I am the one BSing
- Terr_ 9y agoYou might be working in a sector that they don't consider sexy and exploitable enough.
- ithkuil 9y ago> At least then you will have opportunities to advance in life. but then as you advance, as you acquire more skills, you also improve your ability to gauge your own competence. so, clearly your only option is to not progress in life at all, or you risk ending up with your dreaded impostor syndrome /s
- crdoconnor 9y agoPeople don't value confidence over competence, they just use confidence as a proxy for competence where they don't have the competence to judge your competence.
- BeetleB 9y ago>People don't value confidence over competence, they just use confidence as a proxy for competence where they don't have the competence to judge your competence. You can have it both ways. I've seen competent people go ahead with someone's cocky ideas because their confidence was so strong that they suspected their was probably a gap in their own understanding, and so they put aside their own doubts.
- jopsen 9y agoSometimes being "young and naive" is a good thing. After all if you start projects with a YES attitude you are more likely to complete the projects, than if you don't start any projects because of your NO attitude. Sometimes == not always; being competent is generally good thing :)
- BeetleB 9y agoI wonder how true this is if your project does not involve anyone but you. I always suspected such people succeeded more with that attitude because others are more likely to help them. The attitude gives people a signal of likelihood of success, so they are willing to put in more to help them. People often decline to help others if they think failure is likely. I'm sure the YES attitude does help you a bit internally, but I suspect most of the gain is in others helping you than you somehow performing better.
- jopsen 9y agoWell, my point was also that: If you don't start, you'll never finish. It's logically obvious :) Sometimes getting started is half the battle, and sometimes we over estimate how much we need to think before we jump.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoThis is related to a different effect, which is even more dangerous than DK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Fox_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Fox_effect Humans cannot evaluate competence objectively without formal performance testing. (And sometimes not even then.) But we can evaluate confidence, charm, persuasiveness, and social proof. So we tend to use them as a proxy, and choose leaders who lack competence but can demonstrate them, over leaders with genuine competence who can't. This is a very bad thing, and possibly the single biggest cause of political, social, and economic problems in our history.
- 77pt77 9y agoThe Dr. Fox Effect should be called the Lacan effect since he pushed it to the limit.