Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Join James and Coby from Roman 3 as they diagnose issues and prescribe solutions to today's most important workplace challenges.
Diagnosing The Workplace: Not Just An HR Podcast
Why Do Incompetent People Think They’re Great?
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This episode touches on the theme of Practical Psychology and Developing Leaders.
In this episode, we explore the Dunning–Kruger Effect and the "why" behind overconfidence and the blind spots it creates. We dig into how the Dunning–Kruger Effect impacts workplace culture and leadership.
Our prescription for this episode is to prioritize curiosity in both our workplace expectations and in our own expectations for ourselves. We want to reward the curious and push back against certainty.
Past Episode Referenced:
S2 E9: What Happens When Businesses Counterfeit Psychological Safety?
S4 E7:Leadership Tips - Communication, Transforming Behavior, Bringing Solutions
To talk more about management training, reach out to us at info@roman3.ca or through our LinkedIn page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/roman3
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About Our Hosts!
James is an experienced business coach with a specialization in HR management and talent attraction and retention.
Coby is a skilled educator and has an extensive background in building workforce and organizational capacity.
For a little more on our ideas and concepts, check out our Knowledge Suite or our YouTube Channel, Solutions Explained by Roman 3.
Breaking down everyday workplace issues and diagnosing the hidden sickness, not just the obvious symptom. Our hosts, James and Coby.
[COBY]:Did we lose a patient?
[JAMES]:No, that's just my lunch.
[COBY]:Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm Coby, he's James, and let's get started with a question. Why do incompetent people think they're great?
[JAMES]:yeah, okay. First of all, I really need people to know that I showed up to record a podcast today and just got hit by this question, or hit with this question by Coby, and I'm feeling personally attacked right now. Also, P.S. i am actually great. but really, in all seriousness, though, the. The biggest contributor that I see as to why there's so. So many people in so many different positions who just seem wholly unqualified for the role that they have is because our recruitment processes largely reward confidence over competence. So what I kind of want to dig into in our conversation today is why is this so widespread? How does this. Specifically, I want to dig into how it, impacts leaders and leadership and ultimately, what on earth can we do about this?
[COBY]:Yeah, fair assumption to assume that I would be airing our dirty laundry on the podcast.
[JAMES]:Oh, yeah, no, I. I totally took this whole thing as just a dig at me because everything's about me, isn't it?
[COBY]:Of course. What else would it be? no, this is going to be a good episode to dig into some of this kind of psychology, aspects of kind of, like digging into some bias. Dig into some things about where overconfidence comes from, and kind of dig into some of. The. Kind of. Some of the misjudged, misjudgment that people have around their own kind of Their own abilities and their own competencies. So one thing that we are going to dig into, I just want to introduce it now because it will probably come up and I'll probably mispronounce it a few times during it. So I'm intentionally trying to pronounce it correctly right now. What of the things we're going to talk about is a psychology effect known as the dunning cougar effect. And this is about the idea that people with lower competence tend to overestimate their abilities because of their lack of, they lack the skills to recognize their own gaps. It really. It really is a. It's a cognitive bias that individuals with limited knowledge or competencies in a particular area or domain or really overestimate their own knowledge or skill because the idea that it leads to, like, misplaced confidence where a beginner may believe They've mastered a subject after only learning a small amount. It's the idea of they, they, they know so little that they don't understand the full intricacies, the full nuances, the full sophistication of something. So in their narrow understanding of this area that they're trying to develop skill in, they, it's, it's so limited. So they see that they've, that it's a much smaller thing that actually is. So they assume that they are doing well in it because they don't know enough to know that they're not.
[JAMES]:Yeah. So two things before we jump into the conversation. One is I'm intentionally going to try to refer to this as the Freddy Krueger effect just to mess you up as just purely out of spite for asking this question in the first place. Fair. But the second one, what, what's funny, what came up for me as you were kind of describing, ah, the Dunning Kruger effect. Right, that's, that's okay. I, I probably shouldn't intentionally mislead, our listeners, but if they're taking me seriously, they've already gone down the wrong road. I, I see this with like, the example that immediately jumps to mind is simple, but, but it's around Excel, like, because I've heard so many people say I am proficient with Excel. I am like, I have mastered Excel. And they talk about it and they understand what Vlookup is. Right. Excel is a program that is incredibly powerful and to actually truly master, you can do some pretty crazy things, with it if you really understand it. I'm decent with Excel. I enjoy playing with spreadsheets. I understand how to manipulate them fairly well. I know enough though to know that I'm not actually proficient with it. I'm just decently good. Like, it's, it's that idea of the more you learn about a subject, the more you understand that you don't actually know an awful lot about that subject. So that idea that your knowledge stops at a very superficial level because, you know, don't investigate further leads you to a confidence that is wholly unfounded when presented with the realities of the scope of the subject matter that you are actually referring to. And that confidence piece is something that I want to camp out on, for a minute because I brought it up in my, intro because I see this play out so often in recruitment. I mean, I'm coming off of just having finished, ah, round of recruitment with a client, literally yesterday, and so quite fresh in my Mind and you know, very fortunate that all of the candidates that we interviewed were very competent. but I mean we were designing our processes specifically to get at that competence language. But you cannot deny the fact that confidence, the way somebody presents themselves in an interview, their posture, their body language, the way that they answer the questions, the confidence which, with, with which they answer and the confidence that they have in saying yes I can do this. And here's why, makes it does make a difference. Even when you understand the difference between confidence and competence when you are presented with it. It's a natural quality that we gravitate towards. And I mean it. Confidence is not a bad thing by any stretch. But I think where the danger is is when we rely on overconfidence or we allow somebody's confidence and their projection of confidence to us. Let make us assume that they actually know what they're talking about and have the competence to do the job.
[COBY]:Yeah. No, you are 100% right about that. Because a big part of the kind of the, the dunning cougar effect is that the, the idea that you know, people who are, who don't know a lot about a area or a subject or they're new to it or, or whatever it is almost like underestimate the complexities of something. So to them it's a very simple concept and they feel like based on their current knowledge, which is not very much, that they either have mastered or they can easily master it because it really kind of going back to ways. It is Excel. Excel's only for calculating columns and rows. Well that's pretty easy. I can do that. I mastered Excel. Right.
[JAMES]:So I know how to sort a list.
[COBY]:Yeah. So yeah. So there, so, so again so that creates this level of, of confidence because one of the things that in recruitment, you're right, we look for someone that will speak definitively, someone that will speak with kind of again that, that confidence to make decisions and all those kind of pieces like that, that we value that more than we probably should because we do want someone that's decisive. We want someone that can stand up the pressure. We want someone that will not falter. But we also need to realize that how that presents in the recruitment situation is not necessarily the reality that's needed in the actual work environment.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And it's why the interview process itself, the way that you present yourself in an interview is more oftentimes more important than your qualifications. I mean I often, I mean we, we have a slightly, we try as much as Possible to eliminate bias. and I mean it's impossible to eliminate bias. Let's just be.
[COBY]:Mitigate what we try and do.
[JAMES]:We mitigate and that's all you can do. the confidence angle really cannot be understated. in an interview like I'm, I, I want to get specifically into leadership and we'll, we'll get there eventually. But broadly, in any position that you are applying for, if you. It's why we, it's why the whole fake it till you make it language ah, kind of exists because the, that projection of confidence that faking it is what oftentimes people will perceive and give you that opportunity to then learn enough on the fly that you don't end up sinking. it's not a great strategy. but, well, the thing is just
[COBY]:to cut you off just there. The problem is that most people that are put in that situation that figure enough on the fly so they're not sinking isn't the actual consequences of them figuring it out. Usually it's, it's someone else down the road or someone else beneath them that ends up doing the sinking because of their. This lack of sophisticated understanding of the depth of it.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And that's something that I want to dig into in more detail from a leadership perspective because I see that happen regularly how the downstream effects of decision making aren't borne by the person actually making the decision. but you're, you're right in that the, that fake it till you make it is problematic at best. There's so many, there's so many competing ideas, coming up for me right now because I've just spent the last however many minutes talking about how important confidence is and how it really m. Impacts the recruitment process. But a lack of confidence does not equate with a lack of ability. And there are many people who are extremely capable in their roles who do not have that same kind of boisterous or the presentation that what we often associate with highly confident people. Right. And this is, I think part of it is our perceptions around the loud form of confidence that we want that people project versus a quiet confidence that just gets the work done. And it leads to people feeling like. I, I think part of that it contributes to people's imposter syndrome where they feel like they aren't necessarily suited for the role even though they can probably do it many times because the, the way that they, they don't have that aura ah, of confidence that you often see in leadership. And I think specifically as we're talking about incompetent people or less skilled, wholly unqualified people, getting into the roles, that's often because of the projection. Of confidence rather than a true assessment of their. They may be extremely confident in their ability to do things, but that doesn't, that rarely translates into the actual proper functioning in the role itself.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I think it's probably good for us to look at too, maybe even a little bit different of a word to throw in there and as a synonym for confidence is that sometimes the overconfidence can be better described as kind of what, what personality and trait psychology refer to as dominance. Right. The idea of, of that kind of like the fast, quick, you know, like no looking back, decision making piece of it is usually kind of again in trait psychology is one of the things that, that is kind of referred to often as, as dominance and, and confidence too because there's, you're right, the, the, the, the boisterous kind of confidence is, is something that's different than the, than actually the true confidence was because again the idea that the true confidence is usually quieter, real confidence is actually quiet and consistent. And like the difference between like they say, knowing what you know makes you good, knowing what you don't know makes you great. Right. So part of it is, is that kind of thing too. But, but I, I do want to dig into leadership, but before we do, I want to see where this, we, what we see this, we see this a lot in people new to their careers. The young, the young will often carry the, the dunning cougar effect because it's an idea of they are coming into the workforce, coming into the new role. They don't really know enough to, to have a depth of an understanding about the realities and the intricacies and the nuances and the sophistication of this topic. So they often assume that they will master really quickly or that they're going to nail it or that they fully get it based on just ignorance of youth. Right. So we're going to talk a lot about this being a leadership piece because it's such a natural thing to talk about through the context, through the lens of leadership. But I do want to make it clear that this does not live in leadership. It's not only a leadership problem. It exists at every level, every position, but it's also.
[JAMES]:Well, I mean, anybody who's worked in pretty much any work environment would see this effect play out in their colleagues as well as their supervisor. Like it, it is just it is pervasive.
[COBY]:Yeah. And again. And so I just want to make it, make it very clear that again that when we talk about this in leadership, that we're not just saying this only lives there, but it, But I think the m. The implication in the impact of it in leadership is a lot greater. And you talked about the downstream effects, everything else like that too. So it's probably where we're going to spend a lot of our time. But. Yeah, but this lives with the young, this lives with the, the new. This lives with kind of again the, the, the unaware, the, the poor self, the poor inter. Intrapersonal intelligence. All those.
[JAMES]:It lives, it lives with the person who has 25 years of experience doing the same thing day in and day. Like we talk about the difference between
[COBY]:one year of experience 25 times. Right? Yeah.
[JAMES]:Ah, the difference between 25 years of experience and one year of experience 25 times. Right. Like if you've never grown or pushed or expanded or questioned beyond your base understanding of role and responsibilities, chances are you overestimate, your competence in a particular area.
[COBY]:Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's dig into kind of like into it from a leadership and kind of a workplace culture perspective. So let's talk about kind of like what this looks like sometimes in leaders and then, and then kind of how it kind of shows up, kind of in why they show their leadership more, more than other places. I think the first thing I want to point to is a good example of what it looks like in leadership are leaders who think they are natural or great communicators but are actually really terrible at it.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I think so looking at this from a leadership perspective. I want to go back to in terms of where this comes from and why so many leaders end up. Why it seems like so many leaders fall into this trap in my mind really starts with how we visualize and measure from a recruitment standpoint somebody's leadership capabilities. When we are recruiting for a leadership position, what we tend to want. And I say we, not you and I, but the more broad, collective. We look for things like we want somebody who is confident, we want somebody who is decisive. We want somebody who feels comfortable making decisions and who can understand the. Ideally understand the impact of those decisions. So the things that we are able, that we are often looking for correlate very closely with that dominant personality with that style of confidence that tends to be more boisterous, more and more outward facing. We want more. We, we like definitive statements, from Our leaders. And so those who tend to use more absolute terms like I never do this or I always do that or like they speak in those rather than coaching their language, tend to present as a more confident leader. And those are the things that often get measured in a leadership interview process is how do they present? Do we think that when presented with a difficult situation, this person's going to be able to make it, decision, move forward, drive, change. Right. Those elements. So that's where specifically in leadership, I think that comes to kind of the, the heart of part, of the problem. Why so many leaders? We see so many very, very confident people who in my less than humble estimation are not qualified for the actual role or end up causing as much damage as not.
[COBY]:Yeah. And I think again, going back to what I was saying about them not being a communicator, sometimes those absolute terms are part of those things that make them ineffective or they feel like their understanding of something is this is well enough understood that they don't have to explain it any other way or say it one time. It's enough. We talked a few episodes ago, on leadership tips about communication tips for leaders because again, because again, one of those things that we want to, we want to, we talk about bad leadership habits or sort of the bad communication habits are something that a lot of leaders have fallen to the dunning cougar effect will impact. And you're right, it's that it is that kind of the absolutes can be a big part of that. Another part of it too is the idea that they often think that they're natural leaders, that, that they're just born this way to do it. That's mean that their, their gut reaction, their first reaction, their instincts are so good and that they don't need to be questioned because like, oh, I got this leadership, leadership is easy. This role is easy. So I got this. My natural instincts are all that's required in front of this to happen. And they're not open to feedback, counter opinions or all the other kind of pieces like that too because it goes against their natural instincts.
[JAMES]:And I love bringing up the idea of natural instincts because it often gets equated very closely with that decisiveness. Right. I've got great natural instincts. I can make a decision, I can implement change and I can drive cost cutting effects forward. and these are the examples of things that I've done. and that sounds really impressive in an interview process. And we want to, we want people, if you're like in a Corporate setting. If you're looking at, we need a leader who can come in and who can fix some of the problems that we're having, that can streamline our operations or conduct a reorganization or can cut costs, increase shareholder profits. Those are measurements that we are looking at. And those things can be done quite effectively with this, very confident, instinctual, traits that many people seem to have in, in these types of roles. The problem with this, and this is kind of what we've been, one of the points that we've been leading towards or hinting around is the downstream effects of those decisions tend to not be borne by the leader themselves. So for instance a leader comes in and does a complete reorganization, cuts positions, they're able to trim the head count, they're able to in the time like we're probably assessing this on a, you know, eight 12 month window if that, if you're looking forward and they're, you know, the costs have gone down, revenues have gone up, productivity has gone up over the short term. And those we tend to attribute directly to the decision that the leader has made. But the downstream effects, what in what I mean by downstream effects is the longer term effects that that has on operational culture, that that has on burnout rates, that that has on absenteeism, presenteeism, all of those psychological safety, the other elements, the high turnover, those tend to lag behind and those lagging indicators or downstream effects tend to get passed off as a separate issue rather than the invoice coming due for the decision that the leader has made. So we tend to complete, we tend to attribute the positive effects around that the leader is being measured on. They're being measured on did they cut costs, did they raise revenues, did they increase productivity? And we can point to the short term impacts that say yes, yes and yes.
And then when the bill comes due 8:12, 18 months later, those get attributed to some other instance or they are there, they become their own issue. So we end up just presented with the leader gets all of the credit and takes none of the blame. Or even worse, and which we've seen happen so many times, is that they jump into, they get into a new role and they are very effective in a 18 to 24 month period of cutting costs. And, and then they move into the next role before the bill comes due. And it's just everybody else ends up having to deal with the impact in the wake of this leader who is seen as incredibly effective because none of the impacts of their choices end up sticking to them because they're not in the position long enough and they end up. It, it becomes a game.
[COBY]:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. And it becomes a, a bit, a bit of a shell game. No, and that's that is one of the challenges that kind of comes with the. Yeah, like you said, the. When, when they kind of come in with that. I know what to do. I know what to do. I, because like sometimes it doesn't matter. I know what to do. I've done this before. It's the same thing. Rinse and repeat, you know, and, and again without understanding and the subtleties, the nuances, the intricacies, all the other kind of pieces like that too. And I think a lot of that kind of comes to. Again, why they don't see those things is because those things become blind spots to them. And this is something that we've seen when someone has been put into a leadership position or actually or honestly, it's when someone's put into any kind of position that requires any kind of like forward thinking strategy or anything like that that they don't know their own blind spots. Right? They don't see the, the. It's how I'm, I hear this phrase all the time and I'm, and I flipping hate it. you know, I don't know what I don't know or they didn't know what they didn't know. And I'm like, well that is often seen as a, as a, an excuse for all kinds of different stuff. But like part of your job, if strategy is a part of your job, learning what you don't know, talking to people who are not in your echo chamber, being challenged, being curious, not again, curiosity over certainty. And is how you learn to address your blind spots. And if you don't, then that's, then, then that's a failure on, on, on your strategic thinking.
[JAMES]:And yes, I, I agree with you the. I, I get irritated with the language of well, I don't know what I don't know. And you can't expect somebody to know everything that they don't know. Right. Like, I mean that's just inherently contradictory.
[COBY]:Right.
[JAMES]:But you need to know enough to know that you don't know everything.
[COBY]:Right?
[JAMES]:And that is the crux of. That's where I think the two statements get conflated is that we confuse not doing the due diligence or not understanding the complexity of a particular topic well enough to understand that there. That we likely have blind spots and then creating A, how do you, we need to have a plan for. How do we deal with the unintended consequences or the unforeseen, unknowable, aspects that are inevitably going to come up at some point. Right. There's a difference between saying, well, I don't know what I don't know, so I'm just going to stick with what I know and not investigate any further and understanding that, okay, this is a complex issue that I know I'm, I'm likely missing something on. So how do I create redundancies and structural supports to reinforce, force my decision making while accounting for potential unknown or unintended consequences of it? I mean, you, it's easy to say, it's hard to do. It is hard to try to figure out what all of those different eventualities are because you don't, you inherently don't know what they are. But you have to be nimble enough and you have to be open enough. And I think you, the language you used of curiosity is really important to understand in this regard.
[COBY]:Yeah. Because again, a lot of times like, you know, when it comes to things like quick decisions, there's knowing the difference between a quick decision and a rash decision. Right. I mean, you can still move quickly and be nimble, but still take the time to make a tactical decision. And sometimes it's a matter of quickly trying to amass as much information as you can. So you can make the best decision that you have. You can, with the information available to you. Yeah, but there's a difference between information being available to you and information that you already have in your head, but you're not going to ask anyone else for help. Right. I mean, there's a big difference between those two things. Right?
[JAMES]:Yeah. And it, I mean, it's hard to get into specifics without, specific examples. But this idea of, well, we have to move quickly and a decision has to be made, so let's just make a decision. That's the reality sometimes. And you do have to make decisions with less than perfect information. If you're going to make a decision with less than perfect information, you also need to be looking for the perfect information while you're doing that. Right. You need to be open to changing your, decision as new information comes to light. And this is the problem that I see often with leaders who fall into this trap is that they make the, they make a decision based on the information available to them at the time, but then they don't reassess, they don't build in the evaluation Metrics or the, okay, this is what we need to do because we've got a very tight timeline. But I also need to start validating some of these assumptions that I'm making. Right. Because you can make decision, there's some things that you will be confident in, then you'll be making a bunch of assumptions on all of the rest of it. Making business decisions based on your personal assumptions is dangerous.
[COBY]:It is. And part of it again goes back to what level of consultation do you have? Are you someone that is comfortable taking feedback from other people who maybe have different perspectives and may disagree with you? Is it about protecting your ego and not having your opinions be challenged? Or are you actually like trying to have like, you know, trying to seek information or consultation from someone who you know is likely going to disagree with you in a way to try to find a more robust solution? Right. Like, I mean it's how attached to your echo chamber are you when it comes to making decisions versus how attached, ah, are people with varying perspectives and varying views that will help you kind of like polish an idea through pressure and through bouncing over the rocks in a sense. Right. So it's one of those things that it's about who we are surrounding with and how much our need to be right all the time is attached to our ego, which is attached to our identity tied to our role and our competence and the vision of us as well. Right.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And I think, I hope this isn't backtracking too much, but what one of the. We've talked many times on this podcast about the Peter Principle.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:About how oftentimes the reason why people, like people get promoted often because they have, they are very effective in the role that they were currently in. So they're really good at doing something specifically. And then they get promoted into a position where they're no longer the doer, they're responsible for a team of doers. Right. And some people really fail, fail to broaden that, their perspective away from being responsible for just doing the work to being responsible for others who are doing the work. And this, the idea of the peer principle is if eventually you're going to be promoted into a position that you are no longer qualified for and when you get into this, when you have somebody who is very self confident, and very decisive, who's promoted into a position from like, maybe they have a tremendous amount of domain expertise in a very limited, very specific, area, but now they have to look at things from, from a cross, domain perspective, they're no longer qualified for the role there. But they know they have to move quickly. They know that they have to make decisions. Like all of these things tend to compound together and kind of create this perfect storm of really frustrating environments to work in, frustrating people to work for, work with, be around like it can be. I don't want to understate how frustrating it can be to work in this type of environment.
[COBY]:Well, let's, let's dig into the cultural impacts of again, especially when leaders are impacted by the dunning cougar effect, but also kind of when it's kind of a normal reality for many staff. Because I think one of the most common side effects of a workplace that's kind of like just has pervasive dunning cougar effect in it is hypocrisy. Right. It's the idea of again like one thing that we common see is leaders who believe that they're fair but are just notorious about playing favorites and notorious at pitting people against each other. And it's, it's in, in the, and they'll often be the first to advocate on the fairness and they'll be first to advocate on, on equity and those kind of pieces like that too. But they're the, they're the least fair and they're like the least equitable. And, and, and it's something that like again we've done organizations that, where we've seen like part of the breakdown, the causes to come in is people in roles that have had that and we've been trying to help put together the pieces to address the wake, the again the downstream effects of years of these, of, of kind of the.
[JAMES]:This.
[COBY]:Yeah, the hypocrisy of, of them preaching one thing and doing the complete opposite. But the thing is that people don't often know that they're doing it. That's part of the dunning cougar effect is that they're, you know, they, they, they, they don't understand what the reality of like fairness or equity or those kind of pieces are. And you think it's simple. And they think, and, or they think that these situations don't, don't count or whatever like that. And then they just go with their instinctual gut on how they're going to handle the situation completely divorced of the reality of the fact that they're being hypocrites.
[JAMES]:Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating from like talking again about the downstream effects. let's. This happens in corporate, this happens in small business as well. I see this, we see this so often in Small businesses where the leader, the owner, the, the CEO is tasked with moving quickly, tasked with growth, tasked with, or tasked with, cost reductions and they will reduce headcount and they'll get that short term win. And then six months, eight, 12 months, whatever time frame in the future. We, they. The people who end up dealing with this is, the managers end up dealing with morale issues and they, it puts more work on them. HR ends up dealing with retention, issues with complaints, with turnover, with burnout, with more leaves. Like all of these things, all of the responsibilities, all the negative aspects of their decision making falls on somebody else.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And that creates a really, it can create a very toxic environment. And we have seen it many times going into an organization that is experiencing high levels of dissatisfaction, that is experiencing a complete lack of psychological safety, that have managers that are feeling burnt out, that have employees that are feeling completely undervalued and that have HR systems and HR professionals who are just inundated with complaints and turnover. and all of these kind of what we often refer to as kind of the firefighting, issues.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:And you track back the source of these things and it tends to be a deficit in leadership that causes a lot of it. And yet the leader still tend, somehow walks away, pristine because they are hitting their metrics and it, it's a failure of the organization to not hold leaders accountable for the downstream effects of their decision making.
[COBY]:Yeah, I agree. Because one of the things that like, I know like we, we did an episode, I think in our second season, we talked about counterfeit psychological safety. Because to me that's one of those things that it creates that weight, create that downstream effect is that hypocritical, place where you have agencies and leaders and managers that understand the term psychological safety. They talk about it in their work. They say we provide it. This is a big goal of ours. But then other than the surface level, like lip service to it, they don't provide it. I mean we talked like in that episode, we talked about somebody that colleague of ours that worked for organization that was very, Had a huge reputation for being so supportive and so you know, and such a great place to work for. But they were notorious for having this counterfeit psychological safety where they talked about it, they talked the talk, but did not walk the walk. And as soon as the person spoke up, then the leadership team would start talking about them behind their back and they would start kind of like they would start referencing stuff and pulling and pulling things out and Belittling them behind closed doors. They weren't doing it in front of them. And they thought that's all psychological safety was that you could say anything to us and we would listen or, and we'd hear, we would hear it, but we wouldn't actually listen to it. We wouldn't do anything about it. We'd talk about you behind your back. But they didn't realize again, what psychological safety actually meant and what it actually took to create it. They, they're again, dunning cougar effect was that they just, they misunderstood the, their own abilities and being able to provide that. And that is one of those things where that creates the downstream effective. That creates this massive issues around, people feeling disconnected, people feeling, you know, like potentially bullied, you know, the, the culture pieces and how they, they would, they would stop speaking up because they would have their words turned against them down the road. And, and, and all these issues the…
[JAMES]:feedback never reaches because when there's a lack of psychological safety, the feedback's also not going to reach the, leadership about how bad things are because nobody feels safe to speak up. And that just perpetuates the cycle of. I've made a decision and nothing bad has happened because I'm not hearing any negative, feedback as a result of it. But nobody. People, who fall into this, leaders who fall into this cycle, tend to be less open to feedback. Right. Less open to being questioned.
[COBY]:And that's just it. Like I say, it's about they, they create. They, they create. I intentionally create this echo chamber that reinforces their own ignorance. Right. Like again, so you and I, have worked around, not necessarily, with an agency, but we have, but they've been a part of our network for a long time where there's a, there's a, there's, There's a leader that thinks they are the greatest visionary of all time. They are so connected. They know all the reality, they know all the intricacies, all the major players they have there. They got the phone and call all the kingmakers and. But this person is so divorced from reality and the people that they think are the movers and shakers are just cogs in the machine. And they have no idea about the needs of their own, their own like, sector. Ah, it's. And it's, it's comical to us,
[JAMES]:which is comical because we don't have to work. We don't work for them.
[COBY]:Yes.
[JAMES]:I feel for their employees. I mean, absolutely, granted, wonderful human being.
[COBY]:Yes, absolutely. But like it's and love to sit
[JAMES]:down, like great to sit down and love to have a beer with, you know, just chat and wonderful person.
[COBY]:Yeah.
[JAMES]:Ill equipped for the role. Completely liked by their, by their employees. But I suspect also their employees are incredibly frustrated with the way that they lead.
[COBY]:Yeah. Because, because the thing is, is that they have unintentionally kind of like separated themselves from the people who would provide them the honest feedback that would provide them the insight into the things that they don't know that would challenge their unsophisticated knowledge, their, their. That would challenge their overestimation of their abilities. And now they only ever talk to their own echo chamber. And, and so, so, and they even stomp, not aggressively, but they shut down internally any challenge to this visionary view that they have of how. Of this they really feel that they are an expert. It's something that they are completely inept around.
[JAMES]:Yeah. I mean we haven't done any work directly with this organization, so I can't speak to their evaluation metrics, but I suspect that they are evaluated based on the external factors. Is the organization growing? have we done X, Y and Z? Has our revenue increased? Has our impact? Like, what's our market share? Those external factors are likely what they're being evaluated on. I suspect that they are not being evaluated, at all on the internal dynamics.
[COBY]:Right. Or even the sustainability of those external things. Right.
[JAMES]:Yeah. It's just month over month, year over year. like, how are we, Are we doing better?
[COBY]:Are we, are we maintaining or doing or doing or doing better?
[JAMES]:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as we're showing growth and as long as we are profitable, then we are winning.
[COBY]:Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, absolutely. So again, we don't know those kind of pieces but like, again, it's, it's a sad thing that, you know, we, we often kind of like laugh a little bit when we hear the person speak at kind of like a large organization dinner or something like that. We're just like, wow. We're just like, geez. but again, lovely person. so let's, let's talk a little bit more. Okay. I think we've like spun a pretty clear idea about the dunning cougar effect on in general speaks in general idea. But like, let's try and dig into the time we have left. What can we do about it? If this exists within our organization, with this exists within us, if it exists in our leadership teams kind of whole thing, how do we help address these issues or try to make sure. These issues in the organizations that we work with, that these issues are not pervasive or that. Or that they are phased out.
[JAMES]:Okay, so there's a couple different things that I think come into play. one, we need to address the root cause of this, which to me stems from our recruitment practices and the, the way that we assess leaders in recruitment. And we need to move away from this idea of confidence theater where it's the projection of strength rather than the assessment of capabilities. I think from an organizational perspective, organization, we. The problem is you're not going to have somebody, A leader who falls into this trap, doesn't have the self awareness to even listening to this podcast. may not have the self awareness to go. You know what? I think they're talking about me. Right. It needs to be. It can't be reliant on the individual to implement change. It needs to be an organizational perspective of. We need to start evaluating success differently. Yeah. We need to start including internal metrics, and associate that with the success of the leader. It's not just about external growth. If, if turnover has increased during your leadership tenure, that needs to be investigated. If the productivity drops. If there's higher levels of burnout like those. Internal factors need to be evaluated, investigated and there needs to. Ultimately responsibility needs to rest with the with the leader. I think there's a number of pieces that go along with that. but I think those two elements would be the, the two biggest ones that I would look at. Starting with not making it about the individual because you're not. We. If you suspect that your organization is falling into this trap, it's going to be hard to. This is, this is the challenge internally trying to make these changes. If you do not have, if you are not in the leadership role or you do not have a direct line or you don't have a seat at the table is going to be very challenging because you're trying to force a. That's why I don't think you can really do this from a perspective of trying to change the leader themselves. I think it needs to be a conversation of organizational performance, performance metrics and how we measure success. I think all of our major decisions need to have a secondary line that's asked of what are the potential downstream effects of this decision? And we need to have some sort of mechanism for evaluating the downstream effects.
[COBY]:No. And I think that from a structural organizational standpoint makes a lot of sense. And if we add things like we build in kind of like feedback loops and use like, you know, 360 performance reviews and those kinds of pieces can, can be helpful. but I do think that from a personal, humanistic level, and this is something that, you know, maybe, you know, maybe you can't. You're right. Depending on who you are listening and your role in the organization, you may not be able to change these structural, organizational level pieces. But there are some things that could be done from more of a cultural perspective, that you may be able to have more influence on. One of them is one of the challenges when someone that has kind of hit the Dunning cougar effect and again, and there is this overestimation and this misplaced confidence is sometimes that they may come to realize that they are doing the fake it till you make it and they're using impostor syndrome. M. But they have to. There's pressure on them to appear bulletproof, to appear confident, to, to, to appear, invulnerable, which is what, what makes this problem pervasive. And it just adds fuel to that fire. A lot of it is. And one of the things that we try and do, organizations that we work with is we try to create a cultural shift that normalizes leader vulnerability, right? Where leaders. Where it's safe for leaders to acknowledge their own mistakes, where it's safe for leaders to be challenged, for safer leaders to ask questions and to kind of like. And again, to look at more tactical decisions. But also that re-evaluation of, you know, other. Constantly trying to improve it. And those are things that can be done from, you know, like, intentional shift through, again, different management teams, how you lead your own teams through hr about trying to normalize this level of vulnerability and those companies like that as well. But I think the largest piece is about rewarding curiosity, not certainty, right? Because certainty is actually probably the villain when it comes to the Dunning Kruger effect, right? Because I'm certain about this. I know this, I don't have to be challenged because this is just how it is. My gut tells me what is. My gut's never wrong or this is simple. Why are we making this complicated? Those are, those are certainty statements that end up being what this can look like. And I think that, that, you know, like, like, like, you know, challenging certainty and rewarding curiosity is probably the biggest cultural shift that we can make. Because I think that's, that's more. I think that if we had to say what is the sickness and what is the symptom? I think all those downstream effects things you talked about, are definitely the symptoms of, of this, but the sickness is the, the abundance of certainty and a lack of curiosity that creates all those pieces.
[JAMES]:Yeah, I, I hate it when I agree with you. Yeah. Okay. I, I guess I have to, end the podcast on a down note, by saying you're right.
[COBY]:But, but again, because, but this is, this is more, this is why we talked about this from a psychological perspective, not just a leadership perspective. Because what you said was great leadership advice, great consulting advice, organizational advice, and you're 100% right when it comes to that. Those are the pieces that have to be done in the institutional level. But, but again, we're looking at it as the Dunning Kluger effect and the logical. It's about this, it's about curiosity over certainty.
[JAMES]:Yeah. And that, I mean, we need to stop rewarding the. I mean, I'm going back. I always get stuck in the operational, side of things. it's incredibly frustrating that we, we still get into this situation where, you know, leaders will jump into a role, they'll be measured on the short term impacts and celebrate it for incredible wins and then use that win to leverage a new, ah, position at a, maybe hire in the organization or at a new company. And they just keep leapfrogging from one, leadership position to the next. And the, the wake, the destruction they leave behind that gets associated with other people is just incredibly frustrating to see. But I like the idea and the language around rewarding curiosity over certainty.
[COBY]:Yeah, no, I, I think that that really kind of is the heart of, of what. I think we need to look at it from a larger perspective. And I think that. No, you're right. There's all kinds of ways that this plays out, but I think that it is a matter of again, what is the, what is the root cause? And more psychological perspective. I'd say it's that.
[JAMES]:All right.
[COBY]:I think we kind of summarized it within with, with those last little bits. but yeah, no, I think that this is an interesting topic. Again, the idea of, again, the question was why do competent people think that they're great? And largely it's this, like you said, the systems kind of make it, make it that way.
[JAMES]:We reward it.
[COBY]:We do and we reward certainty. Yeah, right. And that's probably where the fundamental breakdown happens, where we need to be rewarding curiosity. Cool. All right, so that is it for us. For a full archive of the podcast and access the video version hosted on our YouTube channel, visit Roman3.ca/podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[ANNOUNCER]:For more information on topics like these. Don't forget to Visit us at Roman3.ca. Side effects of this podcast may include improved retention, high productivity, increased market share, employees breaking out in spontaneous dance, dry mouth, aversion to the sound of James voice, desire to find a better podcast…
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