The gist... most incompetent people have no grasp on the bounds of their incompetence. Well, I knew this, for I once worked at... (those who know, know... those who don't can rather quickly discover this with an innovative google search).
But the more disconcerting finding:
On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.
Hmmm... if you have a penchant for identifying incompetence... does that mean you are more incompetent than the incompetents? Is this the rubber-glue effect in action?
2 comments:
I was a trade union shop steward in a previous life and it astounded me how the incompetent decisions of management did not only go unnoticed, but were celebrated as successes. When I used to argue with managers about theirs or the company's decisions, it was as if there was a mental block. They genuinely seemed unable to see how things could go wrong or why it would be a bad idea.
I've often wondered why this might be the case and hopefully will do some work on company cultures and management habitus at some point. In a nutshell, incompetence is mostly seen as an individual failing when more often than not it is an outcome of organisations where power is concentrated rather than dispersed. I guess.
I am in management dealing with a union, and it never ceases to amaze me how the union considers every decision made by management as wrong. There is thought behind almost every decision made, and much more research has been put into them that the union reps realize.
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