Fool On The Hill

A while ago I read an article that portrayed George W. Bush as just about all the shitty managers you've ever had. He would be informed of issues by his staff and then brow beat them in to coming up with ideas and solutions in a way that he probably thought was motivational, his lack of knowledge on a subject giving him, to his mind, a position of purity with regards to the issues. I'm sure we've all been in meetings like that. They probably have special management courses to teach you just the right note of uninformed bullying and annoyingly smug expression to use, right after the one where you're taught how to fiddle your expense account.

Scary stuff. Then I read this:

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''

Scarier still, no?

Give Biden his due, though:

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''

This all reminds me of my favourite psychology article (slightly spun by the fact that it's probably the only psychology article I've ever read): Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. This is an article that will either put a huge dint in your self-confidence or have you going on your way as before blissfully unaware of your own inadequacies. Just look at the abstract:

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

One of the things it does is back up that old saw about "The more I know the more I realise how little I know". In order to be a competent judge of how good you are at something you have to be competent at it in the first place...