Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                                         800 words

One of my favourite sayings is that ‘anything is possible when you don’t know what you are talking about’. I have often wondered why I feel the need to use it so often at work. After a colleague sent me link on the Dunning-Kruger effect I am starting to understand why.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University. They published ‘Unskilled and Unaware of It: How difficulties in Recognising One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments’ in 1999. The title gives you a good idea about the contents. The focus of the paper is;

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it.

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