Scaling "Mount Stupid"
The Ease of Falling Prey to the Dunning-Kruger Effect
Dear Readers,
Indulge me for a few minutes on a brief tangent into the world of psychology. I promise we’ll get to business shortly.
One of my favorite theories in psychology is the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Coined by Drs. Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University in 1999, their original study involved giving people humor, grammar, and logic tasks, then asking them to rate how well they believed they did relative to others performing the same tasks. The researchers found that those scoring in the lowest quartile (the 12th percentile, on average) estimated their percentile to be, on average, in the 62nd. Participants estimated their results to be a whopping 50 percentage points better than it actually was. In contrast, those at the higher end of the tasks’ results tended to more accurately gauge their results.
Fast forward many years, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect has been extrapolated ad nauseam in pop psychology. It’s often been loosely defined as “stupid people think they’re smart.” But that’s not exactly what it means. Take a look at this popular chart:
The chart shows that, at the lowest level, people that know absolutely nothing about a topic have zero confidence in their knowledge of said topic. That makes perfect sense. Someone asks you about quantum physics, and more than likely you can easily shrug your shoulders with no shame.
“Mount Stupid” comes into play when someone has just enough knowledge to falsely believe they know a lot. The chart shoots up on the y-axis, in that someone who has a beginner’s knowledge of a topic may profess to know as much as someone who has been studying that topic for years (see the right side of the x-axis). Then, as they learn a bit more, they realize that they aren’t quite as adept as they believed, and their confidence comes back down to a logical level, before eventually increasing along a steady slope until they actually are an expert.
Do you see how sharp that peak is? That happens because it’s the most difficult part of that chart to progress through. The x-axis is not labeled “time” – it’s labeled “competence.” Developing competence requires more than just days, weeks, or months passing by. It requires hard work, diligence, and a deliberate desire to improve oneself. And none of those are possible without first recognizing that you need to develop that competence in the first place.
But that’s exactly where we run into a brick wall. We need to develop more competence to get past “Mount Stupid,” but if we’re on “Mount Stupid,” we likely think we’re competent enough and won’t seek to further our education. You see the Catch-22 here?
Now, the Dunning-Kruger Effect isn’t scientific fact.1 In fact, there is actually a lot of opposition to the theory, especially after other scientists found they could create the same effect using random number generators. But I’m not a scientist, and this isn’t a peer-reviewed academic journal. We’re looking to see how we can become better in leadership and management roles. And if diving into Dunning-Kruger helps us do so, then I’ll present the theory as established fact just for a few science-busting minutes.
One of the misconceptions about Dunning-Kruger is that it only affects “stupid” or “uneducated” people. “I’ve been a business owner for 20 years, I’m smart enough to avoid that.” Or “I went to college, I wouldn’t fall victim to that.”2 That’s not what it’s about though. Pay close attention to the above chart. “Mount Stupid” only starts when you have a bit of knowledge about a topic. More educated people are more likely to fall victim to this effect, precisely because they know they are educated.
Let’s look at one obvious example that is surely not going to ruffle any feathers: vaccines!
Remember during the pandemic, when everyone had an opinion one way or the other about COVID-19 vaccines? And then everyone had an opinion about measles vaccines, and polio vaccines, etc? This might shock you, but 99 percent of those people had zero medical training (on both sides of the argument). But the people that had those opinions were generally those who had “read articles,” “talked to medical professionals,” or “did their own research.” These were people who legitimately believed that, with a few hours of digging, they had come to an obvious, indisputable, science-backed conclusion. They had a basic education on some topic, and immediately overshot their confidence level.
Now, I’m not touching the actual arguments for or against vaccines here. What I’m talking about is how we get to that end result.
Let’s bring this closer to business. Most of us business owners are not lawyers.3 Say you get a summons that informs you someone is suing your company for breach of a federal law you’ve never even heard of. You do what anyone would do: you Google endlessly, dig through some legal websites, chat with a few business colleagues, maybe even a friend who is a lawyer. That’s the bare minimum of what you should do. But when you got the summons, you were at the base of “Mount Stupid.” Now, after hours of research, perhaps a stiff drink, and some breathing exercises, you’re standing proudly at the peak. Let’s be real, though – are any of us then drafting a legal response to submit to the court? Of course not. We’re calling a lawyer to guide us through the process. We got to the peak, quickly realized where we were, and made our way back down safely.
How about a situation where you noticed a task had not been completed, but instead of finding someone who better knows how to handle it, you just did it yourself to save time? Only later you find out you made multiple errors, and you’ve now wasted everyone’s time, including your own, when you could have just asked for assistance the first time.
Or that time you thought you had an understanding of the future cash flow in your business, so you spent money that you thought you had (that shiny new copier??). Only you discovered a couple months later that a few large bills had come due that you now couldn’t afford. Maybe you thought your financial knowledge was adequate, but you’re just realizing that your shortcomings have put you in a dangerous bind.
See how easy it is to get stuck on the peak? Suddenly, the same psychological phenomenon is not as easy to avoid as it was when you got that pesky legal notice.
The good news is, once you realize you’re there, it’s much easier to begin rappelling down from the summit. You just need to know where to start. Take a look at this chart, which is the actual data from the original Dunning-Kruger study (as opposed to the pop psychology chart from above):
The right side of the chart shows that those who performed best actually had slightly less confidence relative to their results. All you need to get off the mountaintop is to have the self-awareness and humility to recognize that you’re there in the first place.
While many of us are legitimately experts in certain fields, all of us have weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses we are well aware of, but others not so much. No one is in business alone. We have friends, family, colleagues, customers, suppliers, staff, and professionals that help guide us if we let them.
Why not hire a bookkeeper who is adept at utilizing financial reports to make you better at cash management? Or maybe take a few night classes to learn a bit more about accounting and financial analysis? Or just trust someone you’ve hired and delegate a responsibility that you know they will perform better than you?
Having weaknesses doesn’t make us any less of a leader. Remember that the best leaders strive to learn more each day and are never satisfied with what they know. Good leaders know that they don’t know it all. They look to challenge themselves, take new risks, and think outside the box. All of this requires you to be a bit vulnerable and take that first step down from the peak. You might just be surprised by what you learn.
Fun fact: most science that we know isn’t technically “fact” either. Even evolution is still a “theory”. That’s the fun of science – you continue to challenge established knowledge using the scientific method and ultimately end up learning even more. Isn’t that fun? Do you have the urge to steal my glasses and shove me on the playground yet?
And no one ever does anything stupid in college, am I right?
Those of you that are, just pretend for a moment.