The Dunning-Kruger effect is famous for one finding: the least skilled people overrate themselves. The other half of the 1999 study got far less attention. The most skilled people consistently underestimated where they ranked, because what came easily to them felt ordinary.
That half helps explain impostor syndrome at work. I sat at a table of IBM’s best mainframe engineers, saw the flaw in the plan, and said nothing, because I was sure I’d be found out. The fraud story feels like humility, but it is often insurance: if you’ve already marked yourself down, nobody else’s verdict can hurt you.
In this episode: why organizations end up taking their decisions from the loud and overconfident, the outcomes ledger that replaces the feeling with a record, and what a leader can do in the next meeting.
Drawn from my book, Convenient Truths: The Stories You Tell Yourself, available on Amazon.
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