Dealing with Dunning-Kruger

Just a quick clarification about yesterday's post (man, did that feel good). As the original researchers were careful to point out, the Dunning-Kruger effect lessens with education. While those who are most ignorant of a particular subject tend to wildly over-estimate their understanding of it, Dunning and Kruger showed that as people learn more about a field of expertise, their evaluation of their "expertise" becomes more realistic.

Besides the obviously cathartic motivations for yesterday's post, I wanted to call attention to effect, as it affects us all.

I finally understood just how much I didn't know about house painting, for example when we hired professionals to redo our house and watched the work. I now have an appreciation for the craft of house painting (and can now sometimes spot amateur work).

Some simple home repairs I'll do myself, but if it involves installing a new socket, I'll opt for a licensed electrician every time. As somebody once said, "It'll cost you fifty dollars. Ten dollars for the part, and forty dollars for knowing how."

So next week at the conference I'll be keeping that thought in mind, too. Perhaps the person I'm talking to doesn't understand the complexity of my area of expertise, but its more than even odds that I'd be completely at sea trying to do their job.

And your job as well.

- Ralph

Syndrome City

I'm gearing up for a trade show next week. We shipped out our booth today, and I'm making my final preparations before I fly out -- and stealing myself for four days of dealing with people suffering from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.

Don't get me wrong. My business partner and I always enjoy these professional conferences. They're a chance to catch up with friends and colleagues face-t0-face, make and renew connections, and help get the word out about our services (in this case creating custom CD compilations for public radio stations). And I'll spend a lot of time dealing with Dunning-Kruger.

In case you didn't click on the link, the study by Dunning and Kruger demonstrated that the less a person knew about a subject, the more they thought they knew.

So even though I've been developed relationships with record labels, drafted licensing agreements, and worked on over 100 successful CD projects over the past 15 years, someone will stand in front of our booth and say "Why should we hire you instead of doing it ourselves?"

And naturally, the person asking the question will have no experience at all.

Even when we work with a station, we often have to deal with Dunning-Kruger. The program director who ignores our guidelines for selecting music (my recommendations are strictly limited to availablity and affordability) and stops the project dead by insisting on unobtainable tracks. The designer who doesn't understand the diffence between print and web requirements, ignores our print specs (based on my partner's twenty years of CD print work) and causes major delays when every file has to be reworked.

All professions have to endure Dunning-Krugerites, I think. Why hire a lawyer when I download a fill-in-the-blank will? Why get a real estate agent when I can just stick a "for sale" sign in the yard? Why hire a professional painter when any fool can slap a brush around?

Whatever your profession, I think having your knowledge, experience and skill regarded as valueless is insulting, to say the least.

So when a D-K sufferer asks me, "Why do we need you? Can't I do this myself?" I have a simple response.

I smile, and say as nicely as possible:

"Yes. Yes, you can. And you can also cut your own hair."

Sometimes they get it.

- Ralph