Successful people who are early in their careers and successful people who are very experienced obviously have different perspectives on how they approach their professional choices. But where they are perhaps most alike is a shared vulnerability: They both can have a hard time separating a good record from good judgment.
When those things collide people can slide into confirmation bias. A good record means things have gone your way a lot of the time. Good judgment could be the reason. The problem is assuming it’s the only reason. After decades of working with leadership teams I can say it happens with very smart people, relatively often.
Successful people are often “smart,” which I use in the simple sense of able to synthesize information rapidly. If you can process faster, it doesn’t mean you process better. In fact, if you are processing quickly but not slowing down to consider your own biases, you can race past the very thing that would give you better judgment. People who have failed in significant ways have learned the lesson of slowing down and reading the board more carefully. That can be a true gift.
Why do people with good records sometimes show shockingly poor judgment?
For people with less experience, an early amount of success can begin to feel like proof of good judgment. And it might be – there’s no reason to second-guess a whole record of good outcomes professionally or academically. But people also get lucky, or have good timing, or other structural advantages that contributed to their accomplishments. That’s true of everyone, but when you have a lot of success, and you’re still pretty early in your career, you can begin to have narratives like, “I’ve gotten every promotion I ever tried for.” Well, if you’ve been working for five years that’s less telling than if you’ve been working for thirty.
The other extreme, however, is people who do have decades of experience. For them, the likely risk is they have now been surrounded by people who want to confirm their beliefs. To say it more plainly: If you’ve done well enough over decades to be in a senior role, a lot of people probably tell you what you want to hear. You have influence over other people’s careers and ambitions, and most people generally want to please people with more power than themselves. Even though your record by now is likely more “flawed” than someone with five years of experience, you can end up equally convinced of your own view as the right one.
For the person who is early in their career, the poor judgment can be a useful life lesson. The sooner they stop relying on a good track record, the sooner they can use actual judgment to make sure their reasons are sound, instead of mere historical confidence. For those at the experienced level, learning to reflect more thoughtfully can require more proactive awareness.
Better judgment comes with deliberation, not doubt
The answer is not to become paralyzed with doubt. That becomes a judgment about yourself. It is to feel more fully informed. Then, deliberation is a judgment about the decision. Stay confident that you can understand and consider all the inputs. At the same time, push yourself to see information that works against your assumptions.
Overconfidence comes from history-based certainty in your view because you’ve been successful, consider yourself smart, or generally have a good record. Informed confidence comes from being willing to look at the current situation with an open mind and take on evidence counter to what you believe to be true. Think of the annoying person who likes to play devil’s advocate. It’s irritating. But once you’ve had to lay out your argument and defeat all challenges, you generally feel even more certain.
How to test your rationality, without doubting your intelligence
It can be genuinely unnerving to start examining your biases. We all do it, to a certain degree. In a professional capacity, one way to test your rationality is to think about a belief or decision that you are confident in. When is the last time you’ve actively looked for evidence that you are wrong? Why?
Test yourself with any straightforward work decision: Do you always choose the same person to manage a project? When was the last time you asked someone else? Or, who do you turn to at work for advice? When was the last time you asked someone else? It’s not about blowing up relationships or processes. It’s simply being aware of what decisions you make as you speed along with unchecked confidence, and which decisions are built on confidence earned as you processed the situation. No one gets it right all the time. That shouldn’t signal a loss in confidence, but rather smarter decision making.
