#ThinkfullyHabit: STOP asking "How confident are you?"
When asking others for their expert opinion and advice, be sure to sense-check what makes their experience relevant to your situation, NOT how confident they are in their view.
If their expert intuitions are not based on relevant past experience, they may be drawing on assumptions which are out of date or misguided.
WHY?
The ‘overconfidence trap’ is where people confuse confidence or seniority with expertise, rather than taking notice of the relevancy of someone’s experience. It’s when people assume incorrectly that the more confident or senior someone is, the more likely they are to be correct.
When asking others for their expertise, try to determine what they are drawing from to inform their views. Researchers have discovered that the overconfidence effect is more prevalent among people who believe that intelligence is ‘fixed’*. Watch out for rigid thinking as this might be an indicator of someone failing to realise if a situation has changed, thus rendering their experience no longer relevant.
“What would I eliminate if I had a magic wand? Overconfidence.”