I was recently exposed to empirical evidence related to a concept that I think many people are aware of. The idea that education removes a veil of ignorance to which students were not previously aware. The “you don’t know what you don’t know theory.” Anyone who has endeavored to better understand a particular topic will recognize this feeling. Just as you begin to believe you are an expert, you have an epiphany and realize how truly incompetent you are. Not to controversial of a theory, and generally a good thing to remember when you think you are an expert at something.

More interesting is the research that surrounds this concept, primarily put forth by Justin Kruger and David Dunning. Looking at a variety of skills (cognitive, humor, grammar) they found that subject’s perceptions where wildly inconsistent with their actual performance. More fascinating was that even after being assessed, poor performers had a perception of much higher performance. They also found that as participants were educated, their impression of their capability normalized.

So, what’s the moral of this story, comically one could only feel confident in knowing about something if they feel like they aren’t that good at it. Probably the real take home lesson is education is important, not only to increase ones understanding of a topic, but to actually perceive an entire topic, it’s true scope.

During my career I have, on many occasions, been that guy who thinks he knows all there is to know. We all interact with those individuals in our personal and professional lives, and it’s often cringe worthy. In my opinion, emergency services happens to have more than our fair share of this behavior, which can be crippling to an individual’s or agency’s success. Heed the warning of Kruger and Dunning and don’t be this person. If you are a manager, identify these individuals and provide them with the education and experience that they need. The good news is that we know how to fix this, recognition and access to quality education.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2017, from https://www.superfrink.net/athenaeum/www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html