Why admitting that ‘I don’t know’ is perfectly fine

Justin Thomas writes about education, self-reflection and questioning assumptions

Most nations in the Arabian Gulf are actively pursuing programs of workforce nationalization. Sarah Dea / The National

Are you as good as you think you are? In Arabic there is a well known adage: "Half of all knowledge is saying: I don’t know.” Sadly, these wise words are being drowned out by modern-day maxims and pretentiousness promoting proverbs such as, “fake it until you make it” and “image is everything”.

Sure, projected credibility and an air of confidence are useful, but they are a very dangerous substitute for authentic ability. Beyond the bluffers are those who have actually come to believe their own hype. These potentially dangerous individuals massively overestimate their own abilities, blissfully unaware of their incompetence. Being ignorant of our own ignorance hinders our development and it can also have serious life consequences.

In 1995 McArthur Wheeler, without a disguise and in full view of the security cameras, robbed a bank. Encouraged by his apparent success, Mr Wheeler proceeded to rob another in the exact same manner. Before entering the banks McArthur had smeared his face with lemon juice, labouring under the misconception that lemon juice rendered the human face invisible to cameras. The bank robber was quickly identified and arrested.

McArthur became the opening vignette for a classic psychological research article titled Unskilled and Unaware. This study looked at the way some people can overestimate their skills and abilities, even when their actual competency is a long way below average. This phenomenon has become known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. An example would be the student who hands in an assignment, anticipating an A-grade, only to receive a well deserved F. Honest feedback will generally cure us of our delusions of competence – but not always.

Sometimes we don’t get honest feedback, we may be surrounded by sycophantic yes-people, or those so filled with fear that they dare not contradict us. In such cases our delusions of competence can persist and perhaps even intensify. This can be catastrophic for personal growth and organisational performance.

At the heart of this issue is the fact that we are often blind to our own incompetence. Writer and filmmaker, Errol Morris, says it best: "If you're incompetent, you can't know you’re incompetent.… [T]he skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognise what a right answer is."

It also appears that education is not the powerful antidote we might imagine it to be. Studies indicate that having some knowledge about a topic greatly increases the likelihood of extemporisation (winging it) and the tendency to make educated guesses. When faced with uncertainty, knowing a little bit about something seems to make us far less willing to utter those three little words: “I don’t know”.

Studies that have looked at this tendency towards overconfidence across cultures, have found that it appears to be particularly pronounced in individualistic societies (USA, UK, Canada) compared with collectivist ones (China, Japan, Korea). In fact, several studies show that, in collectivist societies rather than overestimating ability there seems to be a greater tendency towards underestimating it. As far as I’m aware, this phenomenon has yet to be explored in the Arabian Gulf.

Most nations in the Arabian Gulf are actively pursuing programs of workforce nationalisation. This will mean that, occasionally, younger and perhaps relatively less experienced individuals might occupy fairly senior positions. For these individuals being fine with saying: “I don’t know” is particularly important. Knowing that you don’t know is a great driver for growth and development. Faking it, or trying to get by on the power of positive belief, ends in tears.

Life-long-learning, self-reflection and questioning our assumptions is the way to growth. Seeking authentic feedback from multiple sources can also be invaluable. If we find ourselves frequently saying “I don’t know” then that is half of knowledge, the other half is finding out.

Dr Justin Thomas is an associate professor at Zayed University

On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas