(Natural Human Instinct or Behaviour (9) cont. 8)
8. Confidence Before Realism

Introduction
This involves favouring the side of confidence and optimism and discounting for ignoring reality, especially when it suits us; it involves blind confidence.
"...humans are wired to radiate confidence in order to move forward in the world...... often, allowing confidence to conquer realism to get what we want.....often deny what is realistic..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
There is a evolutionary benefit in doing this
"...in mates selection, individuals who demonstrated ability to succeed in the world and provide for their offspring appear to be a good bet as a mate..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
This instinct helps explain:
"...- we set grand strategies that overlook the follow-through
     - fads roll through organisations
     - we end up with disasters that everyone saw coming
     - people have an inflated view of their own ability
     - inexperienced people, including managers, can be blissfully ignorant of their own competence..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
Inflated self-view
This can be called 'illusionary superiority', ie have an unrealistically high opinion of their own ability; people tend to overestimate their own abilities, believing their own performance will be well above average.
This overconfidence increases in areas where we lack competency
"...The less competent we are, the more we overestimate our ability..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
Element of denial
Denial is defined as
"...The unwillingness to see or admit a truth that should be apparent and in fact is apparent to many others..."
Richard Tedlow as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
The denial can be:
- literal, (it did not happen or simply is not true, ie it can be too terrible to be true!!!!)
- interpretative (one accepts the facts but denies the implications, eg technological change:
"...sometimes we digest information awareness because it's too painful or stressful......more commonly we do so because the offending information contradicts assumptions with which we are comfortable, and it is easier to reject the information that you changes our assumptions..."
Richard Tedlow as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
Statements that indicate a state of denial:
"...- it doesn't apply to us
     - it's not a big deal
     - it is not our problem
     - it never happened in the past
     - it cannot happen here
     - there's nothing we can do about it
and as a consequence we:
     - shoot the messenger
     - discount the source
     - denigrate the competition
     - blissfully carry on regardless..."
Richard Tedlow as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
NB
"...while denial is a powerful impulse, we are not entirely powerless to resist it. Through self-knowledge, openness to criticism and receptiveness to facts and perspectives that challenge our own, we can arm ourselves against denial..."
Richard Tedlow as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
This can be linked with groupthink
"where there is a conspiracy of silence or a conspiracy of concurrence and shared illusions, rationalisations and denial..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
Denial does not change reality; it simply makes reality tougher to deal with.
Self-confidence
Self-confidence can be a good thing as it allows us to have a positive outlook and be optimistic about what's possible in the future; this is a better place to be than the opposite, ie negative outlook and pessimistic.
However, being overconfident can result in higher expectations of rewards, renumeration, promotion, etc and disappointment can result if they are not received.
Positive feelings are important if we are going to do well:
"...The impact of positive affect (feeling grateful, upbeat; expressing appreciation, liking) and negative effect ( feeling contemptuous, irritable, expressing disdain, disliking). The key concept...... is what they call the positivity ratio - the ratio of pleasant feelings and sentiments to unpleasant ones over time......back on the savannah, positive emotions would have increased our ancestors' odds of survival, to reproduce, or being more inclined to explore and develop social connections. Negative emotions narrow people's behaviour -to life-preserving responses, of being defensive and being asocial..."
Fredrikson et al as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
The positivity ratio of people to flourish is around 3, ie for every 1 negative there must be at least 3 positive effects. Therefore, interactions and language must have a healthy dose of positivity included.
"...you might monitor the incidence of people expressing feelings of appreciation, encouragement, liking and being upbeat. We do our best work and the team is most successful when we can meet our instinctive needs of being in an environment of optimism and positivity over pessimism and negativity..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
However, there is a role for approximate negativity, such as constructive feedback, connected to specific circumstances.
Checklist on overconfidence (primarily for managers)
"...1. The plans for our department and what is possible?
     2. What our clients want and our capacity to deliver?
     3. Financial performance and risk management?
     4. Key projects and timelines (including overloading people)?
     5. What I expect with resources that are provided or are available?
     6. Our systems and processes - do I think they're better than they really are?
     7. Each person's ability and attitude?
     8. My ability?
     9. Relationships within my team?
     10. Relationships with other teams that affects my team's performance?..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
NB Need to listen to people who have a different points of view or disagree or have contrary information; they might be the realist!!!
Summary
"...1. We radiate confidence in an order to get what we want
     2. We tend to have an inflated view of ourselves
     3. Overconfidence can be so strong that we deny reality..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
Feedback is vital to handle incompetence, as is training to correct the skill gap.
Most people do not accept any negative observations or assessments; we have an inflated self-view, eg we do not recognise and/or acknowledge our own incompetencies and ignorances.
Further comments
- to keep a balance between confidence and realism, ie
"...To be optimistic about what's possible while maintaining a healthy dose of what's practical. Optimism plays a key role in strategic planning. And then a hefty dose of realism is required with the implementation regarding the time, resources and capability required to deliver strategic plans..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
- to learn to focus and prioritise the important few things that you need to get right for performance, like retaining and attracting key customers, quality of products and services, safety, system failure, etc
- to be careful of favouring simplistic solutions, because they are easier to handle, less time-consuming than complex ones
- to be careful that you have to do something which is not necessary the right thing to do
- following fads, ie the flavour of the month
"...Fads rely on hope and optimism, rather than effort and reality..."
Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
- to assess any new idea on its worthiness for your situation before implementing
- be careful of giving preference to an external person to fill a vacancy in preference to an internal candidate
- to develop ways to handle non-performance.
NB
"...you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist..."
Captain Sullenberger as quoted by Andrew O'Keeffe, 2011
This instincts (for confidence before realism) and the next one (contest and display) have 2 purposes, ie
i) make one as attractive as possible to members of the opposite sex as a potential mate
ii) to enhance our position in our social group.