Lookie here! It's Dunning Kruger in the flesh

"Lookie Here! It's Dunning Kruger in the flesh!"

Transcript (for general use only – machine-generated and it may not be accurate)

[00:00:00] Kelli: Hiring a new employee or even picking the right person to be part of your team can really make a difference between failure or success. I know you've heard that before. Yeah.

[00:00:10] Dave: Easier said than done, I think. Right? Yeah. But wait, there are clues that might help you reading people clues that you can use.

Like we have to help you understand some very weird patterns of behavior and people concerning stuff. Maybe even scary stuff.

[00:00:28] Kelli: Yeah. Today's episode. Hey, look here comes the self-proclaimed sensational amazing stupendous savior of the day.

[00:00:40] Dave: Ladies and gentlemen meet Dunning Kruger.

[00:00:44] Intro: Hi, I'm Dave and I'm Kelly, and this is My Job hHere Is Done. If you really want that next promotion or you're a rising star entrepreneur, we have some stories to tell that will absolutely help you. I've been starting and running businesses all. And I've worked for the man, like a dog for decades. Together. We'll share stories, ideas, and notions that will help you absolutely soar past that cruiser sitting next to, and if you're grinding forward with your growing business, we know where the landmines are. Let's find them. Hey, it's only about 20. What do you have to lose Nothing or everything?

[00:01:30] Dave: Well, hello there and welcome to the program. I'm Dave and I'm Kelly. And today we are going to talk about, uh, what I think I consider profiling.

[00:01:41] Kelli: I don't know if I would call that profiling profiling. Sounds like you're going to do some kind of detective.

[00:01:50] Dave: Well, we may have to

[00:01:51] Kelli: right?

Right, but it's, it doesn't have anything to do with.

[00:01:56] Dave: No, but it is a crime that some people actually exhibit this behavior. We're going to talk about reading people today, and I think it's really, really important, but before we get into the show first, thanks very, very much for listening. We really appreciate it. If you head over to our website, my job here is done.com.

You just put that all in one big word. My job here is. Dot com uh, you can learn more about the program. You can see some of the other episodes, and of course you can listen to us anywhere podcasts are available. So thank you once again. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Alrighty. So today we're going to talk about some, some odd behavior patterns in people that could possibly really trip you up, right?

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, when, when you're, when you're looking for team players, And especially when you're hiring, you may make the wrong decision because you're not reading people well, and there are lots of books on this topic. There are two or three classic examples of traits that if you work at it, you can flesh them out early.

And some of them, you can really help the person along. And then there's one where you absolutely can.

[00:03:15] Kelli: So we're going to talk about two potentially extreme personality types. You need the ability to identify both of them and you have, have the ability I think, to help one. So one, the one you can help struggles with something that's called an imposter syndrome.

[00:03:34] Dave: So we know a number of people who have this, and it sounds, uh, by the words it's not imposter syndrome sounds. It actually sounds like the opposite of what it really is, because if you hear the words, Hey, you know, uh, Kelly, you have imposter syndrome right now. It sounds intentional. Sounds like you're faking things right, right.

Wrong.

[00:03:56] Kelli: Yes. Wrong. Because actually people with imposter syndrome underestimate their own skills and accomplishments and kind of view themselves as a fraud or a. And they're afraid of being discovered when in reality they're very capable and competent people. Um, it almost, it sounds like a self-esteem thing, but it goes deeper.

[00:04:22] Dave: So I've worked with people over my career that have not had the self-confidence. That they need in order to Excel, is that imposter syndrome?

[00:04:33] Kelli: So that, so it can appear as imposter syndrome, but in my opinion, so I'm not a behavioral psychologist. I think it's part of imposter syndrome, but not all of imposter syndrome because everybody struggles every now and then with self-confidence maybe when tackling a task they're not familiar with or working with a new group of people, you may have.

But that's not an imposter syndrome.

[00:04:57] Dave: So I have a perfect example of this, in my opinion. I think this fits, tell me if you tell me if you agree, remember the TV show we watched a Ted lasso. Oh yes, it was. So I was like, is this going to be a good TV show or not? You know, and we're, you know, obviously you got to watch Ted lasso,

[00:05:14] Kelli: right?

[00:05:15] Dave: And it is, you'll like it. So, you know, props for Jason Sudeikis, uh, you know, who's Ted Lasso in the, uh, in the program. And then another actor named Nick Muhammad who played the part of Nathan right now. If you look at Nathan in this show, he was appearing to be introverted, no confidence in himself, but for those who have watched the show, you'll know that Nathan progressed from being.

That kind of odd character. And he broke out of his shell and became confident in himself. And he realized that he actually wasn't a fraud. Yes. You know, so, so these people you can help. Uh, and there's a statistically, I read approximately 70% of people in the, in the, in the U S and this may be true for other countries as well have had bouts of imposters.

[00:06:09] Kelli: So one of my favorite artists, David Bowie. Yeah. Imposter syndrome, what? Yes. He felt that the only were only the work he was doing was valuable. So he drowned himself in an overwhelming amount of projects to compensate for this feeling. He didn't feel that it was him. That was so creative. And because remember he painted.

[00:06:39] Dave: Which I think is what he actually really wanted to do. He wanted to be a painter.

[00:06:44] Kelli: He was so creative at all these creative outlets, but he didn't think it was really coming from him on the inside. He just thought that he was doing all of this work, that anybody could do it. And he was just pumping it out.

[00:06:58] Dave: So encouragement. So this is management encouragement. This is pure encouragement. So if you are recognizing somebody that fits the. Construct of imposter syndrome, then this is a person

[00:07:13] Kelli: and there's a, there's a few ways you can do it. Number one, address it, it seems that you don't feel confident in your opinions in meetings, perhaps, or when we're looking for ideas, you don't share them, but then you come to me and you have great ideas.

[00:07:31] Dave: Okay. So the takeaway here. If you are dealing with, uh, somebody who exhibits imposter syndrome, remember that? This is not a bad thing. This is not something like, oh, they're an imposter. They're trying to fake it. That's not it at all. What you're dealing with is you're dealing with somebody who feels they are an imposter and it is keeping them from actually excelling and moving forward, find them, identify them and work with them.

And it doesn't matter if you're the manager. It doesn't matter if you're the owner. It doesn't matter if you're a friend or a coworker. These people can live up to your expectations, to the expectations of the job and to their expectations. They just need a little help. These are people that I consider cross-wired.

And if you look in electronics and you find something that's, Crosswired, you go, ah, it's crossword. I can fix that. And you do a little bit of work and boom, now it's wired correctly. Right. And everything, everything is cool. Right.

And then there's wired wrong from the factory.

[00:08:45] Kelli: That's a problem,

[00:08:46] Dave: ladies and gentlemen, the star of our program today, is Dunning-Kruger, I'm going to now guide you into something that you've all seen and you've all wondered about, and you've all been pissed off about, and that is classically known as the poser, a belay, the poser who you sit back and you say to yourself, how in the world did this person ever get hired here?

[00:09:14] Kelli: You know, because they come across. Bigger than life. They're very confident. They are very friendly and, and they, they seem to have a lot of knowledge until you really get to talking to them and, and realize, they're just saying a bunch of words and they don't know the meaning that they don't know really what that means.

Right. And you, and you, you uncover that as you have a conversation and, and you see little flags start going.

[00:09:46] Dave: So I remember a story of a company that I was working with, where I was in charge of hiring somebody. To handle the department and I hired this person and I brought this person in because they really did a very good job of playing me

[00:10:05] Kelli: Right.

Well, truly so confident they come across as super. You think to yourself, wow. What a fund of knowledge they have,

[00:10:15] Dave: or you start thinking to yourself, is this one of those people that actually is always right. That like really is a unicorn, because if you can find somebody like that, you kind of want them around.

Right. Right. So I brought this person in to run a department. It was a marketing department and in marketing, as we all know. 50% is art and 50% is art, right? So when, when this person started to exhibit the behavior of really not knowing what they were doing, but not being able to accept any constructive criticism, it started to go down fast and they actually had other people in the organization convinced. That they were right. Even though we knew a few of us knew they were wrong and here's the key. So first of all, Dunning-Kruger is actually two people, uh, psychologists, uh, who I think back in like the late 1990s, David Dunning and Justin Kruger studied a group of overconfident people who failed to recognize that they were just incompetent.

Right? So Dunning and Kruger studied people. To come up with what they considered to be the effect. And the effect has a number of different traits. Yes.

[00:11:37] Kelli: These are people who don't recognize their own shortcomings. They are convinced. That they are experts on whatever they want to tackle. They lack the ability to recognize their own mistakes.

Here is another problem. They're biased, self evaluators, and they're unable to fairly judge other people's performance.

[00:11:59] Dave: cause they're posers, right?

[00:12:01] Kelli: Because they're positive. They, but they don't think they're a poser.

[00:12:03] Dave: No, but it, but they believe so strongly that they know how to do something. I recently met another person like this so strongly that they actually know how to tackle a subject or a topic that is not even close to being in their wheelhouse.

And they snow the people who do not know. How to do that job, right? So oftentimes, and this is a problem with leadership because oftentimes leadership is not about knowing the fine details of say the sales department or the fine details of the production area or manufacturing or marketing or whatever the department happens to be.

So that person actually cannot identify Dunning Kruger. Right? Here's how you identify. You need to get, and it doesn't matter who it is, but you need to get the experts that are in whatever area of expertise that this person is going to go. And you need to let those people honestly provide feedback either prior to the hiring process or after the person is hired and they're in the team environment or whatever, you have to give them the freedom to come back to you and feed back any information positive or negative.

And not just about somebody who may fall into Dunning-Kruger as a poser, but anything that has to do with the livelihood and efficiency of the team.

[00:13:38] Kelli: Right. You know, I think this type of person is especially dangerous in a leadership position, because remember what I said, unable to fairly judge, other people's performance, right?

Biased, self evaluator, unable to recognize their own mistakes. This is all not things that you want, your manager, your vice-president, whoever you report to these are not traits you want them to.

[00:14:06] Dave: In the end, you want to stay as far away as you can from somebody with Dunning-Kruger, they are wired wrong. If something is wired wrong, it is broken from the start.

Now I'm not saying that somebody who's got Dunning, Kruger and exhibits this type of behavior, that's disruptive and bad for the environment, bad for the team and bad for the business and bad for everything. Can't be fixed by somebody, but it's likely not going to be. Okay. So another test for Dunning-Kruger is references.

[00:14:41] Kelli: So important.

[00:14:42] Dave: So don't skip them. My God, I don't know why people skip references anyway, because they kind of feel as if the person's just going to give them the name of somebody who is their friend and is going to say, you know, all good things about them. Right. And you know, this is a flaw in the interviewing technique because people who hire without actually going and seeking out references, are actually doing themselves a disservice and the person a disservice, because you could bring somebody in, that's just not meant for your organization. Doesn't fit culturally myriad ways, a failing by, by, by not hiring correctly. The other thing that I want to make sure that we understand here with Dunning-Kruger and, and the poser, not the imposter, but the poser, the dangerous poser is that before you know, as a leader, that they're a poser your staff knows - absolutely people who are working with them. No. And in fact, here's the clue. Those people know almost instantaneously that instantaneously, they

[00:15:51] Kelli: know that's so true. I can pick them a mile away, but

[00:15:54] Dave: most people can't Kelli. Yeah. And, and by not being able to pick them out, you actually cause a pollution effect to the energy and efficiency of your teams, because the longer they stay in, the more your looked at, if you were the hiring manager, or if you're the owner, or if you're the person that is leading this person, the more you're looked at as not knowing how to hire people. Right? And everybody is either a leader or they're a follower. The majority of people are followers and they're counting on you to provide good leaders.

I just have to stop here for just a second, you know, I think you're absolutely amazing Kelli. I mean, really? I just love to watch you work. You're so smooth and well-spoken, I just kind of wish I could be half as good as you.

And that's why I really love bringing you coffee every morning. I really do!

() Really. Dave, you want to add sycophantic behavior to this episode too?

[00:16:59] Dave: No, I just want to be an ass kisser. Now, you've learned something new! There's your word for today? There you go.

[00:17:08] Kelli: So what did we talk about today?

[00:17:10] Dave: Reading people.

[00:17:11] Kelli: Yeah.

Profiling. Yes. Not profiling reading people. Trusting your gut. There's no rule. But there are a lot of great books that can help you.

[00:17:21] Dave: And then there are leaders out there that are good and leaders who are not so good, just because a person comes off as a leader, doesn't mean they're not a poser. Right. Get rid of posers.

Yeah. They can be fired. It's okay. Maybe not be politically correct, but if it doesn't fit, get rid of it. Right. Remember this one thing posers are poisoned. Make a change. Don't subject your people to this constant fraud

[00:17:55] Kelli: and not only your people, but your business.

[00:17:58] Dave: So we learned a little bit about Dunning-Kruger imposter syndrome and being the kiss ass or the sycophantic.

Okay, don't go away yet because we've got of course buzzword, bingo, and maybe Bloopers. Who knows? Maybe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening, Kelly. And I both appreciate it. We put a lot of work into the program. What we're trying to do is we're trying to tell stories to help anybody else not make the same mistakes that we've made and

[00:18:29] Kelli: also share our experiences.

[00:18:31] Dave: Right? And the best thing that you can do to help is simply tell one friend . You Don't have to tell 10, don't have to tell 20, just one, just tell one person about the program, ask them to give it a listen and follow us. Share the findings and check out our website. My job here is done.com all the information on the show at the web.

[00:18:55] Kelli: But wait, don't go yet.

[00:18:57] Dave: It's time for:

Buzzword Bingo!

[00:19:01] Kelli: By special request from a very good friend of ours, Hillary, practice using put a pin in it in a sentence that has nothing to do with business.

[00:19:13] Dave: You know, you sound like a real idiom when you say that

[00:19:16] Kelli: right, here comes the sentence. I wanted to Pierce my sexy belly button. So I put a pin in it.

[00:19:23] Dave: That's a sore point.

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