Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.
More quotesIncompetence asks for help. Overconfidence approves the budget.
Organisations obsess over the junior person making a visible mistake, then allow the celebrated expert to convert a hunch into a £2 million commitment because challenge would feel disrespectful. The novice gets training, review and restricted access. Status gradually removes those safeguards at exactly the moment the decisions become large enough to matter. A new analyst’s spreadsheet attracts six comments; the executive forecast becomes an instruction because nobody wants to ask whether certainty has outrun evidence. AI makes the same error unusually visible: a polished answer with no foundation can still sound more useful than an honest “I don’t know”. The presentation of certainty is mistaken for evidence of it.
Confidence is not the enemy; uncalibrated confidence is. Record forecasts. Show ranges. Compare certainty with outcomes. Make consequential decisions earn review regardless of whose name appears at the top. Reward changed minds when evidence changes, instead of forcing senior people to defend yesterday’s certainty. Expertise should buy a hearing, not immunity. The greater the possible damage, the less impressive the speaker’s reputation should be as a substitute for checking. The greatest risk rarely sits with the confused employee at the edge of the room. Look instead at the certain one everybody has stopped checking.