I’m absolutely certain.
Have you ever noticed that some people seem to say things with absolute certainty and others less so.
How often do you question what gives them that level of conviction in their ideas?
I raise this in the context of AI. Perhaps you, like I have noticed that whatever question you ask an AI, it gives you an answer with 100% certainty.
Case in point, I was looking for which episode of Peaky Blinders a certain scene was featured in. GPT gave me the answer it was definitely Episode 3 of Series 3. I watched it and it wasn’t the right episode. I challenged GPT and it said, Oh Sorry, it was this Episode. It was wrong again.
My point is twofold:
The obvious one with AI’s is to take answers with a healthy level of scepticism. My experience has been that I’ve placed overreliance on the answers and later found out, that the answer was overstated. I wonder how many people have a healthy enough degree of scepticism?
The second one is related to how we and others express opinions.
Can you think of someone who says things with a very high level of conviction, and yet you know that their grasp on facts and reality doesn’t match that level of confidence.
The opposite, can you think of someone who is extremely thoughtful and weighs things up and offers up “a light opinion” which doesn’t convey confidence.
Where do you sit? On a scale of 1-10 how forcefully do you express opinions and on a scale of 1-10 how much depth and thought has gone into forming that view? Are the numbers the same?
I’ve plotted this idea as a quadrant.
Vertical (Y): Strength of Conviction
How forcefully someone expresses a view
Horizontal (X): Depth of Thinking
How much rigour, reflection, and understanding sits behind it
And thne the quadrant are..
Top right = strong voice + deep thinking → Insightful leaders
Top left = strong voice + shallow thinking → Dangerous confidence
Bottom right = quiet voice + deep thinking → Underleveraged wisdom
Bottom left = quiet voice + shallow thinking → Noise
Just take a moment and notice where different people in your world sit.
Can you think of people who sit in different quadrants.
Increasing amounts of research shows that leaders tend to be far too overconfident about their decision-making ability.
What does this mean practically?
Here’s 3 experiments to play with around this idea:
2 Minute Experiment
Cast your mind back to a recent meeting. Who spoke with high confidence even though it might not be warranted? Who spoke quietly, but needs to be listened to more?
What’s your listening bias? Do you tend to listen to the loudest voice… or the most thoughtful one? How aware are you of any bias here?
5 Minute Experiment
Think about a person in your world. One who’s thoughtful but doesn’t express strong opinions. Next time you’re in a conversation, just encourage them to share more of their opinions and go deeper. Notice how easy (or difficult) it is to place equal weighting to light thinking strongly expressed vs deep thinking lightly expressed.
15 Minute Experiment
Reflect on something that you feel confident about right now.
Now. challenge yourself by:
1. Write your position clearly
2. List 3 reasons you’re right
3. List 3 reasons you might be wrong
4. Ask: what evidence would change my mind?
Go one step further and ask one person you trust to challenge your thinking
How warranted is your level of confidence and where might deeper thinking be helpful?
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