The fictional location claimed by Garrison Keillor to be his boyhood home in books and on his classic radio show Prairie Home Companion is Lake Wobegon, Minnesota…where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” While it may be a non-existent location, we meet people every day who seem to have arrived at their current status in life with a firm belief that they are above average: in their intelligence, ability and in status among peers. In fact it is fairly typical for people to overestimate their favorable characteristics and underestimate those seeming to be undesirable. Psychologists have formulated several theories to explain this phenomenon. Some attribute this behavior to the fact that it is easier to place importance on the known qualities of self rather than the behaviors of others. When called upon to compare themselves to others they believe that they have some built-in superiority to other people. At the dangerous end of the spectrum are those who in their naiveté believe they are immune to harm and never prepare for dangers that happen to others and not to them. “I never thought this could happen to me†is the classic line heard when the inevitable happens to someone who finds themselves totally unprepared for such a situation.
When people are asked to place themselves on a normal distribution curve on just about anything, the tendency is to overestimate capabilities relative to the norm. In The Self in Social Judgment (Psychology Press, 2005) several examples are stated to prove this point. In one study conducted in 1977, 95% of the faculty of the University of Nebraska considered themselves “above average in teaching ability†and 68% placed their teaching abilities in the top 25%. Another study in 1976 showed that of the approximately one million students who took the SAT, 70% placed themselves in the top 50% in leadership ability, 60% above the median in athletic ability and 85% rated themselves above the median in their ability to get along well with others. In the social aspect of getting along with others 25% of the students rated themselves in the top 1st percentile.
Why is understanding this phenomenon important? While it is a mathematical improbability, superiority bias in thinking and decision making is rampant in the culture of most companies. There is a fine line between being confident in decision making and being arrogantly egotistical. Just consider the claim that “Our company only hires the best people†which is usually followed by force-fitting employees’ performance and pay-raises into a bell-shaped normal distribution curve. One reason that most performance appraisal systems fail is that most people see themselves as outstanding performers and are crushed to find out that they are considered to be “average.†Nobody wants to be in the middle of the curve where realistically most people belong. In fact, if it is not managed correctly such an evaluation can become a demotivator to improving performance. Management needs to be prepared to address questions regarding the criteria to get to the upper end of the normal distribution curve without setting an expectation that everyone is “above normal.†Â
Recruiters have to fight a constant battle for objectivity in the hiring process. Everyone has heard stories about the superiority bias of a management team that is lured into comparing the interviewee to themselves rather than to matching characteristics of the job to the capabilities of the candidate. Needless to say, this tendency overlooks the value of diversity in thought and the inherent disadvantages of hiring clones rather than thinkers. Such practices can dismantle the best planned hiring systems by recruiting for something other than key skills and experience required. It also makes it difficult to logically state the criteria of a position for job postings and recruitment advertising. It is important that everyone involved in the process is on the lookout for actions that could damage the candidate experience and have an adverse impact on the company’s recruiting brand.
George Carlin once said, “Think of how stupid the average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that.†Isn’t it ironic that the comedian in us finds that remark to be funny and then we all continue to think of ourselves as above average? Perhaps part of this is a coping mechanism we use to protect ourselves from the concept that we may be less than average. Overcompensation doesn’t solve the problem and in fact may make it more difficult to find reality without a keen self awareness and healthy social interaction with others.
Suggested reading:
- A Visual Study Guide to Cognitive Biases (Business Insider, 2010)
- Why Plans Fail: Cognitive Bias, Decision Making, and Your Business (Modus Cooperandi Mememachine Series, 2011) [NOTE: No cost for Amazon Prime Members, $3.99 Kindle Edition]
Very nice post Tom with some very good points.
In regards to where people fall on the bell curve, I believe there is a combination of people thinking more of themselves than what is actually evident in addition to companies setting people up for a career of uncertainty. To this point, I know of someone who continually received “excels” and “above average” ratings on his annual performance reviews for five years in a row. On the sixth year review, he received a “meets standards” which is an average rating. When he questioned this, he was told that not everybody can be rated in the excels category. Now, this statement in itself is wholly true, however here is where the company went wrong. In the sixth year of this person’s employment, he agreed to take on additional job duties above and beyond the scope of his job and completed these special projects accurately and in a timely fashion, and did so while hitting the deadlines and level of accuracy required on his normally assigned workload. So in essence, the company arbitrarily assigned him an “average” rating during a year when he really was in essence above standard. This instance certainly is a head scratcher that makes me wonder just how seriously this organization takes the performance review process.
In regards to company’s interviewing and hiring practices being askew, I couldn’t agree more. As management is assessing a person’s candidacy, they need to keep their bias opinions in check. I see, all too often, how hiring managers and recruiters call this bias “assessing for cultural fit.” This said, I don’t dispute that there is a visceral factor about cultural fit that will come into play as people interview, but the focus needs to remain on the assessment of skills and pertinent experience. This is where objectivity and true assessment will be found.
Cyndy: Thanks for your example illustrating the problem with some performance appraisal systems. I’ll go you one better…on more than one occasion I have seen a red-faced manager want to put an employee on a performance approval plan (that final slippery slope leading to the door) only to find that all previous appraisals had been outstanding. Something rotten here.
It is probably heresy for somebody like me to say that I’ve never seen a performance appraisal system that really works, but that is my above average take on the situation! Like most people systems, it is only as good as the people who use it.
TB…Inasmuch as people just don’t want to believe it, probability and statistics impact their lives in ways that are incomprehensible for most to fathom. Let’s start with recruiters because it’s near and dear to our hearts…
Paul Meehl (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~pemeehl/) – when I read his work in grad school it really made me smile. While some people really do seem to have an innate sense to “feel” what’s going on around them, most don’t – especially recruiters (ask any recruiter how many relationships they’ve had; bet you the overwhelming majority have had “many” to which I say, “Oh you’re really good at judging talent”). Meehl’s “‘famous examination of the clinical versus actuarial prediction” (http://www.psych.umn.edu/people/meehlp/032ClinstixBook.pdf) changed the face of the profession. Despite the fact that pop psychology – and the recruiting profession – still believes in a person’s ability to sense goodness or greatness in people based upon a very short period of examination, it’s simply NOT true.
The other side of statistics as it relates to talent is Bell curve (or normal curve to those who’ve really studied stats). You’ll have to look it up but 84% of any population measured on any variable is average or worse. What this means is that jobseekers – and people in general – will invariably rate themselves as being better than average when it reality most are simply – and there’s nothing wrong with this – average (or worse). Shouldn’t surprise anyone – who wants to think of themselves as average or worse? Same goes for recruiters who believe they have some ESP-like ability to sense talent.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with being average – there’s no way that any organization or beehive can survive without worker bees. But everyone – jobseekers, recruiters, HR, shareholders, consumers – needs a reality check, time to look in the mirror and have an honest talk about potential and performance. And then act accordingly.
Remember “perfectionism is a very slow death” (Hugh Prather) – something those of us in talent acquisition know all too well. If we don’t correct how we conduct elements of business, we’ll continue to make the same mistakes again.
Better to spell it Wobegon than Woe-Be-Gone…
Thanks for adding so much to this topic through your comment…once again confirming that you are at least two standard deviations above the mean in intelligence. We need smart people involved in everything HR and especially at the front end where talent first gets a glimpse inside.
A follow-up article is in the can which discusses the problem with people so deeply entrenched in illusory superiority that they profess to have expertise where there is none and offer to share it with anyone who will listen…and many do. Like P.T. Barnum said, there is one born every minute.
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