Andrew Badham 2018-03-19 15:37:39
So much is said for the power of confidence. Whether it’s in self-help columns or thought leadership articles, confidence is represented as this miracle drug, a social panacea, and in so many ways, it is. Confident people seem more capable, more attractive, perhaps even more trustworthy. So, taking someone who doesn’t display a lot of confidence and getting them to finally show some will make a huge difference to them. It’s more than just perception too; in some cases, confidence can genuinely boost performance. Conversely, a complete lack of confidence can cause the sort of hesitation that impedes performance. So, confidence is good all round, right?
Not necessarily. You see, there is a certain level of hesitation which is downright helpful. When we hesitate, we give ourselves the opportunity to assess our assumptions, or better yet, to test them. We must actively defy our initial beliefs to see if we are correct.
It’s called playing devil’s advocate, a term that originated from the Catholic church. When the Vatican went about the process of canonizing new saints, one person was appointed Advocatus Diaboli, the devil’s advocate. It was this person’s role to argue against the saint-to-be’s legitimacy, regardless of his own beliefs on the matter.
That’s the sort of role that we want to have assigned to a portion of our thinking, a part that will always chime in with, how do we know that, whenever we leap to a conclusion. Without that part, we will blindly follow the whim of our intuitions. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with intuition, but it s only one other part of your thought process. As such, it should be weighed and measured along with all the other thoughts and ideas.
The important step is that, when we choose to weigh up our intuition’s validity, we actively choose to contradict it, just like the devil’s advocate. If we don’t, we will find ourselves agreeing time and time again with our intuition, always just confirming what we already believe because it just feels right. But, if we argue against ourselves, that’s when we’ll see the truth of the matter.
The trouble with this very necessary step in the process is that it requires you to be a little less confident. Why, because you’re genuinely not sure what the best idea is and that’s a good thing. Those who never question their impulses are sure to get things wrong. The trouble is, they look very confident getting it wrong and that attracts a followership. Moreover, sometimes decisions do need to be made quickly, so sometimes the room for deliberation simply isn’t there.
So essentially, we need to be able to switch between two different roles, that of the hesitant analyst and the confident decision maker. We need to question and doubt ourselves for a time, but also know when that time needs to end and when confidence needs to shine.