MAR 17

The Bridge of Death: Answer me these questions three

attitude is Everything

Now the only thing separating Arthur and his men from the grail is the Bridge of Death that hangs over the Gorge of Eternal Peril. The bridge is guarded by the crotchety old Bridge Keeper, the old man from scene 24. Just answer his three questions correctly, and you may pass safely across the bridge. Answer incorrectly and you will be swept off the bridge and fall to your death in the gorge. Sounds like a good idea for a game show (Truth or Die?)  Arthur nominates a very anxious Sir Robin to cross the bridge first, but Sir Robin begs off, offering Launcelot as a braver alternative. Sir Launcelot eagerly rises to the occasion and approaches the Bridge Keeper. Question One is “What is your name?” Question Two: “What is your quest?” Question Three is “What’s your favorite color?” Easy-peezy. Sir Launcelot answers the questions and crosses the bridge safely. Now Sir Robin has a sudden surge of courage, and he approaches the bridge. Name. Check. Quest. Check.  Question 3: “What’s the capital of Assyria?”  Robin doesn’t know and falls to his doom. Now that doesn’t seem fair, does it?

 It’s Sir Galahad’s turn next, and he doesn’t know what to think. Fearfully, he approaches the bridge keeper. Galahad gets the name and quest questions and answers correctly. And the third question is – thank goodness, the favorite color one. Blue, like Launcelot’s. Only, wait, Galahad really prefers yellow. Off he goes to his doom. Nonchalant, King Arthur advances toward the bridge. Again, the Bridge Keeper asks for his name and his quest, which Arthur answers correctly. For the third question, the Bridge Keeper asks for the air speed of an unladen swallow. Arthur needs more clarification. Does he mean a European or an African swallow? The bridge keeper doesn’t know, and he falls to his death. Hence, Arthur and the rest of his men (just Bedevere) cross the bridge to safety.

Notice how the two confident knights, Launcelot and Arthur, had no trouble answering the bridge keeper's questions? Did you ever work with someone who was so blissfully unaware of their own incompetence that they mucked up everything they did, yet thought they were completely successful?  There's a cognitive bias known as the incompetence effect. Basically, it means that some people are so stupid that they don't even know they are stupid. And they are so stupid that they can't learn from their mistakes; they are unable to recognize that they've made a mistake. Doesn't this explain some of our politicians and pundits? The killer is - they become successful anyway.

Why? Because they believe they are smart so they have confidence. And we admire people with confidence. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who developed, amongst other things, a model called the four stages of learning:

1. Unconscious incompetence – this is the stage where you don’t even know that you don’t know something.
2. Conscious incompetence – the stage where you realize that you don’t know something or how to do something.
3. Conscious competence – the stage where you are learning or have learned something and need to consciously activate that skill (remember first riding a bike.)
4. Unconscious competence – the stage where you are so skilled that you can do it without thinking (again, like riding a bicycle.)

 
 I like to interpret Maslow’s stages as:

1. Confidently ignorant
2. Timidly aware
3. Cautiously informed
4. Comfortably knowledgeable
5. Confidently expert

Unfortunately, most times in business we don’t possess the knowledge to tell the difference between the confidently ignorant and the confidently expert, and we often mistake confidence for competence. Thus, if you think you'll succeed, you probably will.

Posted by Karen Phelan.