It's Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems by David Niven PhD

Author:David Niven PhD
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781466839236
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-11-03T14:00:00+00:00

THE TAKEAWAY

We believe in believing in ourselves. Nobody wants to cower timidly when something needs to be done. We step forward, confidently.

But just as trying harder and rounding up reinforcements can be both attractive and ineffective responses to a problem, so, too, is confidence a tool we are apt to pick up and misuse.

The problem with deploying confidence against a problem is that our confidence doesn’t always come from our abilities and can distract us from potential solutions. Diane Ravitch’s confidence helped her change education in America, and now she wishes it hadn’t. College basketball coaches step confidently into the arena each night, yet that confidence helps many of them make an unproductive nuisance of themselves to their teams. Kaleil Tuzman’s confidence helped him launch a company and the grandest of dreams—but got in the way of his noticing that the company’s only product didn’t work. “First, do no harm” is a fundamental principle taught to medical students. Yet the confidence of the doctors running the Ohio State University Hospital helped them allow irreparable harm. We become 38 percent more confident about a decision merely because we can’t undo it. We can simply manufacture confidence, without regard to ability or reality.

Having vast confidence that you can fix a problem is like wearing eyeglasses you don’t need. You will look at absolutely everything differently and see nothing clearly.

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