Performance: Your Abilities Versus Your Mind
Confidence and competence.
We like to believe that this two things go hand in hand when it comes to performance. Of course, someone who is competent would also be confident in their work. Naturally, someone who is confident would have the skills to back it up.
Yet we all know the blowhard who trumpets about how capable they are, but never delivers a matching execution. Or the brilliant friend who constantly insists “I’m not that great” while outshining everyone else in their field.
So how do we avoid falling into the same traps? Read on.
What’s the Difference between Competence and Confidence?
Confidence and competence are the two sides of the performance coin. Because they’re linked so closely, it can be hard to tell the two apart. Here’s how we’ll talk about them here:
Competence is pretty straightforward. This is a concrete measure of how capable we are of performing a task. Can we execute on a project? And if so, how well?
Fortunately, since your competence is a concrete measure, it tends not to fluctuate much. We’re either capable of performing a task at a certain level or we aren’t. (Now, we may or may not be able to perform the task at the level required in a project. But this is a skill-set issue, not a mental block.)
When most of us have unexpected changes in our performance (especially negative ones), it’s due to changes in our confidence.
Unlike competence, confidence is a subjective measure. It’s “how good we think we are.”
Because this isn’t an objective measure, it can fluctuate wildly. One day, we might feel like we could breeze through a task with one hand tied behind our backs. But another, the same task might feel like an impossible to tackle mountain.
Together, these elements decide how well we’re going to perform. And if one is out of line with the other… Well, we wind up in some interesting situations.
Unbalanced Confidence and Competence
Remember the blowhard and the brilliant friend? Those two are perfect examples of mismatches between competence and confidence.
Confidence without competence results in the Dunning-Krueger effect. Like the blowhard, we might think we’re a lot better than we actually are. And typically, our less-than-competent points reveal themselves at the worst possible time.
On the other hand, competence without confidence can be just as damaging. It’s more commonly known as imposter syndrome. This is a sneaky mental trap where you’re convinced you’re not that great at something — yet it turns out you’re much better than you think you are.
Remember, we can fall into either trap depending on the skill-set we‘re looking at. But, the solution to both is awareness. We can develop this with a two fold attack: realistic self-assessment followed by seeking the opinions of others.
With self-assessment, the key is to ask: “Am I sure I’m correct about my abilities?” We need to be brutally honest with ourselves. Without this honesty, we have no comparison point for the next step.
Then, we have to see if our beliefs match up with the opinions of those around us. The opinions of others (especially coworkers, mentors and good bosses/managers) will come closer to objective reflection. If those surrounding us think we’re overconfident, our competence might need some work. Whereas if we’re struggling to believe in ourselves when everyone else does, our confidence might be the issue.
Now, in either case, we don’t want to knock down our high level aspect to match the level of the other. Instead, we want to improve the low-level aspect until it mirrors the other.
Improving Your Competence
The first order of business in any attempt to improve our competence is to figure out what the scale of competence actually looks like for that sphere of knowledge.
Think about it. If you’ve never heard an expert play the bagpipe before, how would you know whether or not someone else is playing them well?
The same is true here. We have to determine what “expert” status looks like, then what the “bumbling beginner” status looks like.
So seek out examples. Find out what the experts do. Look at examples of things gone wrong or cited as amateurish to feel out the other end of the spectrum.
Now, the hard part: determining where you fall on that spectrum.
This is the point you have to take your emotions out of it. Emotions are your confidence talking, not your actual competence. You need to drill down to cold, hard technical ability.
The best way to do this? Test yourself. Try to tackle an activity to the best of your abilities. Then, look at your efforts and rate them — or better yet, have someone else rate them. A disinterested party will be a much better objective judge because their emotions (and confidence) aren’t tied to the assessment.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter where you fall on the competence spectrum, you can improve. Even the “abysmal amateur” can move towards the expert end of the spectrum with education and practice.
Let’s say you want to improve your skills as a marketer. The first step is to determine what skills an expert marketer would have. Chances are you have some of these skills under your belt while you might need to improve your competence in others. Moving forward is all about identifying your knowledge gaps.
Most cite job listings as excellent places to start on identifying skill gaps. However, talking to an expert (or at least, someone more advanced than you) can provide even greater insight. Some skill-sets may be harder than others to identify gaps in, but you can tease them out with persistence.
Once you’ve determined all the things you don’t know, you may find your confidence has taken a dip. Don’t worry — this is normal. Confidence is resilient and will bounce back with time.
The next step is educating yourself to fill in the gaps. With the amount of information on the internet compounding by the day, the issue is usually not in finding resources, but finding credible sources.
Look into MOOCs (massively open online courses) through reputable groups like EdX, Skillshare or Coursera or dig into specific courses with a resource like Class Central. Youtube videos can certainly provide more unorthodox tactics, but quality and source credibility can be questionable.
Once you begin filling in the gaps in your knowledge, your competence will rise to meet your confidence. Given time, both levels will stabilize to a much higher level. But, don’t forget to continue challenging yourself and occasionally brush up on the skills you use less often to prevent future mismatches.
Improving Your Confidence
Ah, the sticky measure that is confidence. If you’re having issues here, chances are you already know the required spectrum of knowledge for your field fairly well. You’re just stuck underestimating where you rank.
So the goal is to move towards a more realistic assessment of where you fall on the scale.
Like the process for competence improvement, you’ll want to start by testing yourself. But because those of us suffering from imposter syndrome tend to be hypercritical of ourselves, we’ll be taking a different tack.
Start by teaching the topic to someone else in a low stakes situation. The Feynman technique (AKA “teaching it to a toddler or your grandmother”) is an excellent process to run through. But let me re-emphasize: this needs to be a low to no pressure situation. This way, the teaching session is more of a conversation back and forth rather than a lecture.
As the other person asks questions, you’ll branch into different areas or details. More often than not, you’ll find you’re able to rattle off the answers to these questions with ease. And if you aren’t able to or find yourself feeling a little fuzzy on the topic, you might have found a skill gap. Write down the gap and review appropriately after the session to fill it in.
After running through your teaching session and working on any skill gaps, check in on your confidence levels. Have you proven to yourself that you know more than you through you did? Does it feel like you’re a bit closer to knowing the topic inside and out? Regardless of your answers, the next step will boost your confidence even more.
Your next step is to work on your comfort levels while presenting your knowledge. Miriam Grobman’s discussion of Executive Presence via Trello is a great extra resource here. To improve your comfort levels, we need to focus on:
- Communication skills
- Design education
- Confident dressing
Here’s how we improve each:
Work on your communication skills — both written and spoken.
If the comic above resonates with you (or resonates in reverse — you’re a great speaker but an awkward writer), then it’s time to get to work on your communication skills.
While you can find public speaking and written communication courses at the MOOC resources provided here, consider seeking out in-person courses. These options will give you the rapid feedback and face-to-face experience necessary to improve your communication skills.
Local chapters of Toastmasters can help with public speaking. For written communication, look into local college courses or recreation center programs.
Dive into design
For better or worse, humans are visually driven creatures. We have an unfortunate tendency to link “nice-looking” and “trustworthy.” Presentation slides and handouts are no exception.
If your materials leave something to be desired in the looks department, learn some basics of design (even if that’s “outside of your field.”) CreativeLive and Skillshare are fantastic places to start this aspect of your education.
Dress for success —your way
Offices have adopted more casual dress codes in recent years. While it’s a great chance to express individualism, some evidence indicates it could affect productivity.
If “you are what you wear” is true, then you’ll want to ensure your clothes reflect confidence. The preferences vary from person to person, but consider these two areas:
Clothing comfort: It’s hard to be confident if you’re constantly adjusting too-large, too-small or scratchy clothes
Comfort with dress codes: Do you prefer to be on the dressier side or on the more casual end? Feeling too dressed up or down can negatively impact your confidence.
Even in scenarios with strict dress-codes, try to seek out options that work well for you. Once you know what puts you most at ease in these areas, confidence should follow.
If all else fails…
If the above techniques don’t improve your confidence quite enough, there is another potential option. But, this approach is the most drastic. I recommend significant consideration before employing it.
Enter the trial by fire.
The goal is to select an activity you know will stretch your abilities, preferably in front of a group or in public. It might be enrolling in a competition, taking a course that requires public participation, stepping up to lead a high stakes meeting or publishing a sample of your work.
In any case, you have to stick with the activity until the bitter end. Backing out at the last minute will only reinforce any imposter syndrome you’re battling. Hence why you should deliberate carefully before jumping in — you don’t want the method to backfire and negatively impact your confidence.
Successfully carried out, however, the trial by fire can be the ultimate confidence solidifier. It forces you to work far outside your comfort zone. From there, any other work seems easy.
After all, if you can perform in a high-pressure situation in a public forum, you can perform anywhere.
Ultimately, we all have to strike a delicate balance between confidence and competence. But with some introspection and education, we can learn to walk the tightrope and perform at our best.
