Remember That No One Has Any Idea What They’re Doing
Over the course of 15 years I worked my way up from an intern at Yahoo! to Head of Airbnb’s Design Studio. But I never conquered imposter syndrome. I never became fully confident. I still feel uncertain often, and second-guess myself regularly. I’ve come to see it as a virtue, or at least useful, although I had to learn how.
Doubting myself was so easy, I found, surrounded by so many people with intimidating talent and intelligence. But also people who put on such a good show. My world (and I suspect yours) is chock full of people who act like they just know, like their point of view is not only obvious but inevitable. Not malicious by any stretch, but nonetheless conducting themselves like swagger is more important than substance. They do it, I think, largely because it works. And that’s not ok.
A long time ago I learned that the wildly talented and the wildly over-confident shared one key thing in common with me. When I figured it out, I wrote it on a post-it note on the desk in my home-office. It sat there for more than 5 years until I turned the post-it into something a bit more polished:
Embrace the Uncertainty
We’re not tearing anyone down here, we’re building ourselves up. Here’s what this mantra means:
- Since no one has any idea what they’re doing, you’re just as well equipped as anyone else. You need to believe that, and to believe in yourself.
- Not knowing is a fact of life. Understanding that deeply is a virtue. Let it remind you that learning is more important than knowing.
- Be humble in the face of not knowing. Remember that no matter how much you know, in the grand scheme of things you don’t know shit.
I found I needed the reminder, in meetings and in 1:1 interactions, when reading documents or (worse!) comments on documents. When facing the relentless critique that some people mistake for progress. And so I take a breath, and remind myself that no one, none of us, knows what we are doing. We are all doing our best, figuring it out as we go. We should strive to be a community of humble learners, who admit mistakes and the likelihood that we are wrong in small and large ways, and who are confident in doing that.
What it comes down to is realizing we’re all in the same boat. There’s no secret you don’t have, no stupid handshake you were not taught. The expression of overconfidence is a disease of modern work, not a characteristic of successful people.
When I’m doing this right it gives me more confidence, and I act that way. Knowing we’re all in the same boat, the stance is leaning forward, direct, decisive, but open and listening and humble and fully aware that the plan will change. Still gotta have a plan though.
I should mention at this point that I have absolutely, 100% been guilty of these mistakes. This is a spectrum not a dichotomy. I have identified in myself, for example, times when I doubled down instead of stepping back, or acted like I knew I was right rather than admitting that I could be wrong. I suspect I sit somewhere between the raging Elon Musk-ian sociopathic assholes of the world and the selfless saints, just like most of you do.
Staring at this mantra helps remind me both that I will absolutely make mistakes, and that I should always be on the lookout for them. Sometimes I catch myself in the moment and fix it right there — hang on, let me go back and ask a question rather than make a statement. But sometimes I catch it only later, and try to use it as a lesson for the next time.
If this rings as true to you as it does to me, I hope you’ll make use of noonehasanyidea.com, which I built to help us all remember.
But My 10,000 Hours!
Don’t see this mantra as an indictment of experience. People definitely build skill and wisdom over time. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, then you know about his glorification of the “10,000 hour rule.” He argues that the people who get really good at anything are the people who work the hardest, who put in their 10,000 hours of skill building. Side-note, this turns out to be “a provocative generalization,” according to some of the researchers who did the work on which Gladwell based his book, and a wild over-simplification according to a raft of well-reasoned critics.
The point remains, however — people do invest time and energy, and we do build knowledge, skills, and experience. I would also say, however, that the most brilliant and talented people I have ever worked with also follow the mantra described here, whether they know it or not. They’re unfailingly humble, always eager to learn, and they have no idea how good they are. It makes you want to be around them.
I don’t really think our problem is that the people with 10,000 hours aren’t getting their due. The problem is all the people who want to be treated like they have 10,000 hours who don’t deserve it. Those are the people who can invest us all in the vicious cycle of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
Over-Confidence is the Enemy of Good Leadership
Sadly, many of the people most guilty of all this are people in positions of senior leadership. So many leaders are over-confident, or think they have to be in order to be successful. But I would argue that overconfidence is a blind and selfish side-effect of lacking perspective on true leadership.
Great leadership is all about observing, learning, and adapting. Great leaders are not afraid of uncertainty, they don’t have to be right, and they don’t have to stake a claim to ideas. They have to make great things and they have to make progress. In my experience it’s the humble learners who are best at doing both, and they don’t do it alone.
None of this is the enemy of innovation, impact, and profit. We glorify individuals, and tell stories about how the lone genius solved a problem or made a mint. The lesson is that ground-breaking, world-changing vision requires over-confidence. Brilliant individuals make progress themselves by their force of will and work. This is the modern vision of the CEO that, unfortunately, so many will follow. But any serious look at how great things actually get done completely dismantles this idea. It turns out you can be visionary and decisive and collaborative and humble all at the same time, it’s just hard. But all the best things are hard.
If you’re wondering what One Big Thought is all about, check out it’s Origin Story. Send me an email at judd@onebigthought.com.
