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The rice shop owner is making the bill for my order of 25 kg rice. He asks where the delivery has to be made. I tell him the name of building where I live in. He asks me for the house number and adds a delivery charge of Rs. Twenty-Five over and above the actual price of rice. I object to that and tell him that last time I paid a mere ten rupee towards delivery.

The owner now asks me if I have come in my car and I replied with a Yes. He suggests that I carry the rice bag myself in the car and save those twenty-five rupees. I was thinking about his suggestion for few seconds and meanwhile he instructs his staff to load the rice bag in my car. A young boy in his early twenties, lifts a bag, puts it on his shoulders and waits for me to complete the payment. When the payment is complete, he walks along with me and loads the rice bag in my car.

While driving the car back home, I appreciate myself for the decision and for the money saved (When a young boy can handle a rice bag so easily, I too can do the same). I reach my building, park the vehicle and tried lifting the bag from the car dicky. I could not lift it comfortably. After few attempts, I could manage to drag it down and now it lays on the floor. My attempts to lift the bag the way the boy lifted so casually have gone vain. Now I see that some people who are strolling in the area are watching curiously my struggle with the bag. I feel like running away from the place. I quicky call my wife and seek her help.  After a few minutes she turns up. Together we carry the bag into the lift and disappear from the scene. 

This incident made me think why I overestimated my ability to carry the rice bag.

I am reminded of various other scenarios where I overestimated my ability to do certain things and came cropper.

The trade show that was a disaster, the failed product launch and some other incidents that happened throughout my career can be attributable to - 

·       Overestimation of my own ability to raise up to the tasks

·       Ignorance I might have had about the whole context 

·       Failure to understand the spectrum and intricacies of skills required to perform those tasks successfully.

In the recent past, I have lost valuable orders from the position of winning, because I overestimated my rapport with those clients and my ability to swing deals.

Some of my recent training programs received negative feedback because I overestimated my ability to deliver training without adequate preparation.

I have overestimated my ability to resolve certain family disputes without doing basic groundwork to understand the deeper realities of those situations.

The Dunning – Kruger effect demonstrates that people tend to have more favaourable views about their skills in a domain and hence come to erroneous conclusions, make wrong choices and take undesirable actions. 

Like the ability I thought I possess to handle the rice bag, swing the deals, manage the training and resolve family disputes. 

It is simply the result of ignorance we may have about the whole context and hence overestimation of our ability to make things happen. 

The gap between the trade show incident and the rice bag incident is easily twenty years. So, I am a regular member of this Dunning – Kruger Club. 

Do you also belong to this club? (Analysis of recent mistakes and failures may help)

Please comment with a ‘Yes’ if you also belong to this club and lend me some moral support.

Also, please watch out for people in your team who may belong to this elite club…Ignorant, Incompetent but with high degree of overestimating selves.