Denial and delusions

Some years ago, I joined a technical team in a communication role.

Just days into the job, I was stunned to find that my manager had signed me up for a business writing training course. "Moi? Business writing training?" I said. "No, no, you must be mistaken - I'm the new comms person! It's not me who needs writing training." 15 minutes into the first session, I silently thanked the universe for saving me from myself and my ego.

My writing wasn't bad or wrong, and it had served me well through the academic world. But I was very much winging it when it came to writing for a time-poor multitasking corporate audience. With 100% confidence, I would not be where I am today if I hadn't learned then how to structure an email, translate jargon into plain english, turn passive voice into active and put the main point first.

Turns out I'm not unique in believing I don't need communication training. Two clever guys figured out this cognitive bias back in the 1990s. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where a person with low ability, expertise, or experience in a given topic or subject tends to give overly positive assessments of this ability.

I'm also not the only one to suffer from it. Grammarly surveyed 251 business leaders and 1,001 knowledge workers about workplace communication last year. And found that most people rate their own communication skills as more effective than others.

So it's no wonder that they are not signing themselves up for communication training. I'll never know how much thought my manager gave to enrolling me in that business writing training all those years ago. It may have been deliberate. Perhaps they just needed to make up the numbers.

But every time I write an email or edit someone's business writing, I am eternally grateful that he saved me from being Dunning-Krugered.