Common Sense and Competency
by Miki SaxonToday’s post is very short because it requires you to read two others.
First is Dan McCarthy’s wondering if common sense is a learnable skill and offering his own eight steps that might (or might not) help. The first step is a doozy.
Admit you have a problem.
As Dan points out it is probably the hardest step of all.
Reading that post reminded me of a post I did based on an article I read ten years ago about research on incompetence.
“Most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent. … One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.”
Admitting you may be incompetent is far worse than admitting a lack of common sense and so even less likely to happen.
Which is why you need feedback from a variety of sources; the larger the variety the more accurate the picture.
Of course, then you need to listen to it.
Image credit: Karl Horton on flickr
