From confidence to scepticism — how can we balance both?

There are times when I feel surrounded by people filled with confidence. They talk about their ideas and projects with a beautiful sense of optimism and certainty. It is a confidence I cannot always match.

I remember being more sure of myself and my ideas. I was always arguing against the Realists in my International Relations seminars, confident that a fairer and kinder future was possible. More than 20 years ago I joined a march to stop a war, confident that the politicians would listen. Even five years ago I had confidence that we could build a learning programme based on empathy, listening and reflection that could transform the relationships across an organisation.

Where did that confidence go? Is this just a part of getting older? Is it the experience of seeing ideas not come to fruition in the way you hoped?

I like to think I am still an optimistic person. I’m just less confident that a protest, an idea, or a learning programme is going to get us where we need to go. Getting change done is hard and bumpy and difficult. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, we must. I just wish it were ok to work with more uncertainty. A place where optimism and confidence weren’t seen as superpowers to defeat scepticism and doubt.

Can we instead use confidence as a foundation for understanding other people’s concerns and use a whole range of feelings and emotions to deliver change? People don’t want ‘negative’ people around when they are on a crest of confidence but they bring a vital balance to our work that can actually help with long-term success.

Hindsight show me so many examples of misplaced confidence. I’m left thinking “How did I ever believe that?” There are so many examples of this misplaced confidence but two come to mind. In the early 2000s there were incentives to buy diesel cars that led to a ‘dash for diesel’. A more recent (and very zeitgeisty) example is the growing understanding that forests are interconnected and trees are not competing against each other for sunlight. This is a new (old?) truth that now frames a number of new ideas and ways of delivering change.

Which ideas are circulating now that we will later understand were wrong?

When listening to the excellent ‘If Books Could Kill’ podcast recently, the presenter Michael Hobbes spoke about how we did a presentation to his colleagues on the concepts in the book Nudge. He said, “I had a lot of confidence and not very much knowledge.” When he actually gained more understanding he became a radical opponent of the book.

Now he hosts a podcast debunking some of the most influential books of the last 50 years, including Freakonomics, Outliers, Atomic Habits and The End of History. I have been influenced by books like these and confidently taken ideas into my work, wanting easy answers to complex challenges.

Optimism and confidence are superpowers but can lead to blind spots. A healthy dose of uncertainty and scepticism can help us see the whole picture and deliver long-term success.