Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't

by Jeffrey Pfeffer

a decade ago showing that people without the requisite knowledge to perform a task successfully also lacked the information and understanding required to know they were deficient, and in what ways.6 For instance, people who scored in the 12th percentile on tests of grammar and logic thought they were in the 62nd percentile. Not only did they overestimate their own performance; they also had difficulty assessing what they had answered correctly and where they had made mistakes, and they could not accurately recognize the relative competence of others. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem: get advice from others who are more skilled than you and will tell you the truth about yourself. Unfortunately, asking for this sort of help sometimes feels like weakness and people are reluctant to admit what they do not know—that self-enhancement thing again. Ironically, therefore, those who admit ignorance are more likely to improve—in all domains, including understanding power dynamics inside companies—than those who either don’t know their deficiencies or are afraid to admit them to others. As Confucius said, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s own ignorance.” And to be able to improve requires sharing this information with others who can help remedy the lack of knowledge.7