Alexander Pope was right when he said that a little learning is a dangerous thing. In research on overconfidence in beginners, Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning discovered perspectives that animal health pros can apply when working with new employees or learning new procedures.
They describe a beginner’s bubble of overconfidence that can be related to the challenges of training animal health pros.
Two statements are worth considering:
- Total novices lack confidence, but as their confidence grows it outpace accuracy
- Overconfidence declines slightly with experience
Source: Harvard Business Review, March 29, 2018, Link.
The studies suggest that the work of a beginner might be doubly hard. Of course, the beginner must struggle to learn, but the beginner must also guard against an illusion they have learned too quickly.
INSIGHTS: There is a tendency in animal health training I call “one and done.” Accuracy and competence require repetition and continual coaching. Often criticized as wastes of time, reviewing what we think we know against what we are supposed to know can be revealing. Use team settings to review and reinforce the correct knowledge for procedures, protocols, calculations and labeled product uses.