We’ve all seen this graph (or at least some version of it) and seen it applied to just about anything involving human confidence versus competence (in this case “conviction vs. knowledge”… same idea).
Following up with the actual definition, according to Wikipedia: “In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability.”
You often hear it described as “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and, if we are a person with some ego (everyone who is at least a little bit competitive), it’s easy to end up unwittingly on the left side of the graph. If that is a personality trait for us, we will go through this in every aspect of our lives. That means we can apply this to anything, but, of course, here I will focus on using advanced driving techniques as the example.
The particular focus is figuring out what we don’t know, because the path to enlightenment might start with one step but how do we figure out the direction? In Optimum Drive, I use the word “nuance” a lot. I state that greatness is in the nuance; it is the holistic, all-encompassing understanding that is when it all snaps into focus, connects, and flows.
People stuck in Dunning-Kruger firstly don’t know it (obviously), but what is it they don’t know and what makes them oblivious to it? It’s actually pretty easy to see how it happens…one word: oversimplification. They are people who go too far in stripping things down into understandable chunks… and this is the important part: They just try to perfect their simplified version instead of continuing to add nuance. Near perfect simple is not nearly potentially as good as imperfect more complex.
Example: Most drivers up to very high levels of experience (could be decades of competitive driving) think being fast is only about speed and position. The goal is a well set-up car, then deftly held at the grip limit (defined by the set-up), while positioning the car exactly on the ideal line. That should be it, right? It’s not, and it’s typically over a second off what the car could truly do. Here’s why: Just managing understeer and oversteer is not enough, and by managing, I mean that the driver as quickly as they can fixes them so they don’t get so big that they feel (or see on their data later) a measurable loss of time. Imagine (maybe you don’t have to) “feeling” your lap was “perfect” and being a second off? That would be smack in the Dunning-Kruger vortex…definition of frustrating? That lap was near perfection (“See, look at the data!”). The problem there is something important, some nuance missing from their knowledge base that’s causing the time loss and resulting frustration.
This is where it’s tempting to think or say someone is more talented than them (or cheating, or outspending them, etc.). Well, if talent is knowledge, they might be right, but by calling it talent, they’re saying it’s unattainable for them. It’s not; it’s just that they, as mentioned, don’t know the direction of the first step.
They have to be able to picture how a car holistically works. It is common to have a “pro” driver hop in someone else’s car and have them immediately go significantly faster than the owner. They get called “alien” a lot (or something similar) when that happens. How does a driver get in the same car and go faster when the owner has the data trace and feeling that they drove a near perfect lap? Must be magic, right? At that moment, the owner of the car has been rather rudely sliding over to the right on the Dunning-Kruger chart. They have jumped off the cliff of over-confidence (and the blissfully ignorant position of being able to blame your lack of speed on everything but themselves). I say jumped and not pushed because they let them do it (usually hoping they would find something wrong with the car, not their driving). It’s good though; the journey can now begin.
Looking at the data will likely not help. There are very few people who can really see what is going on because they need to read all the driver channels simultaneously (to visualize the car completely) to see what’s actually happening. You will hear things that sound useful, things like you could brake later, you need to carry more speed here or there, stuff like that, but not how you are able to do it, when with every ounce of your being, knowing that your best lap had the car at the limit the whole way around on your lap. If you would try to brake where they brake or corner at their minimum speed, the tires would lock and the car would slide and you would lose time and certainly not gain anything. They are at the bottom of the chart, time to start clawing their way out of the hole. Time to earn some nuance. You’ll notice on the graph I have chosen (out of the many that exist) that this one wavers as it climbs, not the steady arc up that are on the typical Dunning-Kruger graph. The reason is that growth (and experience that enables growth) is messy. You have to be willing to fail and fail often to earn that nuance. There is only one way to do it right and infinite mistakes to make along the way. Be patient with yourself, stay motivated, and pay attention. Track time is expensive and getting the most out of every lap is a must.
So just where is this last second and how is someone on the same line as you able to brake later and carry more speed through the corners with the exact same car? The trick is to realize understeer and oversteer are not the limit. If the driver lets them happen, even if they correct quickly, they are losing speed and, therefore, time. As drivers, we can think of tires in pairs: front axle and rear axle. A well-set-up car can understeer (slide the front axle) or oversteer (slide the rear axle) at many different places on a single lap. The variations are the speed of the corner and where in the corner. The pro driver can anticipate where and when one or the other might happen and, instead of letting it happen and correcting, they alter breaking and accelerating relative to steering. Why? Because if you let one axle slide, it is over the limit and produces less grip, and then, by definition, the other end is under the limit, so the combined grip of both axles is below their limits and the car to hold the same radius (assuming the same ideal line) must go slower to stay on that line. So, the pro keeps the axles grip near the limit, intentionally manipulating front and rear axle grip at any given moment to help the car turn on entry hold in the middle (maximizing minimum speed in the corner) and put power down efficiently on the exit, remembering that all corners are different and it all changes lap to lap due to tire wear and track evolution. That is some serious nuance and you might guess, with the almost infinite variability of what I described above, the wobbly climb up the Dunning-Kruger chart is measured in years, not hours. It is accessible to anyone who takes the time to notice there are no aliens, just more experienced drivers that have acknowledged and now routinely solve for variables that people on the left peak of the chart don’t even realize exist. Of course once you get a reasonable grasp now being a great car balancer you add in the next variable you discovered along the way of your never-ending journey.
In Optimum Drive, I go into much more detail than I can in a simple blog post. I can really unravel the balance thing to great detail by spending a lot of time understanding the all-critical tires and us as human beings (and how they learn efficiently). We are all susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect (it is only natural, after all) and it does admittedly feel pretty blissful to not know any better. The sad part is the precious time and money that is wasted there. Along this journey, at some point your confidence and ability are finally equal and you are safe, fast, and consistent, making it all look far too easy…if they only knew what it took to get there, the years-long roller coaster ride of the Dunning-Kruger graph… Buckle up, let’s go.