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Three Overconfidence Smells

Summary

This episode of Developer Tea explores the common but often invisible problem of overconfidence in software development and professional settings. Host Jonathan Cottrell introduces the concept of “overconfidence smells”—patterns of behavior that signal someone may be displaying unwarranted certainty in their opinions and decisions.

Cottrell first discusses the smell of “absolute certainty,” where individuals portray 100% conviction about opinions, particularly during arguments or technical discussions. He notes that this absolutism is damaging when trying to find optimal solutions and that good developers understand everything must be considered within its specific context. This behavior often backfires by driving others further into their own positions rather than fostering productive dialogue.

The second smell is “do-it-yourself-ism” or rejecting external input, where individuals or teams operate in silos and dismiss outside opinions, research, or experiences. Cottrell explains how this creates a compounding effect where flawed beliefs build upon other flawed beliefs, leading to increasingly problematic decision chains. He connects this to “not-invented-here syndrome” and emphasizes the importance of collaborative cross-checking to uncover blind spots and biases.

The third and more nuanced smell is when “nothing sounds like a surprise”—when someone presents as having seen and done everything, never expressing genuine surprise or curiosity about new information. Cottrell suggests this behavior often makes people appear as know-it-alls rather than confident experts, and recommends the opposite approach: listening intently, asking questions, and finding something new to learn in every conversation.

Throughout the episode, Cottrell offers practical advice for both identifying these patterns in others and catching them in oneself. He emphasizes that the best approach to dealing with overconfidence in others is usually not to directly confront them about it, but rather to cultivate an environment of “confident humility” where questioning and curiosity are valued over certainty.

Recommendations

Concepts

  • Code smells — Mentioned as a heuristic concept that the term “smell” is borrowed from, encouraging listeners to Google it if unfamiliar. Used as an analogy for the overconfidence indicators discussed in the episode.

Tools

  • DigitalOcean — Sponsor of the episode, mentioned as providing scalable compute services with flexible configurations, consistent pricing, rapid provisioning, and included monitoring and alerting. Listeners are offered $100 of free credit.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to overconfidence bias in developers — Jonathan introduces the topic of overconfidence bias, explaining that even people with imposter syndrome often display unwarranted confidence. He notes that genuine confidence and faked confidence can look similar, and previews the three “overconfidence smells” he’ll discuss to help identify this behavior in oneself and others.
  • 00:02:12 — First smell: Absolute certainty about opinions — The first overconfidence smell is when someone displays absolute certainty about almost anything, particularly during arguments. Cottrell explains this often happens with “should” language in technical discussions and notes that true certainty is nearly impossible since context always matters. He advises catching yourself or others using language that portrays 100% conviction.
  • 00:06:03 — Second smell: Culture of do-it-yourself-ism — The second smell involves rejecting external input and operating in silos. Cottrell explains how relying only on one’s own intuition creates compounding errors, while collaboration allows for cross-checking and uncovering blind spots. He connects this to “not-invented-here syndrome” and warns against cultures that uniformly reject outside opinions, tools, or processes.
  • 00:10:16 — Third smell: When nothing sounds like a surprise — The third, more nuanced smell occurs when someone never expresses surprise, acting as if they’ve seen and done everything before. Cottrell describes how this makes people appear as know-it-alls rather than confident experts. He recommends the opposite approach: listening intently, asking questions, and finding something new to learn in every conversation.
  • 00:12:04 — Consequences and cultivating confident humility — Cottrell discusses the negative consequences of overconfidence, including creating frustrating work environments where people become closed off to differing opinions. He explains that overconfident individuals often end up ostracized as others avoid trying to convince them. The episode concludes with encouragement to cultivate “confident humility” by being inquisitive, curious about coworkers’ perspectives, and recognizing that one’s view is never the complete picture.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2018-11-26T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:14:00

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] We all believe in ourselves.

[00:00:07] Even those of us who struggle with imposter syndrome, and most of us do from time to time,

[00:00:13] we feel that it’s important to believe in ourselves.

[00:00:19] And this is an overconfidence bias.

[00:00:21] It’s not necessarily always on purpose.

[00:00:23] In fact, most of the time it’s probably not on purpose that we portray a sense of confidence

[00:00:29] that we don’t really have a good reason or good evidence to explain why we’re portraying

[00:00:36] that confidence.

[00:00:38] But it’s a little bit tricky because people who have confidence and people who fake confidence

[00:00:44] often look quite similar.

[00:00:46] And in today’s episode, I’m going to talk about three kind of confidence smells or overconfidence

[00:00:53] that you can use to kind of establish a picture of your current situation, whether it’s for

[00:01:00] yourself when you start displaying these particular symptoms of overconfidence or with someone

[00:01:07] else.

[00:01:08] Finally, a word of caution before we jump into this episode.

[00:01:12] If you do indeed find out that you are working with someone who is displaying overconfidence,

[00:01:18] remind yourself that number one, this is incredibly common, and number two, the best

[00:01:23] strategy to deal with it is most likely not to tell them that they are overconfident.

[00:01:28] Unless you have established a clear relationship where you can provide that kind of negative

[00:01:34] feedback with this person, explaining to someone that they are overconfident is perhaps one

[00:01:40] of the most difficult things you’ll do in your career, in your interpersonal relationships,

[00:01:45] in your career with your coworkers, because more times than not, our overconfidence is

[00:01:51] difficult to diagnose in ourselves.

[00:01:53] It’s difficult to see that we’re being overconfident.

[00:01:56] And this kind of unwelcome criticism, especially when you don’t already have a kind of suspect

[00:02:03] that it’s true, is likely to be rejected right out of the gate.

[00:02:08] So let’s talk about three smells of overconfidence.

[00:02:12] My name is Jonathan Cottrell, and you’re listening to Developer Tea, and my goal on this show

[00:02:15] is to help driven developers like you connect to your career purpose and do better work

[00:02:19] so you can have a positive influence on the people around you.

[00:02:23] And before we dive in any further into these smells of overconfidence, I want to talk about

[00:02:27] today’s awesome sponsor, DigitalOcean.

[00:02:30] DigitalOcean provides scalable compute services, flexible configuration size for any application

[00:02:36] in industry-leading price to performance ratios.

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[00:02:44] You have rapid provisioning, which means you can get up and running very quickly with new

[00:02:48] servers and replica servers.

[00:02:51] You’ll get monitoring included, by the way.

[00:02:54] This is something that you usually have to add on and configure yourself, but monitoring

[00:02:58] and alerting are both included with DigitalOcean.

[00:03:00] And finally, and perhaps most importantly and excitingly, you’re going to get $100 worth

[00:03:06] of free credit just for being a Developer Tea listener.

[00:03:10] Head over to do.co.tea to get that $100 worth of credit.

[00:03:18] Thank you again to DigitalOcean for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:03:22] So let’s talk about these three smells of overconfidence.

[00:03:25] Very simple things, very simple smells that you can identify in others and in yourself.

[00:03:32] Now, of course, we’re using the word smell.

[00:03:35] In case you’re not familiar with this, I encourage you to go and Google code smells.

[00:03:40] This is kind of a heuristic.

[00:03:42] It’s not an absolute truth.

[00:03:44] If you see these things, it doesn’t mean for sure that you’re experiencing somebody with

[00:03:49] overconfidence, although basically everyone will have the experience of overconfidence

[00:03:54] at some point.

[00:03:55] But these are more like heuristics.

[00:03:57] They’re signs that could be one thing or another.

[00:04:01] Very often they have to do with overconfidence.

[00:04:04] The first smell, the first overconfidence smell, wherever there is absolute certainty

[00:04:11] about almost anything, whenever someone is portraying the sense that they are 100% convinced

[00:04:20] of whatever a particular opinion is, it seems obvious, but we do this quite a lot.

[00:04:27] This happens in particular when we get into arguments, when we have to take one side or

[00:04:32] the other, we very often portray that we’re fully bought in to our side of the argument.

[00:04:39] We wrongly think maybe that this is going to help us win the argument, but very often

[00:04:43] it actually does the opposite.

[00:04:44] It drives the other person to back further away into their corner of the ring.

[00:04:51] Being absolutely certain of really almost anything is a near impossibility.

[00:04:57] There’s almost always a variable that you’re not considering.

[00:05:01] If you shift the context of a given opinion into a different context, then perhaps things

[00:05:07] have changed once again.

[00:05:09] We often hear this kind of language when we’re talking about code.

[00:05:13] There’s a lot of kind of should language, right?

[00:05:17] The language where code should be one way or another way.

[00:05:22] And we’re probably even guilty of this on developer T, explaining how code should be.

[00:05:28] This kind of absolutism is really damaging when you’re trying to find an optimal solution,

[00:05:35] when you’re trying to be a flexible coworker, when you’re trying to be a flexible worker

[00:05:41] in general.

[00:05:42] And a good developer understands that everything has to be taken within its own context.

[00:05:48] And so whenever you see somebody or you yourself, catch yourself with language that portrays

[00:05:55] that you’re absolutely certain about a given opinion, then you’re probably being overconfident.

[00:06:01] Okay, the second smell.

[00:06:03] When there is a culture of do-it-yourself-ism.

[00:06:08] Perhaps the most profound thing that I’ve learned in my career thus far is that if I

[00:06:14] rely on myself, if I always rely on my own intuition, on my gut, on my experiences, my

[00:06:23] opinions, my perceptions, if I rely only on myself, then I’m short sighting myself.

[00:06:31] I am kind of giving myself a bad setup, a bad basis to work from.

[00:06:39] This isn’t because my opinion is invalid.

[00:06:42] It’s also not because I’m wrong all or even most of the time.

[00:06:46] Instead, there’s a compounding effect of relying only on yourself.

[00:06:52] When you’re wrong about one thing and then you work with someone else and they’re wrong

[00:06:56] about something different, you can kind of cross-check each other, right?

[00:07:01] I may be wrong about one thing, but my coworker is more right about that thing.

[00:07:06] And so we end up averaging each other out.

[00:07:09] And if we choose to work with people who see things in the same kind of collaborative spirit

[00:07:15] that we do, then very often we uncover blind spots, we uncover biases, we uncover these

[00:07:24] lack of skill areas perhaps, and even check each other, for example, on our overconfidence.

[00:07:31] But if I only work in a silo, in an echo chamber, even if I just work with people that are a

[00:07:37] lot like me or that defer to me, they always agree with me, they always give me the floor.

[00:07:43] If I work in a situation where I make all the decisions without any checks, then being

[00:07:49] wrong about one thing and thinking that I’m right about it, and then being wrong about

[00:07:54] the next thing and thinking that I’m right about it, this is going to continue compounding

[00:07:58] because I’ll create a whole kind of chain of decisions where I was wrong at multiple

[00:08:05] locations rather than making mistakes along the way and improving.

[00:08:11] So the basis for forming new beliefs, if that basis itself is already flawed, and those

[00:08:18] new beliefs are also wrong, they’re also flawed, then the new basis becomes even more flawed.

[00:08:26] So we kind of breed problems in this scenario.

[00:08:32] And so it’s very important when you experience, when you have somebody who is rejecting external

[00:08:39] input, for example, if they say that, oh, well, all of those business books on the wall,

[00:08:45] all of those researchers, they all say different things.

[00:08:49] So it’s all just opinions anyway, right?

[00:08:52] This blanket minimizing or rejection of external input, external experience, external research.

[00:09:01] If you see somebody doing this kind of rejection, then it’s very likely that they are confident

[00:09:08] and perhaps overconfident in their own opinions.

[00:09:12] And they are probably following something that is, at the very least, under-representative

[00:09:19] of a larger group, a larger collaborative group, and at the very worst, a breeding ground

[00:09:25] for more flaws.

[00:09:27] So watch out for cultures of do-it-yourselfism, where you think that everything that comes

[00:09:33] in from the outside is bad, whether that’s opinions or tooling or processes, whatever

[00:09:42] it is.

[00:09:45] Another version of this is the not-invented-here syndrome.

[00:09:49] Sometimes the not-invented-here syndrome is not necessarily related to overconfidence

[00:09:53] as much as it is related to fear.

[00:09:56] So watch for this rejection, this culture of rejection to the external, especially if

[00:10:02] it’s uniform, if the immediate response to anything incoming is either negative or at

[00:10:08] best neutral and then moves towards negative.

[00:10:11] All right, the third smell, when nothing sounds like a surprise.

[00:10:16] This one’s a little bit more nuanced, but we’ve all had these kinds of conversations

[00:10:20] with other people where we’re talking about some kind of subject.

[00:10:24] Let’s say we’re talking about some kind of research, even research that we did, the person

[00:10:29] that’s presenting this.

[00:10:31] And the other person presents as if they know everything that this person is saying.

[00:10:37] They almost automatically say, right, of course, yes, I knew that.

[00:10:42] And the feeling that you get as the person sending this message to the other person is

[00:10:47] that this person has seen it all, that they’ve done it all.

[00:10:51] They’re so experienced that there’s nothing new that I can bring to them that they haven’t

[00:10:55] seen before.

[00:10:57] This is almost certainly not true, and at some point you will see this person experience

[00:11:04] something that they’ve never experienced before, hear about something they’ve never heard before,

[00:11:09] and still avoid expressing any kind of surprise.

[00:11:15] Whatever the underlying mechanism is for this that tells us that it’s going to make us come

[00:11:20] across as more confident or more trustworthy, very often this does the opposite.

[00:11:28] Very often it makes you look like a know-it-all or someone who doesn’t really, you don’t really

[00:11:33] want to tell that kind of person a story.

[00:11:36] The opposite of this response is to listen intently and learn something new in every

[00:11:43] conversation.

[00:11:45] And asking questions and learning more about this new situation is a much more open way

[00:11:54] to respond.

[00:11:56] So it’s very important that we think about these things when we go about our day-to-day

[00:12:01] work.

[00:12:02] Now, it’s not just that we shouldn’t be overconfident.

[00:12:04] Of course, this creates negative scenarios in many ways, but it can also be very frustrating

[00:12:10] to work with an overconfident person.

[00:12:14] This tends to create situations where people are closed off.

[00:12:19] They don’t really want to hear any new opinions.

[00:12:23] Very often it’s hard to work with these kinds of people because if you have a differing

[00:12:29] opinion, then that opinion is very likely going to be not accepted very well.

[00:12:37] And ultimately the opposite of what that overconfident person desires ends up happening.

[00:12:43] They end up being ostracized and moved to the edge so that people don’t have to try

[00:12:48] to convince them of their opinion.

[00:12:51] So I encourage you to always cultivate confident humility.

[00:12:57] Always be looking for opportunities to ask questions, to be inquisitive, to be curious

[00:13:04] about what your co-workers think, and then also recognizing that the things that you

[00:13:11] see are not the whole picture, that there’s always new perceptions, always new ways of

[00:13:17] thinking and that the gateway to those new ways of thinking is interacting with the people

[00:13:22] around you.

[00:13:23] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:13:26] Thank you again to DigitalOcean for sponsoring today’s episode.

[00:13:29] You can get $100 worth of credit on DigitalOcean by heading over to deo.co.tea, that’s deo.co.tea,

[00:13:38] get started today.

[00:13:39] Thank you again for listening.

[00:13:40] If you enjoyed today’s episode and you don’t want to miss out on future episodes like this

[00:13:44] one, I encourage you to subscribe and whatever podcasting app you’re currently listening

[00:13:48] to this episode with.

[00:13:49] Thanks so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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