As You Like It

Reminiscing of what might have been, Liz Truss penned an essay and returned to the front pages last Sunday. 

Taking 100 days to reflect and evaluate what happened was, as Truss describes, ‘painful’ but ‘crucial’.  Although she claims not to be blameless, there is still a lack of awareness and accountability on her part.

The timing and the targeting of this proclamation is deliberate. The death of the Queen and panic in the markets dominated her brief stint as Prime Minister. But her return to the media coincides with winter fuel bills, which for many, she made a lot cheaper. 

Is that sufficient enough in terms of an apology? The simple answer for the majority of people is no.

History encourages leaders to demonstrate unwavering conviction. Politicians can be guilty of overpromising, and under delivering. But it’s ok to not have all the answers

The Dunning-Kruger effect, where a person over estimates their ability or competence is clearly at play here. Named after US social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, this describes how incompetence is often twinned with an inappropriate confidence.

In the Williams Nicolson Trend Index 2023, we said that reshaping our ecosystems takes awareness, discomfort, and a period of relearning.

We often prefer the ease of hanging on to old systems over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. But we should nurture the ability to rethink and unlearn. Learn from experiences. We’ve trained ourselves to be adept in our own expertise. But you still don’t know what you don’t know. 

If you do what you’ve always done, you will keep getting the same result, so try something new. Listen to your advisors and if you don’t know about something, find someone who does. 

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."