August 25, 2026 • 46 mins
"Fake it till you make it" is one of the most repeated pieces of career advice, but does it actually work? In this episode, the team explores the origin of the idea, when it genuinely helps people succeed, and where it crosses the line into deception or outright fraud. From Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Branson and Steven Spielberg to Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried, they examine the fine line between confidence, ambition and dishonesty.
Along the way they discuss why some professions are surprisingly easy to "fake" while others expose incompetence almost immediately, the psychology behind behavioural activation and imposter syndrome, and why genuine expertise still matters. The conversation concludes with a practical framework for deciding when projecting confidence is useful, and and when you're better off simply doing the work.
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to theCognitive Engineering Podcast brought
to you by Aleph Insights andproduced by me, Fraser McGruer. I'm
here with Peter Coghill andNick Hare of Aleph Insights. On this
podcast, we look at a widerange of topics from an analytical
viewpoint. And today we'rediscussing. Faking it till you. Making
it, Nick. Faking it until youmake it. Tell us about that. What's
(00:28):
on your mind?
Well, obviously, and I thinkyou of all people must be familiar
with the adage that you shouldmake fake it till you make it.
I'm familiar with the adage, yes.
Yeah. So, you know, and Ithink a lot of, particularly in the
realm of business, there's alot of inspiring stories, aren't
there, about people who havesort of gone in there, pretended
to be either bigger or morecompetent or, you know, the kind
(00:51):
of, you tell all of thepotential investors that, you know,
you've got interest from a lotof other investors and, you know,
and eventually that drives itsown success. The, that's what we're
meant to believe. And thatkind of is what faking it till you're
making it is supposed to looklike. So I think we want to ask the
question of, well, when, whendoes that work? When does it not
(01:13):
work? And, you know, how, howand what's the, what are some good
strategies for doing it? Andmaybe you think about it.
Yeah. And also perhaps evendelving into it. Like, what does
it even mean?
Well, yeah, well, what is,what exactly is faking it and what
is making it?
Yeah, yeah, we go like,everything brilliant. Okay, cool.
So, I mean, start with a fewexamples, some of which might be
(01:33):
familiar to you. Young manwith a good bod by the name of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who came toAmerica from Austria, from rural
Austria with only the shirt onhis back and, you know, what a back,
what a back. What incrediblelats that guy had. And he was, you
know, projecting all thisconfidence. Basically went in there
(01:55):
with a lot of confidence, youknow, about his, his future bodybuilding
career, his, his actingability, his, you know, political
career, as low it came topass. Now, admittedly, he obviously
was a very good bodybuilder.Yeah, he was already pretty good
at that. Yeah. But the otherstuff, you know, I mean, let's. With
the best will in the world,he's no Laurence Olivier, and yet
(02:18):
somehow he's managed to createthis incredible brand for himself.
And I think, and I, I, itwould have to be a churl who didn't
like Arnold Schwarzenegger onsome level. Love that guy, Richard
Branson, another famousexample of someone who, you know,
just basically woke up onemorning and said, you know what?
I'm going to be a musicmagnate. And hey, presto, he was,
because he decided to be. Hesaid, right, we're now Virgin Records,
(02:42):
we're going to sign up someweirdos, we're going to tell people
we're a record company, loadsof interest, you know, suddenly massive
record company. And then theother stuff followed, you know, learning
on the job, well, let's be anairline company, let's be a train
company, you name it. RichardBranson has just decided that he's
going to do it and it tends towork. Steven Spielberg, very famous
(03:03):
story, used to hang around asa young film guy, hang around the
Universal Studios lot, foundan empty office, put his name on
it and basically pretended heworked there. And that's how he got
his start. It's been slightlyexaggerated in the telling, I think,
but it is, the essence of itis true.
Yeah. Okay.
So that's the kind of thing Ithink we want to talk about. Who
(03:26):
we don't want to talk about ispeople who just did the faking it
bit.
Right.
So all the people I'vementioned, they made it, actually
did make it, and for goodreasons, because they actually turned
out to be good or they becamegood. So we're not talking about
people like Elizabeth Holmesor Sam Bankman Fried, who just did
the faking it.
I don't know who these peopleare, but maybe I do.
Elizabeth Holmes was thatwoman who ran, who set up that. I
(03:49):
mean, she was a completefraudster. Set up that company, which
was. We did a podcast thing.We did a podcast about her. Yeah.
No, it was supposed to be akind of medical detector which you
could put one drop of blood inand it would tell you, you know,
all of the diseases that youhad. And ftx.
Yeah, the failed cryptoexchange, it was.
(04:09):
A classic Ponzi scheme,basically. And, and so he, I mean,
actually, I mean,interestingly, he did actually make
some very good investments aswell. But it's just actually at the
heart of it was this, was thisponce. Yeah, yeah. There's some really
good versions of people whofaked it nearly and then, and then
failed. Ali Deer. Does thatname mean anything to you? So in
(04:31):
November 1996, Ali Deerconvinced Graham Souness, who was
the Southampton manager, thathe was the cousin of the FIFA World
Player of the year, GeorgeWeir. And that led to him getting
signed on a one month contractwith Southampton.
Right.
He then played one match,coming on as a substitute in a league
game and was played, playedfor 53 minutes before it became painfully
(04:55):
obvious that he was not in anyway a professional footballer. And
14 days into his contract, hewas let go.
It was interesting because Iwas gonna say, think of these examples
that we've given us from thefields where they are sport, one
would imagine. And sureenough, it feels right.
Quite hard to fake it.
Quite hard to fake it and make.
It exactly, you know, and thenI've got, I think, the hero of all
fake it till you make itpeople. Guy Gomer does. So this was
(05:18):
a guy, I think it was about10, 15 years ago, who turned up at
the BBC for a job interview asan IT support assistant. And then
in a comedy of errors, whichyou would find in something like.
This guy who ended up on tv.Yeah, yeah.
In like Fawlty Towers orsomething. The BBC news people thought
he was Guy Cuny, a differentguy who was actually a tech journalist
(05:40):
being who was going to beinterviewed about something. He was
then basically made up and puton stage and introduced as a technology
expert. And I think he madethe assumption this was all part
of the interview process, andhe bluffed his way through the interview.
Not very well, but not sobadly that you might have just thought,
(06:01):
well, this guy doesn't reallyknow what he's talking about. But
it wasn't. It certainly wasn'ta. It wasn't like it all went disastrously
wrong. And he said, what thehell are you doing? I shouldn't be
here or anything like that. Hereally did give it a go. So, you
know, there we are. So we'retalking. But what we're talking about
is the Arnold Schwarzenegger,the Richard Branson, the Steven Spielberg,
not the other comedy players.And really it's like, well, what
(06:21):
differentiates them from theseguys? It about them, or is it actually
more about, like the industryand the type of thing they're trying
to do?
And also, I mean, what does itactually mean? Because how I interpret
fake it until you make it, howI interpret that doesn't necessarily
mean just lie to everyone andit will.
Right.
It will work out. How Iinterpret it is a kind of a positive
(06:43):
message, a positive attitude.And have the confidence, fake the
confidence, fool yourself thatyou can do it. And lo and behold,
within that you will do itsort of thing. A kind of almost manifestation.
I think there's an importantdistinction to draw there. There's
faking it. I think what wemean here is like cheap to reproduce,
(07:08):
signaling. So it's thedressing up in posh clothes.
Dressing for the job you want.
Yeah, dressing for the job youwant. So easily reproducible things
versus just wondering.
What job you're looking for anyway.
Versus the reel it hobo undera bridge.
Got it.
Versus the costly signalequivalent, which is reel it till
you feel it where you actuallydo it. You were actually modifying
(07:32):
your behavior in a costly,complicated or difficult way to let.
To hopefully that the qualityof the stuff that you produce will
shine through and actually get noticed.
Yeah. Like basically insteadof investing in the signal, you're
investing in the. In thecontent. You're trying to make yourself
into an actually competentperson. Yeah, well, I do actually.
(07:54):
I've got. Yeah, yeah. Givethat a portion if you can. So I do
have a levels of faking it,which I think. And I think they go
from not faking it all the waythrough to out and out imprisonable
fraud. So. So just tointroduce, there's actually nine
levels, but don't worry.Right. It's all quite explicable.
Yep. And they're really to dowith what you're faking. So. So level
(08:16):
level one, if you like notfaking it at all. That's, that's
going in and saying, well,I've got no idea what I'm doing.
Give us a hand. Which has, youknow, may have virtues of its own.
Then I think there's selfdeception. This is where you convince
yourself that you know whatyou're doing even if you don't. And
that's, that's the sort ofDunning Kruger effect, which we,
I think we've talked aboutlots and is quite well covered on
the Internet, which is, youknow, when you're new at something,
(08:38):
you, you know, it's quite easyto think that you're better at it
than you are. So three isprojecting confidence that you don't
have. So this is, you know, ifyou're a nervous public speaker or
whatever, but you stand up onstage and you pretend to be confident
and. Which isn't really thesame as feeling confident. So it
is. It is a kind of pretense.So I think projecting confidence,
that's. That's definitely partof, I think what people think.
(08:58):
It's kind of how I've lived mywhole life. Well, exactly.
Yeah, yeah. No, but I alwaysget the feeling with you that you
actually genuinely. Erroneousbelieve it. Which is.
Which is just shows that it's working.
Yeah, exactly. And then. Andthen we have sort of your identity
in some sense. Right. But thisis Dressing like the job you want.
This is trying to look like adifferent kind of person than the
(09:19):
one you are.
Yeah.
Capability. This is nowgetting into the slightly socially
unacceptable phase. This issaying that you can do something
and just hoping that you'll beable to learn on the job or wing
it.
It's like actors always sortof tick, like. Yeah, they can. Horse
riding is in this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
We'll figure that out when weget there.
So French. Yeah, I can doFrench. Yeah, yeah.
(09:40):
And we've got a whole sort ofswathes of different methods of qualifying,
whether people actually can dothings, qualifications and things
to test and prove.
Well, that gets on to the nextbit, really, which is their sort
of experience. So falsifyingyour experience, not quite yet in
a way that's genuinelyfraudulent. But this is the sort
of inflating your CV where yousay, oh, I led Team X and we did
(10:02):
this and in fact you were justthe photocopying guy or something,
you know, where it's. It's notquite fraud as such, but, you know,
and I think this is somethingthat I consider to be a bit beyond
the pale, but I know a lot ofpeople just think it's part of the
game to slightly big yourselfup on a cv and we probably all have
to some extent. I mean, you'renot. You're probably not going to,
you know, be absolutely honeston a cv.
(10:22):
There's a difference. Likeputting things in the best possible
light versus kind of basically lying.
Yeah. Now we get onto the bitwhere you're going to be committing
a criminal offense. So this isthe fun bit. Credentials, this, lying
about your qualifications.Right. So saying you've got a degree
that you haven't got, sayingyou're certified to do something
which you're not, then there'slying about actual results. So this,
(10:45):
and this can be fraud. If youare, for example, pretending, falsifying
your business outcomes, makingyourself look more profitable than
you are, hiding losses, Enrontype stuff, you know, pretending
you've got income or customersor research findings that you don't
have, and then finallyauthority. This is impersonating
a policeman or similar or adoctor or an airline pilot or something.
(11:08):
So those are the nine levelsof faking it. And I think before
we drill into what exactlyfaking it is, although I think Peter's
covered it quite well with thesort of simple signaling definition,
I think what we're talkingabout is somewhere between sort of
three and six here we'relooking at somewhere between projecting
more confidence than you haveand slightly inflating your experience
(11:29):
to make it sound moreimpressive. I think that's. That's
the. Anything more than thatis fraud. No one's advocating that.
Please don't do anything lessthan that.
What's the.
Less than that is just like,you know. Yeah, yeah. A bit of self
belief. Not, not. Not really aconscious decision to fake it. So.
Yeah, so there we are.
Okay, that makes sense. Andlike, like I said, I think that sort
of 3 and 4. Why everyonewouldn't do that, I don't know. But
(11:52):
I mean, you know, that's sojust how I feel about things. Peter.
Yeah. I'd like to lay out the.The case for the defence of faking.
It to make it.
Okay, get in there early. So,opening statements for defense. So
it's an old term. It's olderthan you think. It was sort of largely
popularized in recent years byAmway and Self Help and Alcoholics
(12:14):
Anonymous. Really? That'swhere it sort of. That's where it
came from. And it's beenadopted by popular culture to describe
what a lot of influencers do.But it's much, much, much older than
that.
Well, the concept itself mustsurely be, you know, as old as humanity.
But anyway. Sorry, go on.
But the actual. The closest tofake it to make it was Simon and
(12:34):
Garfunkel song Faking it andthat. And that's apparently where
AA got there. Fake it till youmake it. And the line is, I know
that I'm faking it. I'm notreally making it.
They said this in their song.
So what was the context for AAusing it?
What's aa? Oh, alcoholics.
Well, that's the interestingthing. So the idea that the AA have
(12:56):
adopted. That's a slogan whichreally sums up what the psychologists
call behavioral activation. Sothis is basically if you want to
be. If you want to be a betterperson, just start being a better
person. Just do all the thingsthat are better do, actually physically
do the things that betterpeople do. And you sort of internalize
(13:16):
that. You rewire your brain,which is distinct from its messy.
The psychology evidence ismessy around this because there are
things that don't reproduce.So like alcohol, it seems to work
in sort of vice avoidance andjust act like a sober person and
you can become a person.
(13:37):
Yeah, I guess. But so theonly, you know, the only thing stopping
you not being an alcoholic ischoosing to drink things. And if
you go, well, I tell you what,I won't. Well done. Yeah, not an
alcoholic.
But the point is, the idea isit gets easier because you rewire
your brain.
Yeah. And you're breaking thathabit in the first instance.
And.
Yeah.
And there are some interestingpsychology things like certainly
(14:00):
it's been shown that placing apen between your teeth, which kind
of forces your muscles in yourmouth into a smile, actually increases
the rate the. How funny youfind things. So the control experiment
is you show a sample cartoons,funny cartoons, and they're rated.
And the control condition, ithas no pen. And the test condition
(14:23):
has a pen. And the people withthe pen mark cartoons. Funnier. So
the physical manipulation ofyour body, the faking, it artificially
causes some interestingpsychological things. Things that
don't work though.
Right.
So do you Remember Amy Cuddy's2012 TED talk?
No.
Power posing. Oh, okay.
(14:45):
That was. And that was whenGeorge Osborne came on stage and
did that absurd stance.
Yeah.
And you get all theseportraits of politicians standing
outside their new departmentjust astride it almost.
Yes. This was a big deal backat the time. Like standing up straight
and pushing your chest down.Power posing things supposed to cut
cortisol, boost risk appetite,raise your testosterone and.
(15:08):
Make you look like a complete tool.
And make you look like a tool.Turns out most of that's bullshit
except.
For the looking like a tool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was.It didn't. It didn't survive the
replication crisis. Butstanding up straight has been shown
to link to a better mood. Soif you're hunched over and feeling.
Looking like you'redowntrodden, you'll feel more downtrodden
(15:29):
than.
Isn't this sort of the basisof cognitive behavioural therapy?
Exactly. Brilliant, brilliantlink there. Yes, it is. Cognitive
behaviour theory basicallyinvites you to change the cognitive
behaviors, the thoughts thatyou have in relation to your perception
of the world, and practicehealthy thoughts in place of pathological
(15:51):
thoughts.
Yeah.
Okay. So like a real worldexample, let's say that I'm feeling,
I don't know, like insecure atwork because I feel like everyone
else knows what they're doingand I feel like I don't. What's the
sort of CBT approach to that?And it's making me anxious.
I'm not a therapist, but whatI suggest is you think about the
things you know you are goodat, Right. Those things that you
(16:15):
don't have that sense ofanxiety about and then sort of expand
out from there. So things thatyou are okay at practice doing more
of those.
Right.
Yeah. I'm just a bit worried.I hope you're asking for a friend.
Is Peter being horrible to youat work?
But in addition to that,reframe your negativity about those
(16:36):
things that you're worriedabout that give you anxiety and see
them as an opportunity to getbetter at something new. That reframing
thing, I'm a bit worried.
You have more stuff there, Peter.
Yeah, so it's linked also toself perception theory. This is the
idea that we infer our ownattitudes and emotions by watching
our own behavior. So this islike you perceive yourself as well
(16:59):
as you perceive the world. Youare sort of a passenger inside your
own mind and body. And so ifyou see yourself, if certain behaviors,
certain physical behaviors ormental behaviors become habit and
routine, you kind of. Thatbecomes you.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I mean, that's got thateven though that's the opposite way
(17:19):
around to the sort of standardCartesian approach of saying, well,
you're essentially the personinside yourself, you're the soul,
you. And your body is just avessel which expresses your soul.
There's no doubt in oureveryday experience. So that's true.
And I. So I experienced thatonly yesterday. I was feeling really
tired and there was a kind ofprofessional networking drinks thing
I was meant to be going to andI just couldn't face it.
(17:41):
It sounds awful, but yeah,keep going.
It would have been reallynice. It was, you know, some nice
drinks in the garden of BushHouse with a bunch of. But, but I
thought, I can't really facegoing and interacting with a bunch
of people. I don't know. I'vebeen doing that a lot the last couple
of weeks. I'm a bit, you know,socialized out and you know, to be
honest, it made me. Startedmaking me feel like a bit of a shut
in. I thought, well, I wishI'd. I wish I'd plucked up the courage
(18:03):
and gone. And I'm sure if Ihad done, I'd have had a nice time.
So, you know, I think that,and I think the, the whole thing
of like going out for a walk,which is something I really have
to force myself to do becausethere's always that temptation of,
well, there's really somethingI should finish, you know, at my
desk. But actually, you go outfor a walk, you see yourself a different
kind of person by the time youcome back.
(18:24):
What you need to do, top tip,is wire it into your identity. So
rather than saying, I wish Iwas a walker, sorry, rather than
saying, I wish I walked more,think of yourself.
Describe walking guys, talk to yourself.
Yeah, describe yourself as awalking guy and then it'll be easier.
Yeah, as a walking guy, you'vegot to walk. Right, so you've got
to do that. You prioritize it better.
(18:45):
Yeah, quiet look. So all thistotally makes sense. I'm a little
bit worried because I'm notsaying we've done this but I'm just
worried that we're veeringinto kind of some sort of banal well
being podcast which I don'tthink we are.
Not to write off the wellbeing podcast. No, we're not interested
in that. The well being of ourlisteners is very much at the bottom
(19:08):
of our. It's quite low on our.Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry listeners.
But we, you know, call it likeit is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think
something we need to thinkabout is what drives fakeability
at all. Right. So I mean Petertalked about some actual strategies
you can use to sort. Startfaking it in various contexts but
obviously there are somethings where it's actually quite
hard to fake it. So forexample I think I would struggle
(19:31):
to fake it until I made it asa, as a catwalk model. I might be
being pessimistic.
I don't know Nick. I mean. Butanyway, keep going.
Acting for certain, for acertain sector of the, of the.
You're right. Maybe, maybe Ineed to think of myself as a niche
sort of a bit more. But actingis one of those jobs where you sort
of think, well if you're goodenough to fake it then you're actually.
(19:53):
That is acting kind of builtin. That actually is what stand up
comedy. I defy anyone to. Youcan't just go up on stage and I mean
if you, if you fake beingfunny, well congratulations, you
are actually funny. That's notfaking it. Concert pianist. Very,
very tricky to sort of get.Acquire the self belief without doing
(20:13):
a few scales. Olympicsprinter. I mean so there's, there's
quite a few things where it'squite hard to face.
You'd get found out pretty.
I think you would. I think youput good old Ali Deer gave it a go
as a professional footballerand he laug lasted 50 minutes. So
fakeable jobs. Well, venturecapitalist, fund manager, film producer,
(20:33):
politician, researchers,artists, dare I say, you know things
where for some reason it'squite, it's, it's, it's quite easy
to sustain a semblance ofcompetence where there isn't one.
And I think I. So justthinking about what drives professions
to being at one of theseextremes or the other so that some
(20:54):
of the, the key things arefirst of all the link between competence
and results really like measurability.
Right.
Measurably very important. Andthe more solo a profession is, like
a sprinter is a good examplethat's going to make it very easy
for people to tie results toyour performance. Whereas if you're
working in office, if you'rein any kind of office job where you're
pooling your effort and youknow, you're, perhaps the results
(21:16):
of the team are able toreflect on you to some extent, you
know, then, then it's going tobe easier to fake it. You can in
a sense hide in the crowd.
You're proximate to the outcome.
Yeah, it's, it's sort of,there's, it's very noisy. What the
observable outcome and youreffort are only linked in a kind
of messy way then. Then alsoif you have a highly sort of, if
(21:38):
the, if your success is basedon a small number of kind of wins
or losses, that's anotherclassic example. So these might be
things like a fund manager whoinvests in 100 things. One of them
happens to bring a 500 timesreturn or whatever. Suddenly they
look very, very successful.But actually that, you know, they
might, could have just beenlucky then the time lag. I think
(21:59):
this is particularly, this issomething that, you know, the sort
of high profile managers andCEOs and things will, often politicians
will make decisions thatwon't, whose effects won't really
be felt for a long time tillperhaps possibly till they've moved
on and are no longer in thefiring line to get blamed for whatever
happens after them. And thenthere's also basically if the errors
(22:22):
aren't particularlycatastrophic. So you know, if making
a mistake doesn't lead to aspotlight being cast on, well, who
did this. Obviously if you'rea surgeon or airline pilot, faking
it is likely to lead to acatastrophic mistake and someone's
going to come and say, wellwhat happened here then? Why did
you remove his heart when itwas supposed to be a liver transplant?
(22:43):
You know, so, so I think, Ithink that that naturally gives us
a sort of. I think thosethings drive the fakeability side
of this, of this equation.
Yeah.
And of course, what's theother side of the equation? Makeability.
Yeah, makeability.
Yeah.
Now that's notstraightforward, I think.
Yeah.
Oh, because we're going to. Sowe might move on to that. Yeah, yeah,
(23:07):
we definitely do.
Yeah.
But also it makes me think ofa couple of things. First of all,
I remember I've had differentsales jobs over the years, been some
time now.
I think you'd be good at it.
Well, here's the thing. I wasuntil I got bored of it sometimes.
Right.
So I wasn't terriblyconsistent. However, what I did like
about it is if you. It's. It'sone of those jobs where depending
on the kind of sales it is.But let's say you've got monthly
(23:27):
targets.
Yeah.
If you're smashing those, youcan do what the fuck you want. I
mean, I mean you're suddenlythe king.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't matter. Like don'tturn up to meetings, stay in bed,
whatever. Because there's.
Because you're a rock star,ninja salesman guy.
Exactly.
Until next month when suddenlyout of pure luck, falls off a cliff.
Yeah. So that, but that's. Sothat's one thing that's quite nice
(23:47):
about it. But also, I mean wetalked about sectors.
Right.
And we're definitely going toget into the making it side of it.
But also why you would do it.Right. And I think the obvious reason
is. And sort of thinking aboutyour, you know, the scale of things.
So we're talking about themiddle of stuff. Right. But broadly
it's like an easier waythrough and you know, it's a quicker
way to whatever prestige ormoney or whatever it is. But also.
(24:11):
So I'm just thinking about whoare the individuals and do certain
sectors attract certain kindof individuals who are just going
to be faking it?
Yeah, sales sounds like one of them.
Well, actually there's anelement of sales which is definitely.
You have to fool yourself.
You've got to believe in thething you're.
Exactly.
Well, and also marketing, Ithink to some extent. And I think
(24:31):
people who are good atmarketing have an authenticity that
comes from a genuine belief inthe thing they're trying to get you
to buy. You know, they're not.They really do think that this car
is very cool.
Yeah.
I think it's not. They're notjust reading from a script. You know,
there's that feeling of. Well,that's, that's actually, I think
there's.
Some truth in that.
Yeah. They say we're at thesort of self deception side. It may
(24:52):
possibly. Unless the thingreally is that good, which it might
be. But the thing is thatthere is no doubt, there's got to
be an element at which beinggood at that requires you to sort
of slightly buy into stuff youdon't necessarily believe. But you.
Yeah, definitely. But anyway,making it. Is that what we're moving
into?
Yeah, well, so I think this isthe other side of the oft neglected
(25:13):
ugly sister of faking it tillyou make it is. Well, what jobs actually
do enable you to make it. Now.Okay, this, this I think I would
say this is. This is somethingwhere it is possible to become competent.
Keep going. I'm not quite surewhere we're going with this, what
we mean by it.
(25:33):
Yeah, but okay, assuming thatcompetence is the ability to generate
good results.
Right.
I think the, the one of theimplication. And I did. So I don't
want to drill into what goodmeans here, but let's say adding
value like you could you. Thatyou can create a thing that someone
wants to pay you to do. Right.Or whatever. So I think this, I think
the implication for me of fakeit till you make it is that. Fake
(25:57):
it. Right. To cover up thefact that there's a bit of a gap
at the moment. Have thebehavior of the good of the high
performer. But the making itbit means you have to kind of still
have to work on getting thatcompetence up to that level. At which
point, well, you're no longerfaking it. Isn't that the. I think
that's the model we're meantto have in mind.
(26:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so, so we do need this.This can only really work in contexts
where there is a meaningfulmeasure of competence that you can
actually develop over time.Right. Do you. Picking up what I
put down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.It's not. If, if there is no way
of changing your level ofcompetence, then the advice is just
(26:41):
going to be fake. Keep faking it.
Yeah.
Like there's no making itbecause you can't actually get.
The implication is thatthere's a certain level of. Yeah,
exactly. As you said, there'sa certain level of competence and
just fake that. And actuallythat will come.
And so. And what we're lookingfor is really that I suppose the
most makeable jobs are theones where there is a big difference
between the sort of bestperformers and the worst performers.
(27:03):
So your classic things will becrafts, your kind of surgeon or carpenter
or plumber or engineer, wherelots of, you know, you can have actually
years of experience and everyyear you learn something. I mean
I feel a bit like that myself.Like I always look back on myself
from three years ago andthink, God, I didn't know anything
about this. And now, of courseI think I'm a right know it all,
who knows everything. But inthree years time, no doubt I'll look
(27:25):
back on myself and think, God,you had a long way to go. But the
point is that there isdefinitely an upward curve of skill
that I've been going up myentire life then, you know, and,
and sort of jobs, I guessthose kind of jobs which involve
not necessarily the tacitknowledge like a carpenter, but,
but judgment jobs where youaccrue experience and, and you accrue
knowledge. So things likebeing a barrister or a therapist
(27:48):
or an intelligence analyst orsomething where you know, you're
just gradually laying downthis kind of increasing substrate
of understanding and knowledgeand past, past examples where you,
you know, it means that yourjudgment, it becomes more discriminating.
Whereas low competence jobsare the jobs that are kind of relatively
mechanistic so, you know, pusha button when this light comes on
(28:09):
type things. I mean you canstill do them badly but there isn't
much space between baking itand. Yes, exactly. You know, and
I. So I think things like bar for.
Mastery is quite low.
Right. Or you know, that thereisn't. Yeah. There's some point where
you really, you know, I mean,no one talks about a ticket inspector
faking it till they're makingit. Right. Because you can only be
(28:30):
so good as a ticket inspector.And it's when you've inspected all
the tickets, you know, onceyou've got to that, which is probably
on day four, there's not muchmore you need to worry about growth.
Yeah. I mean, no offense toall the ticket inspectors out there
who probably do do the jobwith great aplomb. But you know,
things like being a, being ahotel receptionist or a call centre
operator or a barista, I wouldsuggest not that there is no skill
(28:54):
involved, but that there isn'ta great deal of skill such that after
not very long you will be atthe top of your game anyway. There
probably isn't anywherefurther to go.
Yeah. As an aside, there'slots of entertainment based or comedy
sort of based that's based inthat kind of stuff.
Right.
What do you mean?
Well, I'm thinking about forexample the Office, where you know
(29:15):
the UK sitcom, if you want tocall it that, mockumentary, where
you have someone like Garethwho's doing a really sort of quite
a banal job, really menialjob, but he's really super into it.
Right. And.
Right, good going for it. Butit's actually quite a low level thing
really. So he's over seriousabout it? I would say so, yeah.
Maybe Gareth is a good exampleof someone who has sort of absorbed
(29:36):
the fake it till you make itmindset. Right. It's like he's got
them, he's got the mentalityof someone who's kind of much more
Important and senior than heis. Right. And he's funny because
he does it badly.
Yes. You're talking about themain guy. Yeah. Guy.
The guy played by MackenzieCrow. Yeah. Okay.
(29:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, but what's funny about himis that mismatch between the. He's.
He's. He's acting like he'sfaking it till he makes it in a kind
of high powered. Yeah. CEOjob. But he's. He's in a job where
you can't fake it till youmake it.
He's in.
He's more like the kind ofequivalent of a ticket inspector.
And the concept of a ticketinspector trying to fake it till
they make it is intrinsicallyfunny because it doesn't work. The
(30:20):
make it side of it doesn't.Doesn't work. You know?
Quite.
So. Yeah.
Peter, what do you got?
Well, I think it's interestingto talk about the flip of this. Nick
came up with reel it till youfeel it. So this is where.
Is that a Nick invention?
That phrase, Nick invention.
Hold on, Nick.
Yeah.
(30:40):
Good stuff.
It could be. It's worthy offurther refinement, I think. But,
you know, I think you nailed it.
Nailed it.
No, I posited reel it till youdeal it.
That's also good.
Or reel it till they steal it.Which is the kind of.
That's a bit of a pessimistic animal.
The cynical one. Yeah. You dosomething well and they. Yeah. Google
does it better and cheaper.Doing it for real, properly. Inverted
(31:05):
commas. Not faking it, justbeing competent. Developing Corey
Gold.
Kind of just do the work.
Yeah. Does it. Does it alwayswork as an alternative strategy?
And the answer is no, it doesn't.
So, I mean, disappointing.
Help me out. Pronunciation.George Akaloff.
Yeah.
Yeah. George Akaloff. Nobel.The lemons guy. The market for lemons.
(31:30):
When buyers can't tell realfrom fake, then quality, the value
of quality gets driven out.
Yeah. The good thingsdisappear from the market.
And you do kind of see that ina real world example is kind of furniture.
So the people who buy, peoplewith disposable income are not necessarily
(31:52):
very discerning on the kind offurniture they buy. So you get tons
and tons of flat pack IKEAcrap and not very much artisanal
stuff anymore.
I mean, that sounds like youin shittification.
Yes.
It's almost like the fact thatyou can pretend that a service is
the same service as it waslast year, but it's got worse and
(32:14):
people still buy it.
But isn't that great if peopleGo, wow. I've got this amazing furniture.
Because it's amazing enough furniture.
It's, it's functional, butit's, it's, it's.
Not going to ennoble them.
It's not going to enable them. Yeah.
Like a nice one of Peter'snice concrete brutalist coffee tables.
Yeah.
(32:35):
So, yeah. So that it willbreak down in that kind of, in that
kind of context. So I think Ihaven't got a criteria, set a criteria
for this, but you have to bepicky about which is the optimal
strategy. Faking it or reeling it.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, okay,I guess they're not totally rivalrous,
but it is possibly helpful tothink in terms of, you know, of investing
(33:00):
in what you look like and theninvesting in how good you are. So
one is sort of engine buildingand the other is a bit more like.
I mean, it's not a millionmiles away from explore, exploit.
But one is sort of dealingwith the paintwork and one is dealing
with the engine.
Engine building and engine dressing.
Well, exactly. And it sort offeels like. Well, actually, you know,
(33:23):
maybe it is good to do a bitof both. But I mean, the advice which
I think anyone, any Hollywoodfilm from the 1950s would give you
is that you should be true toyourself and honest and you know,
faking things is justgenerally bad. It's bad for your
soul. And being authentic,being a warts and all guy is better.
(33:47):
But I think, you know, as Peter.
Says, it's more virtuous. It'sseen as more virtuous.
Well, and I guess there is akind of, possibly an inner reward
for that. But, but if yourgoal is to make bucks fast, then
actually I think to someextent it is worth investing in the
fakery side.
Yeah, yeah. But the key, thekey thing is that you could be good
being, being. To besuccessful, being good is probably
(34:12):
necessary if you do thatstrategy, but it's not sufficient.
You need an unfakeable. Youneed a costly signal. You need an
unfakeable way to prove it.Yeah, that's right. And that could
be an external discerningconsumer of your service or it could
be some sort of credential.
But also, I mean, again,rather boringly, aren't all of us
(34:34):
just for this aspect of ourpersonalities, you know, a mixture
of these things?
Right.
Of faking a bit and like doingthe work?
Well, I think there's anargument that we. It's utterly intrinsic
to human nature and in our,you know, there's a kind of the self
deception which is necessaryfor external deception is very deeply
(34:56):
rooted. So we actually can'treally tell. I mean that's the basis
of the Dunning Kruger effectis like. And we, you know, and the
fact that, the fact that weaccept social proof as evidence of
competence, you know, the factthat someone stands up and says,
right guys, I'm in charge,follow me. And that people do it
means that, you know, we haveobviously evolved in an environment
(35:18):
where to some extent faking itis intrinsically valuable. You know,
that we don't spend timetrying to work out whether or not
someone's competent. We'rekind of happy to go. Okay, well yeah,
whatever, if you say so. And Imean obviously there are some jobs
where, I mean, you think ofsort of military commanders or something
where actually it is importantthat they don't sit there expressing
(35:42):
doubts even. No one reallynecessarily believes that their officer
is a genius who's, you know,definitely got the best course of
action. But the key thing isthere is a course of action and it's
not terrible and we're goingto go along with it and you know,
they have to kind of, it's gotto be.
And as long as it's executed with.
Confidence, then it with aposh enough access.
(36:03):
Better than no plan at all.Yeah, yeah.
Right.
For listeners.
Yeah.
Don't worry if you feel likeyou're faking it till you make it.
Apparently 70% of people dofeel like frauds at some point in
their professional life. Notme. It's. Yeah, it's quite normal
to feel like you're faking itat work not really knowing what you're
(36:24):
doing. Yeah, yeah.
I mean I'm surprised there's30% that don't, frankly.
I mean my own personal raging egomaniacs.
Well, they're the DunningKruger sufferers.
Yeah.
Another nice way to thinkabout it is it is the opposite end.
It's the little talked aboutend of the Dunning Kruger curve that
(36:44):
people who are actuallygenuinely competent underestimate
their own capabilities so theywill feel like they're faking it.
So you're gonna, you're,you're at one of those two ends,
you think you know what you'redoing. I, yeah, I mean I think my,
to characterize my ownpersonal journey in the last 25 years
of being. Well, I, I'd say itstarted with I don't know what I'm
(37:09):
doing and my level ofresponsibility is too high to realizing
that nobody else knew whatthey were doing either. That that
came first was like, oh, hangon, I thought, these guys must be
some great economics geniusesthat I'm working with. And I'm like,
no, when they get asked aquestion, they're kind of having
to make it up a bit as well.You get a bit of confidence from
(37:30):
that. And then I think you getto a point where you look around,
you go, well, actually, I doknow what I'm doing more than the
people I'm working with. Andthen you realize you've actually
sort of made it when you dofeel like you know what you're doing
and. And it turns out youactually do know what you're doing.
But I look forward to that day.
Yeah. But I think so. I thinkwe've got the ingredients here to
(37:51):
bring it all together.
So do you know what I feel inneed of what I'm missing? I need
a matrix.
Yeah, don't worry, we've got that.
Cool.
And I think our two axes, assuggested by the title of the podcast,
are fakeability andmakeability. Yeah. And we've talked
about the things thefakeability is to do with the kind
of that messy link betweenyour behavior and your actions and
(38:14):
the results. So you want it tobe fakeable. You've got to be in
an industry like that. Butthen we've got the makeability where
there is a return toinvestment in skill so that you can
meaningfully increase incapability and eventually catch up
to where you're faking it. Andthat gives us these, these sort of
four types of thing. So fakeit to make is only going to work
in one of these. Yeah, bottom left.
(38:35):
Right.
So we've got low fakeability,low makeability. Now the, this is
what I would call the naturaltalent jobs. These are sprinters,
voice actors, pop singers,models, TV presenters, where, you
know, someone who's going tobe a good, charismatic TV presenter
is probably more or less likethat from a young age. And it's going
(38:57):
to be hard to train aunlikable doofus into a good TV presenter.
And at the same time, thosejobs are very visible in terms of
their outcomes. So I think,you know, those are really. Do not
go and do that. They'reneither fakeable nor makeable.
Well, don't do them.
Do them if you're good atthem. But there's no, don't, don't
decide that you're going tofake it till you make it as a, as
(39:17):
a, as a model. It's not goingto work. Then we've got low makeability,
but high fakeability. Theseare, these are jobs I would Call
this sort of what you see iswhat you get type jobs where there
isn't really a meaningfulconcept of skill at all. But. But
you basically do them. So thisis things like reality TV contestants,
(39:37):
social media influencer.
Is this. Sorry, is this the.So. So this was low.
In a sense, the fake abilityis. Is the product. Yeah, yeah. So
like being a celebrity. Imean, all you've got to do to be
a celebrity is be well known.Well done. You're a celebrity. You
can't. You're not gonna workon being a particularly. There's
(39:59):
no point in. Oh, well, I'm.I'm gonna pretend to be a celebrity
while I don't really know howto be a celebrity, but one day I'll
know how to be a celebrity andI'll be good at it. It just does.
Celebrity does not work likethat, that.
You can't fake it.
You.
Well, it's. It's. No, it's.
It's getting mixed up.
I'm saying that fake abilityis the job in a sense. Like there
isn't really a skill that'sbeing measured.
(40:19):
Okay.
The outcomes are the outcomes.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so then we've gotthe makeability as these are jobs
which are. Which are highlyskilled, but low fake ability. So
I think these are yoursurgeons. Yeah, master craftsman.
This is where you go if youdon't like the faking it. If you're
not comfortable with fakingit, go into become a surgeon or a
(40:41):
pilot or a carpenter orsomething where everyone can see
how good you are. And it takesa long time to get good. Right. So.
So. And I think that's acertain personality type.
Podcast host.
Yeah, I. I feel a little bitlike that's probably where I've ended
up. I am bad at faking it, andI feel like I have more or less been
getting better at my actualprofession for 25 years.
(41:03):
But.
Okay, but if you want to be afake it till you make it guy, where
do you go? Well, this is whereexperience does matter, but you can
still get a long way by fakingit. So this is startup founders,
venture capitalists,politicians, CEOs, dare I say intelligence
analysts, you know, diplomats.Confidence in a good suit.
(41:24):
Horrible quadrant, this one.
Yeah, well, I mean, exactly.But there's a personality type that
loves that. That and I. Andso, so basically, I think that's
it. I think to summarize, yes,faking it till you make it does work,
but only if you're in thatquadrant. And if you are in that
quadrant, well, bad News, youare going to have to do a bit of
faking it.
Yeah.
I think this could be thebasis of some very useful career
(41:47):
advice. Earlier. It's like,yeah, what kind of person are you?
How much concentrate on the top.
Right.
I mean, I actually do thinkthis would have been a really useful.
It's a useful framing for.For. Because, I mean, some people
are really good at that. Somepeople are great and will embrace.
It and there's value in it.There's no value judgment in any
of this.
No, no, no, no, no. I mean,look, I think what we've said is
(42:09):
that actually there is, youknow, signaling is important, right.
If you're. If you're able to.There is, and it is. And some of
these jobs, politician, forexample, you know, actually pretending
you know what you're talkingabout is important. I mean, literally,
that is part of the job. Noone or you're very naive if you believe
that when politicians stand upand talk about the economy that they
know what they're talkingabout. They don't. They've been told
(42:31):
what to say by a staffer who'sfive minutes ago in.
A memo and they'll forgetabout five minutes later.
But actually that. So thatpoint makes me think of something
else, actually, which I thinka lot of the careers in that. What
I've just described is not agreat quadrant full of chances are
quite exciting careers,actually. Whereas in the. Where it's
very measurable, they sound abit stodgy and a bit unexciting,
like, you know, I'm sure it'sgreat being a surgeon and they're
(42:53):
really important and I think Iprobably would kind of fight exciting.
Finally you get bored. Yeah.You've got to go through all. Whereas
I. The idea of being in aquiet study with sun beaming through
the motes of dust and readingthrough some old books and working
on some maths theorem. That ismy dream job, I think.
Yeah. Okay. Well, we've allfound ourselves where we should be,
(43:16):
I think. Actually, just reallybriefly, just on a scale of 1 to
10, how much have you fakedit, do you think, to get to the point
where you are now, as in one?Not at all. Ten loads only ever three.
Three or four, I think.
And this just to be clear,this is separate from that other
one to nine.
No, I. I think the most I'vedone is project more confidence than
(43:37):
I have. I haven't really ever.Well, to be honest, haven't really
ever needed a CV outside ofwhen I applied for the civil service
and there Wasn't anything onmy cv, you know, from that point
onwards, I think it's about.And certainly when I became a team
leader, when I'm. I'm a badmanager, but you have to kind of
pretend you know how to managepeople. So there's a. There's a bit
(43:58):
of that and then you kind ofget better at it on the job. So I'd
say three or four. Certainlynot into the kind of lying about
things kind of level.
Yeah. I mean, that's kind ofnot really what I mean, but as in
like assuming like that 3 or 4bandwidth. Right.
I always made sure that when Iwas saying things, they were true.
Yeah.
Right. So I never. I never. Iwas. I was never. I've never been
(44:21):
comfortable blagging somethingstanding up and going, this is the
case, guys. And I've actuallypulled it out of my arm. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. I've always made surethat, you know, actually the things
I say are kind of true.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think it really is justthat sort of projection stuff. Yeah.
So I would answer it slightlydifferently, which is like this sort
of 3, 4 level of. Somewherebetween self belief and whatever
(44:44):
the next bit was of levelfour, I would say that I've applied
those, going to my new scaleof 1 to 10. Like 8, 9. Like all the
time. Just all the time.
Right.
But like I say clearly, butnot in a dishonest way.
When are you gonna make it,though, Fraser?
I've made it.
Right, you made it.
Look at me, look at us.
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Peter.
(45:05):
Similar. I think I've neverreally misrepresented myself.
Similar to who, Fraser or you? Right.
And I don't think I. To Nick,that is, I've never. I've never felt
confident saying things that Idon't have a good strong reason to
believe.
Yeah.
It feels it's ill with me today.
(45:26):
Well, it's nice to be armedwith the truth. Right. It's like
in kind of impenetrable armor,really. Whereas I think I live in
terror of being called out forbullshitting or something.
Yeah. I think I was worse whenI was younger, but I. Yeah, I don't.
I never lied on CVs or anything.
Yeah. And just to round itoff, I think also it's personality
(45:49):
site because definitely for meit's that kind of. Let's have a go.
Let's go for it. That looksfun. Let's give it a go.
Learn it. Learn it as we go.Richard Branson. I mean, I think
you're in the Richard Bransonit's like, not it doesn't feel malign.
It feels more like someonesaying, I could do that. Let's give
it a go and we'll work out.We'll cross that bridge when we come
to it. And, you know, notsomething I'm terribly happy about
(46:10):
doing, but I recognize thatthere's definitely a role for people
like that in the world.
Yeah.
So well done, Fraser.
Thank you very much. So we'llstop there. You've been listening
to the Cognitive EngineeringPodcast brought to you by Aleph Insights
and produced by me, FraserMcGruer. If you haven't already,
please like and subscribe. Weaim to release an episode every week
or two. If there are anytopics you'd like us to cover, please
(46:31):
email us atpodcast@lephinsights.com thanks,
as always, for listening.Until next time, goodbye.
Hello and welcome to theCognitive Engineering Podcast brought
to you by Aleph Insights andproduced by me, Fraser McGruer. I'm
here with Peter Coghill andNick Hare of Aleph Insights. On this
podcast, we look at a widerange of topics from an analytical
viewpoint. And today we'rediscussing. Faking it till you. Making
it, Nick. Faking it until youmake it. Tell us about that. What's
(00:28):
on your mind?
Well, obviously, and I thinkyou of all people must be familiar
with the adage that you shouldmake fake it till you make it.
I'm familiar with the adage, yes.
Yeah. So, you know, and Ithink a lot of, particularly in the
realm of business, there's alot of inspiring stories, aren't
there, about people who havesort of gone in there, pretended
to be either bigger or morecompetent or, you know, the kind
(00:51):
of, you tell all of thepotential investors that, you know,
you've got interest from a lotof other investors and, you know,
and eventually that drives itsown success. The, that's what we're
meant to believe. And thatkind of is what faking it till you're
making it is supposed to looklike. So I think we want to ask the
question of, well, when, whendoes that work? When does it not
(01:13):
work? And, you know, how, howand what's the, what are some good
strategies for doing it? Andmaybe you think about it.
Yeah. And also perhaps evendelving into it. Like, what does
it even mean?
Well, yeah, well, what is,what exactly is faking it and what
is making it?
Yeah, yeah, we go like,everything brilliant. Okay, cool.
So, I mean, start with a fewexamples, some of which might be
(01:33):
familiar to you. Young manwith a good bod by the name of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, who came toAmerica from Austria, from rural
Austria with only the shirt onhis back and, you know, what a back,
what a back. What incrediblelats that guy had. And he was, you
know, projecting all thisconfidence. Basically went in there
(01:55):
with a lot of confidence, youknow, about his, his future bodybuilding
career, his, his actingability, his, you know, political
career, as low it came topass. Now, admittedly, he obviously
was a very good bodybuilder.Yeah, he was already pretty good
at that. Yeah. But the otherstuff, you know, I mean, let's. With
the best will in the world,he's no Laurence Olivier, and yet
(02:18):
somehow he's managed to createthis incredible brand for himself.
And I think, and I, I, itwould have to be a churl who didn't
like Arnold Schwarzenegger onsome level. Love that guy, Richard
Branson, another famousexample of someone who, you know,
just basically woke up onemorning and said, you know what?
I'm going to be a musicmagnate. And hey, presto, he was,
because he decided to be. Hesaid, right, we're now Virgin Records,
(02:42):
we're going to sign up someweirdos, we're going to tell people
we're a record company, loadsof interest, you know, suddenly massive
record company. And then theother stuff followed, you know, learning
on the job, well, let's be anairline company, let's be a train
company, you name it. RichardBranson has just decided that he's
going to do it and it tends towork. Steven Spielberg, very famous
(03:03):
story, used to hang around asa young film guy, hang around the
Universal Studios lot, foundan empty office, put his name on
it and basically pretended heworked there. And that's how he got
his start. It's been slightlyexaggerated in the telling, I think,
but it is, the essence of itis true.
Yeah. Okay.
So that's the kind of thing Ithink we want to talk about. Who
(03:26):
we don't want to talk about ispeople who just did the faking it
bit.
Right.
So all the people I'vementioned, they made it, actually
did make it, and for goodreasons, because they actually turned
out to be good or they becamegood. So we're not talking about
people like Elizabeth Holmesor Sam Bankman Fried, who just did
the faking it.
I don't know who these peopleare, but maybe I do.
Elizabeth Holmes was thatwoman who ran, who set up that. I
(03:49):
mean, she was a completefraudster. Set up that company, which
was. We did a podcast thing.We did a podcast about her. Yeah.
No, it was supposed to be akind of medical detector which you
could put one drop of blood inand it would tell you, you know,
all of the diseases that youhad. And ftx.
Yeah, the failed cryptoexchange, it was.
(04:09):
A classic Ponzi scheme,basically. And, and so he, I mean,
actually, I mean,interestingly, he did actually make
some very good investments aswell. But it's just actually at the
heart of it was this, was thisponce. Yeah, yeah. There's some really
good versions of people whofaked it nearly and then, and then
failed. Ali Deer. Does thatname mean anything to you? So in
(04:31):
November 1996, Ali Deerconvinced Graham Souness, who was
the Southampton manager, thathe was the cousin of the FIFA World
Player of the year, GeorgeWeir. And that led to him getting
signed on a one month contractwith Southampton.
Right.
He then played one match,coming on as a substitute in a league
game and was played, playedfor 53 minutes before it became painfully
(04:55):
obvious that he was not in anyway a professional footballer. And
14 days into his contract, hewas let go.
It was interesting because Iwas gonna say, think of these examples
that we've given us from thefields where they are sport, one
would imagine. And sureenough, it feels right.
Quite hard to fake it.
Quite hard to fake it and make.
It exactly, you know, and thenI've got, I think, the hero of all
fake it till you make itpeople. Guy Gomer does. So this was
(05:18):
a guy, I think it was about10, 15 years ago, who turned up at
the BBC for a job interview asan IT support assistant. And then
in a comedy of errors, whichyou would find in something like.
This guy who ended up on tv.Yeah, yeah.
In like Fawlty Towers orsomething. The BBC news people thought
he was Guy Cuny, a differentguy who was actually a tech journalist
(05:40):
being who was going to beinterviewed about something. He was
then basically made up and puton stage and introduced as a technology
expert. And I think he madethe assumption this was all part
of the interview process, andhe bluffed his way through the interview.
Not very well, but not sobadly that you might have just thought,
(06:01):
well, this guy doesn't reallyknow what he's talking about. But
it wasn't. It certainly wasn'ta. It wasn't like it all went disastrously
wrong. And he said, what thehell are you doing? I shouldn't be
here or anything like that. Hereally did give it a go. So, you
know, there we are. So we'retalking. But what we're talking about
is the Arnold Schwarzenegger,the Richard Branson, the Steven Spielberg,
not the other comedy players.And really it's like, well, what
(06:21):
differentiates them from theseguys? It about them, or is it actually
more about, like the industryand the type of thing they're trying
to do?
And also, I mean, what does itactually mean? Because how I interpret
fake it until you make it, howI interpret that doesn't necessarily
mean just lie to everyone andit will.
Right.
It will work out. How Iinterpret it is a kind of a positive
(06:43):
message, a positive attitude.And have the confidence, fake the
confidence, fool yourself thatyou can do it. And lo and behold,
within that you will do itsort of thing. A kind of almost manifestation.
I think there's an importantdistinction to draw there. There's
faking it. I think what wemean here is like cheap to reproduce,
(07:08):
signaling. So it's thedressing up in posh clothes.
Dressing for the job you want.
Yeah, dressing for the job youwant. So easily reproducible things
versus just wondering.
What job you're looking for anyway.
Versus the reel it hobo undera bridge.
Got it.
Versus the costly signalequivalent, which is reel it till
you feel it where you actuallydo it. You were actually modifying
(07:32):
your behavior in a costly,complicated or difficult way to let.
To hopefully that the qualityof the stuff that you produce will
shine through and actually get noticed.
Yeah. Like basically insteadof investing in the signal, you're
investing in the. In thecontent. You're trying to make yourself
into an actually competentperson. Yeah, well, I do actually.
(07:54):
I've got. Yeah, yeah. Givethat a portion if you can. So I do
have a levels of faking it,which I think. And I think they go
from not faking it all the waythrough to out and out imprisonable
fraud. So. So just tointroduce, there's actually nine
levels, but don't worry.Right. It's all quite explicable.
Yep. And they're really to dowith what you're faking. So. So level
(08:16):
level one, if you like notfaking it at all. That's, that's
going in and saying, well,I've got no idea what I'm doing.
Give us a hand. Which has, youknow, may have virtues of its own.
Then I think there's selfdeception. This is where you convince
yourself that you know whatyou're doing even if you don't. And
that's, that's the sort ofDunning Kruger effect, which we,
I think we've talked aboutlots and is quite well covered on
the Internet, which is, youknow, when you're new at something,
(08:38):
you, you know, it's quite easyto think that you're better at it
than you are. So three isprojecting confidence that you don't
have. So this is, you know, ifyou're a nervous public speaker or
whatever, but you stand up onstage and you pretend to be confident
and. Which isn't really thesame as feeling confident. So it
is. It is a kind of pretense.So I think projecting confidence,
that's. That's definitely partof, I think what people think.
(08:58):
It's kind of how I've lived mywhole life. Well, exactly.
Yeah, yeah. No, but I alwaysget the feeling with you that you
actually genuinely. Erroneousbelieve it. Which is.
Which is just shows that it's working.
Yeah, exactly. And then. Andthen we have sort of your identity
in some sense. Right. But thisis Dressing like the job you want.
This is trying to look like adifferent kind of person than the
(09:19):
one you are.
Yeah.
Capability. This is nowgetting into the slightly socially
unacceptable phase. This issaying that you can do something
and just hoping that you'll beable to learn on the job or wing
it.
It's like actors always sortof tick, like. Yeah, they can. Horse
riding is in this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
We'll figure that out when weget there.
So French. Yeah, I can doFrench. Yeah, yeah.
(09:40):
And we've got a whole sort ofswathes of different methods of qualifying,
whether people actually can dothings, qualifications and things
to test and prove.
Well, that gets on to the nextbit, really, which is their sort
of experience. So falsifyingyour experience, not quite yet in
a way that's genuinelyfraudulent. But this is the sort
of inflating your CV where yousay, oh, I led Team X and we did
(10:02):
this and in fact you were justthe photocopying guy or something,
you know, where it's. It's notquite fraud as such, but, you know,
and I think this is somethingthat I consider to be a bit beyond
the pale, but I know a lot ofpeople just think it's part of the
game to slightly big yourselfup on a cv and we probably all have
to some extent. I mean, you'renot. You're probably not going to,
you know, be absolutely honeston a cv.
(10:22):
There's a difference. Likeputting things in the best possible
light versus kind of basically lying.
Yeah. Now we get onto the bitwhere you're going to be committing
a criminal offense. So this isthe fun bit. Credentials, this, lying
about your qualifications.Right. So saying you've got a degree
that you haven't got, sayingyou're certified to do something
which you're not, then there'slying about actual results. So this,
(10:45):
and this can be fraud. If youare, for example, pretending, falsifying
your business outcomes, makingyourself look more profitable than
you are, hiding losses, Enrontype stuff, you know, pretending
you've got income or customersor research findings that you don't
have, and then finallyauthority. This is impersonating
a policeman or similar or adoctor or an airline pilot or something.
(11:08):
So those are the nine levelsof faking it. And I think before
we drill into what exactlyfaking it is, although I think Peter's
covered it quite well with thesort of simple signaling definition,
I think what we're talkingabout is somewhere between sort of
three and six here we'relooking at somewhere between projecting
more confidence than you haveand slightly inflating your experience
(11:29):
to make it sound moreimpressive. I think that's. That's
the. Anything more than thatis fraud. No one's advocating that.
Please don't do anything lessthan that.
What's the.
Less than that is just like,you know. Yeah, yeah. A bit of self
belief. Not, not. Not really aconscious decision to fake it. So.
Yeah, so there we are.
Okay, that makes sense. Andlike, like I said, I think that sort
of 3 and 4. Why everyonewouldn't do that, I don't know. But
(11:52):
I mean, you know, that's sojust how I feel about things. Peter.
Yeah. I'd like to lay out the.The case for the defence of faking.
It to make it.
Okay, get in there early. So,opening statements for defense. So
it's an old term. It's olderthan you think. It was sort of largely
popularized in recent years byAmway and Self Help and Alcoholics
(12:14):
Anonymous. Really? That'swhere it sort of. That's where it
came from. And it's beenadopted by popular culture to describe
what a lot of influencers do.But it's much, much, much older than
that.
Well, the concept itself mustsurely be, you know, as old as humanity.
But anyway. Sorry, go on.
But the actual. The closest tofake it to make it was Simon and
(12:34):
Garfunkel song Faking it andthat. And that's apparently where
AA got there. Fake it till youmake it. And the line is, I know
that I'm faking it. I'm notreally making it.
They said this in their song.
So what was the context for AAusing it?
What's aa? Oh, alcoholics.
Well, that's the interestingthing. So the idea that the AA have
(12:56):
adopted. That's a slogan whichreally sums up what the psychologists
call behavioral activation. Sothis is basically if you want to
be. If you want to be a betterperson, just start being a better
person. Just do all the thingsthat are better do, actually physically
do the things that betterpeople do. And you sort of internalize
(13:16):
that. You rewire your brain,which is distinct from its messy.
The psychology evidence ismessy around this because there are
things that don't reproduce.So like alcohol, it seems to work
in sort of vice avoidance andjust act like a sober person and
you can become a person.
(13:37):
Yeah, I guess. But so theonly, you know, the only thing stopping
you not being an alcoholic ischoosing to drink things. And if
you go, well, I tell you what,I won't. Well done. Yeah, not an
alcoholic.
But the point is, the idea isit gets easier because you rewire
your brain.
Yeah. And you're breaking thathabit in the first instance.
And.
Yeah.
And there are some interestingpsychology things like certainly
(14:00):
it's been shown that placing apen between your teeth, which kind
of forces your muscles in yourmouth into a smile, actually increases
the rate the. How funny youfind things. So the control experiment
is you show a sample cartoons,funny cartoons, and they're rated.
And the control condition, ithas no pen. And the test condition
(14:23):
has a pen. And the people withthe pen mark cartoons. Funnier. So
the physical manipulation ofyour body, the faking, it artificially
causes some interestingpsychological things. Things that
don't work though.
Right.
So do you Remember Amy Cuddy's2012 TED talk?
No.
Power posing. Oh, okay.
(14:45):
That was. And that was whenGeorge Osborne came on stage and
did that absurd stance.
Yeah.
And you get all theseportraits of politicians standing
outside their new departmentjust astride it almost.
Yes. This was a big deal backat the time. Like standing up straight
and pushing your chest down.Power posing things supposed to cut
cortisol, boost risk appetite,raise your testosterone and.
(15:08):
Make you look like a complete tool.
And make you look like a tool.Turns out most of that's bullshit
except.
For the looking like a tool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was.It didn't. It didn't survive the
replication crisis. Butstanding up straight has been shown
to link to a better mood. Soif you're hunched over and feeling.
Looking like you'redowntrodden, you'll feel more downtrodden
(15:29):
than.
Isn't this sort of the basisof cognitive behavioural therapy?
Exactly. Brilliant, brilliantlink there. Yes, it is. Cognitive
behaviour theory basicallyinvites you to change the cognitive
behaviors, the thoughts thatyou have in relation to your perception
of the world, and practicehealthy thoughts in place of pathological
(15:51):
thoughts.
Yeah.
Okay. So like a real worldexample, let's say that I'm feeling,
I don't know, like insecure atwork because I feel like everyone
else knows what they're doingand I feel like I don't. What's the
sort of CBT approach to that?And it's making me anxious.
I'm not a therapist, but whatI suggest is you think about the
things you know you are goodat, Right. Those things that you
(16:15):
don't have that sense ofanxiety about and then sort of expand
out from there. So things thatyou are okay at practice doing more
of those.
Right.
Yeah. I'm just a bit worried.I hope you're asking for a friend.
Is Peter being horrible to youat work?
But in addition to that,reframe your negativity about those
(16:36):
things that you're worriedabout that give you anxiety and see
them as an opportunity to getbetter at something new. That reframing
thing, I'm a bit worried.
You have more stuff there, Peter.
Yeah, so it's linked also toself perception theory. This is the
idea that we infer our ownattitudes and emotions by watching
our own behavior. So this islike you perceive yourself as well
(16:59):
as you perceive the world. Youare sort of a passenger inside your
own mind and body. And so ifyou see yourself, if certain behaviors,
certain physical behaviors ormental behaviors become habit and
routine, you kind of. Thatbecomes you.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I mean, that's got thateven though that's the opposite way
(17:19):
around to the sort of standardCartesian approach of saying, well,
you're essentially the personinside yourself, you're the soul,
you. And your body is just avessel which expresses your soul.
There's no doubt in oureveryday experience. So that's true.
And I. So I experienced thatonly yesterday. I was feeling really
tired and there was a kind ofprofessional networking drinks thing
I was meant to be going to andI just couldn't face it.
(17:41):
It sounds awful, but yeah,keep going.
It would have been reallynice. It was, you know, some nice
drinks in the garden of BushHouse with a bunch of. But, but I
thought, I can't really facegoing and interacting with a bunch
of people. I don't know. I'vebeen doing that a lot the last couple
of weeks. I'm a bit, you know,socialized out and you know, to be
honest, it made me. Startedmaking me feel like a bit of a shut
in. I thought, well, I wishI'd. I wish I'd plucked up the courage
(18:03):
and gone. And I'm sure if Ihad done, I'd have had a nice time.
So, you know, I think that,and I think the, the whole thing
of like going out for a walk,which is something I really have
to force myself to do becausethere's always that temptation of,
well, there's really somethingI should finish, you know, at my
desk. But actually, you go outfor a walk, you see yourself a different
kind of person by the time youcome back.
(18:24):
What you need to do, top tip,is wire it into your identity. So
rather than saying, I wish Iwas a walker, sorry, rather than
saying, I wish I walked more,think of yourself.
Describe walking guys, talk to yourself.
Yeah, describe yourself as awalking guy and then it'll be easier.
Yeah, as a walking guy, you'vegot to walk. Right, so you've got
to do that. You prioritize it better.
(18:45):
Yeah, quiet look. So all thistotally makes sense. I'm a little
bit worried because I'm notsaying we've done this but I'm just
worried that we're veeringinto kind of some sort of banal well
being podcast which I don'tthink we are.
Not to write off the wellbeing podcast. No, we're not interested
in that. The well being of ourlisteners is very much at the bottom
(19:08):
of our. It's quite low on our.Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry listeners.
But we, you know, call it likeit is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think
something we need to thinkabout is what drives fakeability
at all. Right. So I mean Petertalked about some actual strategies
you can use to sort. Startfaking it in various contexts but
obviously there are somethings where it's actually quite
hard to fake it. So forexample I think I would struggle
(19:31):
to fake it until I made it asa, as a catwalk model. I might be
being pessimistic.
I don't know Nick. I mean. Butanyway, keep going.
Acting for certain, for acertain sector of the, of the.
You're right. Maybe, maybe Ineed to think of myself as a niche
sort of a bit more. But actingis one of those jobs where you sort
of think, well if you're goodenough to fake it then you're actually.
(19:53):
That is acting kind of builtin. That actually is what stand up
comedy. I defy anyone to. Youcan't just go up on stage and I mean
if you, if you fake beingfunny, well congratulations, you
are actually funny. That's notfaking it. Concert pianist. Very,
very tricky to sort of get.Acquire the self belief without doing
(20:13):
a few scales. Olympicsprinter. I mean so there's, there's
quite a few things where it'squite hard to face.
You'd get found out pretty.
I think you would. I think youput good old Ali Deer gave it a go
as a professional footballerand he laug lasted 50 minutes. So
fakeable jobs. Well, venturecapitalist, fund manager, film producer,
(20:33):
politician, researchers,artists, dare I say, you know things
where for some reason it'squite, it's, it's, it's quite easy
to sustain a semblance ofcompetence where there isn't one.
And I think I. So justthinking about what drives professions
to being at one of theseextremes or the other so that some
(20:54):
of the, the key things arefirst of all the link between competence
and results really like measurability.
Right.
Measurably very important. Andthe more solo a profession is, like
a sprinter is a good examplethat's going to make it very easy
for people to tie results toyour performance. Whereas if you're
working in office, if you'rein any kind of office job where you're
pooling your effort and youknow, you're, perhaps the results
(21:16):
of the team are able toreflect on you to some extent, you
know, then, then it's going tobe easier to fake it. You can in
a sense hide in the crowd.
You're proximate to the outcome.
Yeah, it's, it's sort of,there's, it's very noisy. What the
observable outcome and youreffort are only linked in a kind
of messy way then. Then alsoif you have a highly sort of, if
(21:38):
the, if your success is basedon a small number of kind of wins
or losses, that's anotherclassic example. So these might be
things like a fund manager whoinvests in 100 things. One of them
happens to bring a 500 timesreturn or whatever. Suddenly they
look very, very successful.But actually that, you know, they
might, could have just beenlucky then the time lag. I think
(21:59):
this is particularly, this issomething that, you know, the sort
of high profile managers andCEOs and things will, often politicians
will make decisions thatwon't, whose effects won't really
be felt for a long time tillperhaps possibly till they've moved
on and are no longer in thefiring line to get blamed for whatever
happens after them. And thenthere's also basically if the errors
(22:22):
aren't particularlycatastrophic. So you know, if making
a mistake doesn't lead to aspotlight being cast on, well, who
did this. Obviously if you'rea surgeon or airline pilot, faking
it is likely to lead to acatastrophic mistake and someone's
going to come and say, wellwhat happened here then? Why did
you remove his heart when itwas supposed to be a liver transplant?
(22:43):
You know, so, so I think, Ithink that that naturally gives us
a sort of. I think thosethings drive the fakeability side
of this, of this equation.
Yeah.
And of course, what's theother side of the equation? Makeability.
Yeah, makeability.
Yeah.
Now that's notstraightforward, I think.
Yeah.
Oh, because we're going to. Sowe might move on to that. Yeah, yeah,
(23:07):
we definitely do.
Yeah.
But also it makes me think ofa couple of things. First of all,
I remember I've had differentsales jobs over the years, been some
time now.
I think you'd be good at it.
Well, here's the thing. I wasuntil I got bored of it sometimes.
Right.
So I wasn't terriblyconsistent. However, what I did like
about it is if you. It's. It'sone of those jobs where depending
on the kind of sales it is.But let's say you've got monthly
(23:27):
targets.
Yeah.
If you're smashing those, youcan do what the fuck you want. I
mean, I mean you're suddenlythe king.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't matter. Like don'tturn up to meetings, stay in bed,
whatever. Because there's.
Because you're a rock star,ninja salesman guy.
Exactly.
Until next month when suddenlyout of pure luck, falls off a cliff.
Yeah. So that, but that's. Sothat's one thing that's quite nice
(23:47):
about it. But also, I mean wetalked about sectors.
Right.
And we're definitely going toget into the making it side of it.
But also why you would do it.Right. And I think the obvious reason
is. And sort of thinking aboutyour, you know, the scale of things.
So we're talking about themiddle of stuff. Right. But broadly
it's like an easier waythrough and you know, it's a quicker
way to whatever prestige ormoney or whatever it is. But also.
(24:11):
So I'm just thinking about whoare the individuals and do certain
sectors attract certain kindof individuals who are just going
to be faking it?
Yeah, sales sounds like one of them.
Well, actually there's anelement of sales which is definitely.
You have to fool yourself.
You've got to believe in thething you're.
Exactly.
Well, and also marketing, Ithink to some extent. And I think
(24:31):
people who are good atmarketing have an authenticity that
comes from a genuine belief inthe thing they're trying to get you
to buy. You know, they're not.They really do think that this car
is very cool.
Yeah.
I think it's not. They're notjust reading from a script. You know,
there's that feeling of. Well,that's, that's actually, I think
there's.
Some truth in that.
Yeah. They say we're at thesort of self deception side. It may
(24:52):
possibly. Unless the thingreally is that good, which it might
be. But the thing is thatthere is no doubt, there's got to
be an element at which beinggood at that requires you to sort
of slightly buy into stuff youdon't necessarily believe. But you.
Yeah, definitely. But anyway,making it. Is that what we're moving
into?
Yeah, well, so I think this isthe other side of the oft neglected
(25:13):
ugly sister of faking it tillyou make it is. Well, what jobs actually
do enable you to make it. Now.Okay, this, this I think I would
say this is. This is somethingwhere it is possible to become competent.
Keep going. I'm not quite surewhere we're going with this, what
we mean by it.
(25:33):
Yeah, but okay, assuming thatcompetence is the ability to generate
good results.
Right.
I think the, the one of theimplication. And I did. So I don't
want to drill into what goodmeans here, but let's say adding
value like you could you. Thatyou can create a thing that someone
wants to pay you to do. Right.Or whatever. So I think this, I think
the implication for me of fakeit till you make it is that. Fake
(25:57):
it. Right. To cover up thefact that there's a bit of a gap
at the moment. Have thebehavior of the good of the high
performer. But the making itbit means you have to kind of still
have to work on getting thatcompetence up to that level. At which
point, well, you're no longerfaking it. Isn't that the. I think
that's the model we're meantto have in mind.
(26:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so, so we do need this.This can only really work in contexts
where there is a meaningfulmeasure of competence that you can
actually develop over time.Right. Do you. Picking up what I
put down. Yeah, yeah, yeah.It's not. If, if there is no way
of changing your level ofcompetence, then the advice is just
(26:41):
going to be fake. Keep faking it.
Yeah.
Like there's no making itbecause you can't actually get.
The implication is thatthere's a certain level of. Yeah,
exactly. As you said, there'sa certain level of competence and
just fake that. And actuallythat will come.
And so. And what we're lookingfor is really that I suppose the
most makeable jobs are theones where there is a big difference
between the sort of bestperformers and the worst performers.
(27:03):
So your classic things will becrafts, your kind of surgeon or carpenter
or plumber or engineer, wherelots of, you know, you can have actually
years of experience and everyyear you learn something. I mean
I feel a bit like that myself.Like I always look back on myself
from three years ago andthink, God, I didn't know anything
about this. And now, of courseI think I'm a right know it all,
who knows everything. But inthree years time, no doubt I'll look
(27:25):
back on myself and think, God,you had a long way to go. But the
point is that there isdefinitely an upward curve of skill
that I've been going up myentire life then, you know, and,
and sort of jobs, I guessthose kind of jobs which involve
not necessarily the tacitknowledge like a carpenter, but,
but judgment jobs where youaccrue experience and, and you accrue
knowledge. So things likebeing a barrister or a therapist
(27:48):
or an intelligence analyst orsomething where you know, you're
just gradually laying downthis kind of increasing substrate
of understanding and knowledgeand past, past examples where you,
you know, it means that yourjudgment, it becomes more discriminating.
Whereas low competence jobsare the jobs that are kind of relatively
mechanistic so, you know, pusha button when this light comes on
(28:09):
type things. I mean you canstill do them badly but there isn't
much space between baking itand. Yes, exactly. You know, and
I. So I think things like bar for.
Mastery is quite low.
Right. Or you know, that thereisn't. Yeah. There's some point where
you really, you know, I mean,no one talks about a ticket inspector
faking it till they're makingit. Right. Because you can only be
(28:30):
so good as a ticket inspector.And it's when you've inspected all
the tickets, you know, onceyou've got to that, which is probably
on day four, there's not muchmore you need to worry about growth.
Yeah. I mean, no offense toall the ticket inspectors out there
who probably do do the jobwith great aplomb. But you know,
things like being a, being ahotel receptionist or a call centre
operator or a barista, I wouldsuggest not that there is no skill
(28:54):
involved, but that there isn'ta great deal of skill such that after
not very long you will be atthe top of your game anyway. There
probably isn't anywherefurther to go.
Yeah. As an aside, there'slots of entertainment based or comedy
sort of based that's based inthat kind of stuff.
Right.
What do you mean?
Well, I'm thinking about forexample the Office, where you know
(29:15):
the UK sitcom, if you want tocall it that, mockumentary, where
you have someone like Garethwho's doing a really sort of quite
a banal job, really menialjob, but he's really super into it.
Right. And.
Right, good going for it. Butit's actually quite a low level thing
really. So he's over seriousabout it? I would say so, yeah.
Maybe Gareth is a good exampleof someone who has sort of absorbed
(29:36):
the fake it till you make itmindset. Right. It's like he's got
them, he's got the mentalityof someone who's kind of much more
Important and senior than heis. Right. And he's funny because
he does it badly.
Yes. You're talking about themain guy. Yeah. Guy.
The guy played by MackenzieCrow. Yeah. Okay.
(29:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, but what's funny about himis that mismatch between the. He's.
He's. He's acting like he'sfaking it till he makes it in a kind
of high powered. Yeah. CEOjob. But he's. He's in a job where
you can't fake it till youmake it.
He's in.
He's more like the kind ofequivalent of a ticket inspector.
And the concept of a ticketinspector trying to fake it till
they make it is intrinsicallyfunny because it doesn't work. The
(30:20):
make it side of it doesn't.Doesn't work. You know?
Quite.
So. Yeah.
Peter, what do you got?
Well, I think it's interestingto talk about the flip of this. Nick
came up with reel it till youfeel it. So this is where.
Is that a Nick invention?
That phrase, Nick invention.
Hold on, Nick.
Yeah.
(30:40):
Good stuff.
It could be. It's worthy offurther refinement, I think. But,
you know, I think you nailed it.
Nailed it.
No, I posited reel it till youdeal it.
That's also good.
Or reel it till they steal it.Which is the kind of.
That's a bit of a pessimistic animal.
The cynical one. Yeah. You dosomething well and they. Yeah. Google
does it better and cheaper.Doing it for real, properly. Inverted
(31:05):
commas. Not faking it, justbeing competent. Developing Corey
Gold.
Kind of just do the work.
Yeah. Does it. Does it alwayswork as an alternative strategy?
And the answer is no, it doesn't.
So, I mean, disappointing.
Help me out. Pronunciation.George Akaloff.
Yeah.
Yeah. George Akaloff. Nobel.The lemons guy. The market for lemons.
(31:30):
When buyers can't tell realfrom fake, then quality, the value
of quality gets driven out.
Yeah. The good thingsdisappear from the market.
And you do kind of see that ina real world example is kind of furniture.
So the people who buy, peoplewith disposable income are not necessarily
(31:52):
very discerning on the kind offurniture they buy. So you get tons
and tons of flat pack IKEAcrap and not very much artisanal
stuff anymore.
I mean, that sounds like youin shittification.
Yes.
It's almost like the fact thatyou can pretend that a service is
the same service as it waslast year, but it's got worse and
(32:14):
people still buy it.
But isn't that great if peopleGo, wow. I've got this amazing furniture.
Because it's amazing enough furniture.
It's, it's functional, butit's, it's, it's.
Not going to ennoble them.
It's not going to enable them. Yeah.
Like a nice one of Peter'snice concrete brutalist coffee tables.
Yeah.
(32:35):
So, yeah. So that it willbreak down in that kind of, in that
kind of context. So I think Ihaven't got a criteria, set a criteria
for this, but you have to bepicky about which is the optimal
strategy. Faking it or reeling it.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, okay,I guess they're not totally rivalrous,
but it is possibly helpful tothink in terms of, you know, of investing
(33:00):
in what you look like and theninvesting in how good you are. So
one is sort of engine buildingand the other is a bit more like.
I mean, it's not a millionmiles away from explore, exploit.
But one is sort of dealingwith the paintwork and one is dealing
with the engine.
Engine building and engine dressing.
Well, exactly. And it sort offeels like. Well, actually, you know,
(33:23):
maybe it is good to do a bitof both. But I mean, the advice which
I think anyone, any Hollywoodfilm from the 1950s would give you
is that you should be true toyourself and honest and you know,
faking things is justgenerally bad. It's bad for your
soul. And being authentic,being a warts and all guy is better.
(33:47):
But I think, you know, as Peter.
Says, it's more virtuous. It'sseen as more virtuous.
Well, and I guess there is akind of, possibly an inner reward
for that. But, but if yourgoal is to make bucks fast, then
actually I think to someextent it is worth investing in the
fakery side.
Yeah, yeah. But the key, thekey thing is that you could be good
being, being. To besuccessful, being good is probably
(34:12):
necessary if you do thatstrategy, but it's not sufficient.
You need an unfakeable. Youneed a costly signal. You need an
unfakeable way to prove it.Yeah, that's right. And that could
be an external discerningconsumer of your service or it could
be some sort of credential.
But also, I mean, again,rather boringly, aren't all of us
(34:34):
just for this aspect of ourpersonalities, you know, a mixture
of these things?
Right.
Of faking a bit and like doingthe work?
Well, I think there's anargument that we. It's utterly intrinsic
to human nature and in our,you know, there's a kind of the self
deception which is necessaryfor external deception is very deeply
(34:56):
rooted. So we actually can'treally tell. I mean that's the basis
of the Dunning Kruger effectis like. And we, you know, and the
fact that, the fact that weaccept social proof as evidence of
competence, you know, the factthat someone stands up and says,
right guys, I'm in charge,follow me. And that people do it
means that, you know, we haveobviously evolved in an environment
(35:18):
where to some extent faking itis intrinsically valuable. You know,
that we don't spend timetrying to work out whether or not
someone's competent. We'rekind of happy to go. Okay, well yeah,
whatever, if you say so. And Imean obviously there are some jobs
where, I mean, you think ofsort of military commanders or something
where actually it is importantthat they don't sit there expressing
(35:42):
doubts even. No one reallynecessarily believes that their officer
is a genius who's, you know,definitely got the best course of
action. But the key thing isthere is a course of action and it's
not terrible and we're goingto go along with it and you know,
they have to kind of, it's gotto be.
And as long as it's executed with.
Confidence, then it with aposh enough access.
(36:03):
Better than no plan at all.Yeah, yeah.
Right.
For listeners.
Yeah.
Don't worry if you feel likeyou're faking it till you make it.
Apparently 70% of people dofeel like frauds at some point in
their professional life. Notme. It's. Yeah, it's quite normal
to feel like you're faking itat work not really knowing what you're
(36:24):
doing. Yeah, yeah.
I mean I'm surprised there's30% that don't, frankly.
I mean my own personal raging egomaniacs.
Well, they're the DunningKruger sufferers.
Yeah.
Another nice way to thinkabout it is it is the opposite end.
It's the little talked aboutend of the Dunning Kruger curve that
(36:44):
people who are actuallygenuinely competent underestimate
their own capabilities so theywill feel like they're faking it.
So you're gonna, you're,you're at one of those two ends,
you think you know what you'redoing. I, yeah, I mean I think my,
to characterize my ownpersonal journey in the last 25 years
of being. Well, I, I'd say itstarted with I don't know what I'm
(37:09):
doing and my level ofresponsibility is too high to realizing
that nobody else knew whatthey were doing either. That that
came first was like, oh, hangon, I thought, these guys must be
some great economics geniusesthat I'm working with. And I'm like,
no, when they get asked aquestion, they're kind of having
to make it up a bit as well.You get a bit of confidence from
(37:30):
that. And then I think you getto a point where you look around,
you go, well, actually, I doknow what I'm doing more than the
people I'm working with. Andthen you realize you've actually
sort of made it when you dofeel like you know what you're doing
and. And it turns out youactually do know what you're doing.
But I look forward to that day.
Yeah. But I think so. I thinkwe've got the ingredients here to
(37:51):
bring it all together.
So do you know what I feel inneed of what I'm missing? I need
a matrix.
Yeah, don't worry, we've got that.
Cool.
And I think our two axes, assuggested by the title of the podcast,
are fakeability andmakeability. Yeah. And we've talked
about the things thefakeability is to do with the kind
of that messy link betweenyour behavior and your actions and
(38:14):
the results. So you want it tobe fakeable. You've got to be in
an industry like that. Butthen we've got the makeability where
there is a return toinvestment in skill so that you can
meaningfully increase incapability and eventually catch up
to where you're faking it. Andthat gives us these, these sort of
four types of thing. So fakeit to make is only going to work
in one of these. Yeah, bottom left.
(38:35):
Right.
So we've got low fakeability,low makeability. Now the, this is
what I would call the naturaltalent jobs. These are sprinters,
voice actors, pop singers,models, TV presenters, where, you
know, someone who's going tobe a good, charismatic TV presenter
is probably more or less likethat from a young age. And it's going
(38:57):
to be hard to train aunlikable doofus into a good TV presenter.
And at the same time, thosejobs are very visible in terms of
their outcomes. So I think,you know, those are really. Do not
go and do that. They'reneither fakeable nor makeable.
Well, don't do them.
Do them if you're good atthem. But there's no, don't, don't
decide that you're going tofake it till you make it as a, as
(39:17):
a, as a model. It's not goingto work. Then we've got low makeability,
but high fakeability. Theseare, these are jobs I would Call
this sort of what you see iswhat you get type jobs where there
isn't really a meaningfulconcept of skill at all. But. But
you basically do them. So thisis things like reality TV contestants,
(39:37):
social media influencer.
Is this. Sorry, is this the.So. So this was low.
In a sense, the fake abilityis. Is the product. Yeah, yeah. So
like being a celebrity. Imean, all you've got to do to be
a celebrity is be well known.Well done. You're a celebrity. You
can't. You're not gonna workon being a particularly. There's
(39:59):
no point in. Oh, well, I'm.I'm gonna pretend to be a celebrity
while I don't really know howto be a celebrity, but one day I'll
know how to be a celebrity andI'll be good at it. It just does.
Celebrity does not work likethat, that.
You can't fake it.
You.
Well, it's. It's. No, it's.
It's getting mixed up.
I'm saying that fake abilityis the job in a sense. Like there
isn't really a skill that'sbeing measured.
(40:19):
Okay.
The outcomes are the outcomes.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so then we've gotthe makeability as these are jobs
which are. Which are highlyskilled, but low fake ability. So
I think these are yoursurgeons. Yeah, master craftsman.
This is where you go if youdon't like the faking it. If you're
not comfortable with fakingit, go into become a surgeon or a
(40:41):
pilot or a carpenter orsomething where everyone can see
how good you are. And it takesa long time to get good. Right. So.
So. And I think that's acertain personality type.
Podcast host.
Yeah, I. I feel a little bitlike that's probably where I've ended
up. I am bad at faking it, andI feel like I have more or less been
getting better at my actualprofession for 25 years.
(41:03):
But.
Okay, but if you want to be afake it till you make it guy, where
do you go? Well, this is whereexperience does matter, but you can
still get a long way by fakingit. So this is startup founders,
venture capitalists,politicians, CEOs, dare I say intelligence
analysts, you know, diplomats.Confidence in a good suit.
(41:24):
Horrible quadrant, this one.
Yeah, well, I mean, exactly.But there's a personality type that
loves that. That and I. Andso, so basically, I think that's
it. I think to summarize, yes,faking it till you make it does work,
but only if you're in thatquadrant. And if you are in that
quadrant, well, bad News, youare going to have to do a bit of
faking it.
Yeah.
I think this could be thebasis of some very useful career
(41:47):
advice. Earlier. It's like,yeah, what kind of person are you?
How much concentrate on the top.
Right.
I mean, I actually do thinkthis would have been a really useful.
It's a useful framing for.For. Because, I mean, some people
are really good at that. Somepeople are great and will embrace.
It and there's value in it.There's no value judgment in any
of this.
No, no, no, no, no. I mean,look, I think what we've said is
(42:09):
that actually there is, youknow, signaling is important, right.
If you're. If you're able to.There is, and it is. And some of
these jobs, politician, forexample, you know, actually pretending
you know what you're talkingabout is important. I mean, literally,
that is part of the job. Noone or you're very naive if you believe
that when politicians stand upand talk about the economy that they
know what they're talkingabout. They don't. They've been told
(42:31):
what to say by a staffer who'sfive minutes ago in.
A memo and they'll forgetabout five minutes later.
But actually that. So thatpoint makes me think of something
else, actually, which I thinka lot of the careers in that. What
I've just described is not agreat quadrant full of chances are
quite exciting careers,actually. Whereas in the. Where it's
very measurable, they sound abit stodgy and a bit unexciting,
like, you know, I'm sure it'sgreat being a surgeon and they're
(42:53):
really important and I think Iprobably would kind of fight exciting.
Finally you get bored. Yeah.You've got to go through all. Whereas
I. The idea of being in aquiet study with sun beaming through
the motes of dust and readingthrough some old books and working
on some maths theorem. That ismy dream job, I think.
Yeah. Okay. Well, we've allfound ourselves where we should be,
(43:16):
I think. Actually, just reallybriefly, just on a scale of 1 to
10, how much have you fakedit, do you think, to get to the point
where you are now, as in one?Not at all. Ten loads only ever three.
Three or four, I think.
And this just to be clear,this is separate from that other
one to nine.
No, I. I think the most I'vedone is project more confidence than
(43:37):
I have. I haven't really ever.Well, to be honest, haven't really
ever needed a CV outside ofwhen I applied for the civil service
and there Wasn't anything onmy cv, you know, from that point
onwards, I think it's about.And certainly when I became a team
leader, when I'm. I'm a badmanager, but you have to kind of
pretend you know how to managepeople. So there's a. There's a bit
(43:58):
of that and then you kind ofget better at it on the job. So I'd
say three or four. Certainlynot into the kind of lying about
things kind of level.
Yeah. I mean, that's kind ofnot really what I mean, but as in
like assuming like that 3 or 4bandwidth. Right.
I always made sure that when Iwas saying things, they were true.
Yeah.
Right. So I never. I never. Iwas. I was never. I've never been
(44:21):
comfortable blagging somethingstanding up and going, this is the
case, guys. And I've actuallypulled it out of my arm. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. I've always made surethat, you know, actually the things
I say are kind of true.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think it really is justthat sort of projection stuff. Yeah.
So I would answer it slightlydifferently, which is like this sort
of 3, 4 level of. Somewherebetween self belief and whatever
(44:44):
the next bit was of levelfour, I would say that I've applied
those, going to my new scaleof 1 to 10. Like 8, 9. Like all the
time. Just all the time.
Right.
But like I say clearly, butnot in a dishonest way.
When are you gonna make it,though, Fraser?
I've made it.
Right, you made it.
Look at me, look at us.
Right, yeah.
Yeah.
Peter.
(45:05):
Similar. I think I've neverreally misrepresented myself.
Similar to who, Fraser or you? Right.
And I don't think I. To Nick,that is, I've never. I've never felt
confident saying things that Idon't have a good strong reason to
believe.
Yeah.
It feels it's ill with me today.
(45:26):
Well, it's nice to be armedwith the truth. Right. It's like
in kind of impenetrable armor,really. Whereas I think I live in
terror of being called out forbullshitting or something.
Yeah. I think I was worse whenI was younger, but I. Yeah, I don't.
I never lied on CVs or anything.
Yeah. And just to round itoff, I think also it's personality
(45:49):
site because definitely for meit's that kind of. Let's have a go.
Let's go for it. That looksfun. Let's give it a go.
Learn it. Learn it as we go.Richard Branson. I mean, I think
you're in the Richard Bransonit's like, not it doesn't feel malign.
It feels more like someonesaying, I could do that. Let's give
it a go and we'll work out.We'll cross that bridge when we come
to it. And, you know, notsomething I'm terribly happy about
(46:10):
doing, but I recognize thatthere's definitely a role for people
like that in the world.
Yeah.
So well done, Fraser.
Thank you very much. So we'llstop there. You've been listening
to the Cognitive EngineeringPodcast brought to you by Aleph Insights
and produced by me, FraserMcGruer. If you haven't already,
please like and subscribe. Weaim to release an episode every week
or two. If there are anytopics you'd like us to cover, please
(46:31):
email us atpodcast@lephinsights.com thanks,
as always, for listening.Until next time, goodbye.
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