Oh, December. ‘Tis the season to be merry, jolly, and to reflect back on the year. ‘Tis also the season of the notorious end-of-year reviews. Which, come to think of it, makes the season a little less jolly. 

Hate them or love them, performance reviews are here to stay. We are, after all, a species obsessed with measuring and capturing every little crumb we produce. But that doesn’t mean they can’t and shouldn’t be challenged.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about annual reviews. On one hand, they offer a great opportunity to connect with colleagues, reflect back on a year's worth of work, and discuss career prospects. On the other hand, I can’t help but think of all the biases that manage to conceal themselves as objective feedback, leaving significant marks on our self-worth.

Most of us are socialized to believe that feedback, especially in the context of work, is something that needs to be graciously accepted. Especially if it’s coming from leadership. But I don’t subscribe to that belief. I think one shouldn’t accept anything that doesn’t feel right to them or leaves them feeling powerless or disempowered. So I decided to poke holes in this century-old practice.

Whenever I’m questioning the effectiveness of something I like to take a quick look at its origins. After a quick Google search, I discovered that like many other corporate rituals, annual reviews, and performance reviews at large, are inherited relics of the industrial revolution and military practices. Created in the early 1900s, they were originally designed and put to practice to contain and control human capital. Which at that moment in time was plentiful and expandable. The rationale was simple and inspired by industrial thinking. If we can measure the productivity of machines then surely we can apply that same logic to humans.

After the wars ended, however, this practice lingered. Alongside other questionable innovations like canned meats and powdered beverages. By the early 1960s, performance documentation and reviews were being used by almost 90% of U.S. companies. In other words, they were standardized. The upside is that they were redesigned to focus on growth and actualization. The downside is that it didn't take long for them to become instruments of control when inflation came knocking in the 1970s. You can read more about the fascinating history of performance management [here](https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-performance-management-revolution).

A lot has changed since performance reviews were first put in motion. For instance, human capital is in [great shortage](https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryenglish/2021/06/01/the-tech-talent-war-has-no-end-in-sight-heres-what-you-need-to-know/?sh=5e9a16075f2d) where it’s most needed. Our focus has shifted from physical labor to knowledge work, the output of which is much more difficult to measure and control. We are also coming to terms with the fact that we can’t isolate an individual from a system when measuring anything. In other words, it’s unfair to hold an individual accountable for their own performance without looking at their team, their department, the organization as a whole, and the state of the industry and economy at large. 

To accommodate the changing times and emerging research, many companies have been [reinventing their performance documentation](https://hbr.org/2015/04/reinventing-performance-management). Some [major firms](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/07/21/in-big-move-accenture-will-get-rid-of-annual-performance-reviews-and-rankings/) have replaced their annual reviews with frequent informal check-ins between managers and employees. Others no longer assign one hard number for annual performance and instead rely on an array of metrics. And the general discourse around performance has shifted from accountability (how have you been adding value to our organization?) to development (how can our organization empower you so you can add the most value?).

But good intentions, ideological changes, and economical developments aside, it takes time to shift mindsets and behaviors altogether. Somewhere deep in our subconscious, we’re still operating on beliefs and principles from the previous century. So can we really be confident that we’re making better decisions now than the ones we’ve made on factory floors in the 1900s?

So let’s start with the most pressing question. A year is a very long time, how realistic is it to rely on memory to capture performance? The answer is simple, not realistic at all. Here is why.

The [*peak-end rule*](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/peak-end-rule/) is a psychological bias that interferes with how we remember things. We have the tendency to judge experiences based on how they felt at peak moments, especially if something significant happened right before the end. A lot of interesting studies have been designed to capture this heuristic. But perhaps the most famous one is [Kahneman’s study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12855328/) on colonoscopies. Where he discovered that patients preferred spending more time enduring a bit more pain over having a shorter session where pain peaked at the end and then ended abruptly. They rated the latter shorter experience as more painful, even though the amount of pain in the longer session was overall higher.

Although I hope your work is not as painful as colonoscopies in the 1990s, when reflecting back on a year's worth of work, interactions, and projects, your mind will most likely surface peak moments. It’s also likely that you will magnify whatever happened in the last couple of months. This also applies to whoever is giving you feedback. They’re less likely to remember minor details or what you did last January, even though that information could be instrumental to your career advancement.

Maybe you got unlucky with leading a certain high-profile project. But you also contributed greatly on a micro-level and kept a great tracking record. You’ve created daily psychological safety around you which empowered others to be their best selves. You’d shed light on difficult topics that no one else dared to bring up. Maybe you’ve pivoted when necessary, and chose the well-being of your peers over maintaining a good image. In other words, you’ve displayed great leadership skills. But that one particular project can still be used to justify why you’re not getting promoted to a leadership position. Even if the entire situation was completely out of your hands. [Availability bias](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/availability-heuristic/) might also be at play here, making certain information about your performance more readily available to people.

And you too might fail to see the bigger picture when reviewing your own performance. It’s possible that it won’t even occur to you to push back because you’re also thinking in peaks. On the other hand, it’s possible that you have over-performed on one particular project, and are now feeling entitled to a raise or a promotion that you won’t be getting.

Career development is much more nuanced than big losses and wins, but our memory and [remembering self ](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/experience-memory_b_1456733)don't know how to capture nuances objectively. With everything we know about human memory, we might want to reconsider measuring a year worth of performance in one go.

Another question that might be on your mind is this: How come certain people get more attention and praise than others? Even when their performance is slightly, if at all, above average? And how about high performers who don’t get recognition where it’s due? Unfortunately, praise can't always be attributed to merit. Sometimes, it’s coming from an unconscious place. And I’m not talking about nepotism and favoritism. 

As early as the 1920s, American psychologist Edward Thorndike noticed that ‘conventionally attractive’ individuals were perceived as more competent and successful. Their poor communication skills, for example, were completely overshadowed by their appearance. He coined it as the [*halo effect*](https://www.simplypsychology.org/halo-effect.html). On the other hand, the *horn effect*, also coined by Edward Thorndike, immediately assigns negative attitudes or behaviors to someone based on their appearance or character. A common example of this is how overweight people often get stereotyped as being lazy or irresponsible.

Whether it’s how someone speaks, dresses, or even their body language, we can quickly develop a ‘bad’ or ‘good’ feeling about them and then fail to disconnect that feeling from their performance and ability. The *halo effect* can lead to unfair special treatment in reviews. A manager who has an overly positive view of an employee can have a hard time evaluating their work objectively. They can turn a blind eye to criticism from colleagues and unconsciously overlook bad practices. In contrast, a manager who is managing an ill-favored employee can fail to put them forward for new development opportunities, stumping their growth and potential in the process.

Minorities, people of color, and women are [particularly vulnerable](https://ncwit.org/resources/unconscious-bias-performance-evaluation-and-promotion-fact-sheet/) to performance-related bias. For example, in most cultures, women are socialized to be likable, kind, and modest. While we are socialized to attach these qualities to their overall attractiveness. Meanwhile, corporate culture [remains predominantly white and male](https://hbr.org/2020/11/getting-serious-about-diversity-enough-already-with-the-business-case).  It rewards competitiveness, assertiveness, and self-importance. But a high-performing female employee displaying these qualities might be [perceived as unattractive](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1097-4679(199303)49:2%3C190::AID-JCLP2270490209%3E3.0.CO;2-F) and unlikeable, which can damage her career prospects. At the same time, a lack of assertiveness or brute force on her behalf might also be perceived as a lack of initiative. It’s a zero-sum game which we’ve managed to rationalize as [imposter syndrome](https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome).

It is also important to note that what is perceived as attractive and desirable by one culture can have the opposite effect on another. Imagine evaluating the performance of someone from a culture that considers speaking over others disrespectful. In your culture, however, bulldozing through conversation is considered admirable. So you can’t help but think of their quietness as unattractive, especially if they’re being considered for a leadership position. And maybe you’ve gone through unconscious bias training and culture mapping exercises with your team. You might even consider yourself anti-racist, anti-sexist, whatever. But if you operate in a diverse team and don’t actively de-bias your feedback, then there’s no guarantee that you’re being objective.

We can’t afford entire teams of high performers

So, we’ve established that our memory is an unreliable source of information. We’ve also established that we are not in control of what we find attractive or unattractive in other people. Great. Now let’s zoom out for a minute and consider the goal of performance reviews at large. And let me state that we’re now entering the waters of theory. I might not be able to prove any of this. But it rings true.

From an early age, we are conditioned to operate within certain norms and guidelines. First at home, where we are socialized to behave in certain normative ways, which greatly depend on our culture and what it establishes as ‘normal’ for us. Then school starts, another byproduct of industrial society, where we get constantly stirred back into behaving and thinking within rigid guidelines. College offers a small window for free-thinking, but then most of us get thrown into one corporate culture or another. We are then told to bring our best selves to work, that our best performance will not go unrewarded, but is that really true?

First of all, by then most of us will be disconnected from our natural talents, abilities, and intuitions after decades of ‘taming’. So can we truly bring our true selves to work when we haven’t even met them? Second of all, the survival of a culture depends on its individuals’ compliance with the rules that it has created. So even if you bring your full authentic and best self, there is no guarantee that it will be appreciated or accepted if it doesn't serve the existing culture. In that situation, most of us will choose conformity over ostracization.

And lastly, no one wants an entire team of free thinkers and leaders. That will be too disruptive and entirely non-economical. Very few companies can afford to promote and reward each individual on every team annually, no matter how amazing their performance might be. So from a completely practical perspective, most companies are asking for something that they can’t afford, neither economically nor culturally. In reality, they want just enough high performers to maintain their reputation as a successful establishment.

Now, what happens when a company meets its requirement for high performers? My theory is that they fall back on their unconscious bias to justify keeping people behind, or to rationalize their employee attrition. And the people who have to endure the fall are either the unlucky or the ones most vulnerable to the biases of others.

I want to live in a world where we’re not constantly obsessing over performance metrics and hard numbers. But I know I’m being idealistic, so I would like to propose a middle ground. A world where, one, those metrics and numbers are the outcome of a better process, and two, where we don’t rely on exterior metrics or praise to own what we have accomplished.

If you’re a decision-maker and this article has made you feel uncomfortable somehow, then great. I hope it will inspire you to redesign your process. You don't have to overhaul your entire process, start small. **Schedule more frequent check-ins to capture fresh impressions**. Don’t wait till the middle or the end of the year where you and your team have to rely on vague feelings and memories. **Offer small rewards and praise on the spot to keep people motivated throughout the entire year.** [Studies have shown](https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2017/04/15/66-of-employees-would-quit-if-they-feel-unappreciated/?sh=2371acfe6897) that a top reason employees leave is lack of recognition. It’s also important to mention that recognition doesn’t have to be big or expensive. **And most importantly, be honest and upfront about cognitive bias.** Challenge yourself and your entire team to take their biases into consideration when sharing and receiving feedback.

If you’re not a decision-maker and this article made you realize that your work isn’t being valued enough, or that it’s not being reviewed objectively, then you can be the trailblazer. **You can start the uncomfortable conversation around bias and process, or poke holes in your company’s process**. And if you don’t feel safe doing that, or your organization is extremely hierarchal or is too big for bottom-up change, you can still **work on disconnecting your feelings of self-worth from the numbers that have been assigned to you**. And when it comes to bias, you can also challenge your own. **For example, capture your performance and progress at the end of each month** to keep an eye on your growth, and to contrast it against the feedback of others.

I realize that all of this is easier said than done. We live in a world obsessed with virtue signaling, success, and growth. But if your feelings of success are attached to something outside of you then you’re always gambling with your worth. You're allowing your value and hard work to belong to other people, not you. The best way to dismantle something is to stop believing in it, to no longer allow it to have any power over you, and to find that power within you instead.

Why annual reviews must go

I cut my teeth on product design in 2017 when I joined a business incubator. I still remember the job listing that lured me in. I was about to seal the deal with a sports apparel brand as a digital designer, but I couldn't get myself to “just do it”. Not after I stumbled upon this unusual opportunity. It sounded like a generalist's dream. It said that I'd be working with some of the hottest startups on one of the busiest canal streets in Amsterdam. That I'd be a mediator, standing at the intersection of multiple disciplines such as design, art direction, marketing, and research. It promised creative freedom, no “bullshit” meetings, and an opportunity to build something from the ground up. And so I applied.

A couple of interviews later I signed the contract, hopping right onto a rollercoaster ride. But unpredictable as it was, this job taught me invaluable lessons about the cutthroat world of startups and innovation. Not long after being surrounded by all sorts of entrepreneurs and product teams, who were trying to accomplish the same thing, I picked up on a pattern. I watched rational, inventive, and intelligent people, as they made one impulsive and destructive decision after the other. With so much at stake, it just didn't make any sense. They wanted innovation and creativity, but their choices created one obstacle after the other. Until most were left with something average at best, and nothing at worst.

At first, I rationalized their behavior as some form of inexperience. But after moving on I continued to see more experienced companies and individuals fall back on the same irrational and destructive decision-making style when it comes to innovation. Being the behavioral enthusiast that I am, I decided to put an end to this mystery. **I wanted to know, what is it about innovation that triggers so much self-sabotage? And most importantly, how can it be prevented?**

Innovation spoiler one: False uniqueness bias

In that beautiful canal house, on one of the busiest streets in Amsterdam, I met many talented individuals with great ideas. Although their products and services were entirely different, they had one thing in common. They were dead certain that their idea was groundbreaking—a one in a million. And even though most of them had some kind of arch enemy, a product that was similar and sometimes more evolved than theirs, they continued to believe that what they had to offer was more special, and therefore, better. I watched most of them lose their funding and go out of business.

But they're not an exception. We all like to think of ourselves, our experiences, and our ideas as special. It's what gives us our unique sense of identity. But it can also be a major obstacle and shortcoming in innovation. This is all thanks to [false uniqueness bias](http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-cognition/false-uniqueness-bias/). It's the bias that fuels the flames of our egotism. It makes us overfocus on what we think is different and great about us, which of course includes our ideas.

[A study](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228182770_What_Competition_Myopic_Self-Focus_in_Market_Entry_Decisions) designed to understand egocentric biases in market-entry decisions discovered that founders focused much more on personal skill and internal factors (e.g. confidence in myself, confidence in the business itself) than they did on external factors (e.g concern about the competition). When measuring their odds of success, participants leaned far too much on easily available data, information about themselves, and/or their own abilities. Meanwhile, neglecting to factor in other valuable information, such as the ability of their competition or market changes. This led to them feeling much more confident about themselves than they should have.

This is not to say that confidence is destructive. What's destructive, however, is failing to challenge that confidence, and drawing immediate conclusions from it. Just because you're feeling certain it doesn't necessarily mean that you should be. It all depends on where that feeling of certainty is coming from. Is it there after you've weighed all the options? Or because your mind took a shortcut and decided to focus on some convenient options and not others? What this study demonstrates is that it's very human to jump to conclusions using easily available information only. And what's more available than the information we have about ourselves?

I'm not suggesting you spend your days obsessing over your competition or doubting yourself. That too is a pitfall. What I'm suggesting is that you continue to challenge your ideas even when they feel extraordinary. And to look for information that can counter your current beliefs and assumptions. Be it through thorough competitive analysis, and unbiased external advice in the form of consultation. Or by testing your ideas with a curious and open mind, instead of testing for validation aka confirmation. Every time I hear someone say “we need to validate X and Y" I can tell that innovation has left the building and that [confirmation bias](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024) is in the driving seat. Instead of validating, test to learn and discover. Yes, your amazing ideas might get rejected. Yes, it might take more time and make stakeholders angsty. But what you'll be getting in return is the truth, instead of strokes to your ego and fuel for your bias.

Innovation spoiler two: Pro-innovation bias

Nowadays, when we hear the word innovation we assume that it's somehow related to technology. But is technology the only path to innovation? We tend to think that we live in a different world, a world ruled by tech, but we're not. We still live in the same idea and story-driven world we've been living in since the first human managed to convince their tribe that shells make a great currency. Fast forward to now, their far descendant has managed to convince their tribe to invest in crypto. But if you strip cryptocurrency from its story, or if everyone involved decides to stop believing in it, you'll just end up with is a bunch of worthless code. The point I'm trying to make is this, stories create movement and buy-in, not technology. 

Technology is a tool, one of many. And in a lot of cases it's neither a precondition nor should it be dictating the entire process. I watched many startups overestimate their need for tech. They would often jump into building a complex app as the ultimate solution to their users' problem and then would get stuck there, pilling up features and optimizing themselves into a dead-end. Similarly, they would underestimate and underinvest in two important pillars of innovation, unbiased explorative research and a good story to peddle their product.

[Pro-innovation bias](https://twoscoopsofbusiness.com/what-is-the-pro-innovation-bias) makes technology feel like the immediate and only solution. It often puts it at the center of the entire process. This bias likes to sway us in the direction of whatever is new at the moment. It also makes us think of novelty and “newness” as inherently good and useful. But like all biases, it's a shortcut. The reality is that technology is moving at the speed of light, so if you anchor your entire process to something that is always moving, you might spend the rest of your days playing catch up. Now let's go back to the business incubator for a minute.

What I noticed is that often there was no real need for a complicated product. I remember learning during one investigation that our users were really busy and always short on time. While we were developing a complicated tool that required a lot of time to learn, set up, and then populate with data. During interviews, people said they liked the product, and they usually do thanks to the [observer effect](https://dictionary.apa.org/observer-bias)). But in reality, they would have no time for it. Another product team spent a good amount of money and effort designing an algorithm that provided tailor made travel recommendations. But the end product depended on a 3 pages long questionnaire and needed the user's email to deliver the results. Turns out most people didn't want to bother going through the hassle and were perfectly fine getting non-personalized recommendations from social media. They too said they loved the product. They too didn't use it.

Yes, tech is hot. And yes it's everywhere. But your sophisticated product or state-of-the-art interface might be a hurdle for your end-user. [A study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850117301955) designed to understand resistance to innovation discovered that there are seventeen barriers to adopting innovative solutions. Seventeen! So while you, a founder or creative thinker, might be biased towards choosing the most seemingly innovative option, your users’ minds are riddled with barriers to resist it. This is why the most valuable question you will have to answer in the pursuit of innovation is not “how fast can we build and future proof this?”. But "should we be building this at all?” and “can we prove that people will actually use it beyond their confirmation?”. And when I say ‘prove’ I'm not talking about blindly trusting the results of a [survey](https://medium.com/mule-design/on-surveys-5a73dda5e9a0). I'm talking about understanding the current problem and mindset of your users so well that you can seamlessly fit your product into their life without disrupting it.

A lot of the people who I've met at the incubator, and in the world of startups and innovation, chose that route because they were adventurous and unconventional. They wanted to opt-out of what was the norm and create a new standard. And then most of them ended up conforming. I watched them lean on tried and tested methods and fall back on predictable processes. Why? Because the alternative wasn't as guaranteed. After all, they needed solid numbers and projections to share with their investors. So when things started to feel uncertain they did their best to stir things back into predictability. I wonder how many times they were on the verge of a breakthrough only to pull themselves back into mediocrity.

Innovation is risky, it's scary and unknown. In fact, if it's not uncomfortable it's not new, and if it's not new it's not innovation. It's impossible to walk a path of least resistance while looking for uncharted territory. That's not going to happen. But [ambiguity bias](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/ambiguity-effect/) will continue to stir you back towards the comfortable and the familiar because it's there to protect you from the unknown. You see, there was a time when the unknown was potentially fatal to our species, and ambiguity bias has done a great job at helping us survive. These days, however, it keeps us from thriving. Whether you like it or not, chances are that you are being subconsciously pulled away from original solutions and ideas because you are evolutionarily designed to avoid the unfamiliar. And consequently, the novel.

This bias is also why so many businesses profit from selling innovation as a prepackaged solution, a one size fits all guaranteed process. But that too is a fallacy, the assumption that one process can continuously produce groundbreaking results. And yet companies desperate for innovation continue to buy into these solutions instead of experimenting on their own and finding out what works for them. The alternative feels too uncertain, and worst of all, what if they fail? That would be bad, wouldn't it? At least that's what our mind tells us because in addition to being aversive to the uncertainty we are also [loss-aversive](https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/loss-aversion/). We'd rather produce mediocre results and have something than risk losing everything.

Speaking of tried and tested methods, let's take a look at [Design Thinking](https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/design-thinking) for a moment—the holy grail of innovation in design. Design thinking is a process of five clear steps. It tells us to: **empathize** with users to understand their needs, **define** the problem through insights, **ideate** based on insights, **prototype** the idea, and **test** to get feedback, then repeat these steps as many times as necessary to refine. If you look closely, the third step (ideate) remains at the core of the creative process. It's been there since the dawn of history. This is the step where innovation materializes. Take it away and all you have is a stack of quantitative or qualitative data. Ironically, ideation is also the step where innovation often goes to die, because of ambiguity bias.

Take brainstorming and design critiques for example, which are common ideation tools. Both tend to get hijacked by [groupthink](https://www.7pace.com/blog/groupthink-kills-good-ideas). During these conversations, original ideas often get cast out by the group for being too radical or unscalable. In other words, too ambiguous. Another barrier to ideation is [functional fixedness](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/functional-fixedness/?utm_term=functional%20fixedness%20examples&utm_campaign=Biases&utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=adwords&hsa_kw=functional%20fixedness%20examples&hsa_ver=3&hsa_src=g&hsa_mt=b&hsa_cam=1044459117&hsa_tgt=aud-842210950049:kwd-814323759746&hsa_ad=381778966981&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_grp=80763838471&hsa_acc=8441935193&gclid=CjwKCAiAm-2BBhANEiwAe7eyFATVOtftpL04e1d7SWgmEbmmgADIzESTx0ldeo8mBYub0K0LIPZU5hoCbUQQAvD_BwE), which prevents teams from imagining new possibilities. Because once again they're too ambiguous in comparison to what is familiar. If you're not addressing your approach to ideation then no amount of Design Thinking will save you. It might get you delicious insights from users. But they won't be worth much if you don't allow yourself, and your team, to experiment and flirt with ambiguity. And potentially, with innovation.

Despite how I've framed them here, biases are not bad. They are mental shortcuts that have benefited our species, they have saved us time and mental energy. They helped us survive. But they won't always help us thrive, nor will they help us innovate. Now that you've met the ones that might be spoiling your process the decision is entirely yours: do you want to survive? Or do you want to challenge your bias and thrive? If you want the latter then you should start thinking of biases as helpful cues. **You need to bias-proof your process to prevent them from running the show.**

**For false uniqueness bias:**
Challenge this bias by widening your lens. Do not over-rely on information about your own abilities or the abilities of your team. And most importantly, avoid validating your design and ideas. Instead, test them in the spirit of [exploration and learning](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/no-validate-in-ux/). My personal go-to research bible is Erika Hall's [Just enough research](https://abookapart.com/products/just-enough-research). 


**For pro-innovation bias:**
Before jumping into investing in tech, get to know your users and their problem *really* well. The time and money you will spend on explorative research, ideation, and creating a compelling story is the time and money you will save on building overly complex solutions that no one will want to use or buy. Or the way Seth Godin put it: “Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

**For ambiguity-bias:**
If you want innovation then you also need to start making peace with discomfort and uncertainty. When fear comes knocking in the shape of ambiguity and loss-aversion, acknowledge it for what it is: your survival instincts kicking in. Since survival is also the opposite of creativity, this might be a good time to take yourself out of the picture and trust your team to experiment and learn on your behalf. After all, they have less to lose. And if you're working solo, or if you're not the decision-maker, take a break no matter how difficult it might feel. It's impossible to make creative decisions [when we're stuck in fear](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolyncenteno/2018/04/18/fear-shrinks-your-brain-and-makes-you-less-creative/?sh=466cc64b1c6d).

And I will leave you with the biggest innovation killer of all: shame. The people I've watched succeeding are incredibly shame resilient. They endured failure, scrutiny, and judgment for their unconventional ideas and choices. But they didn't think of it as bad or wrong—to them, it was just part of the process. So if you're worried about being liked more than being true to yourself, or if you're ashamed of failure, then [remember this](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7096924-the-secret-killer-of-innovation-is-shame-you-can-t-measure): “Shame becomes fear. Fear leads to risk aversion. Risk aversion kills innovation.”

Why you suck at innovation

Have you ever been through the gut-wrenching experience of being new at something? If you're one of us (i.e. human) then chances are you have, countless times. And yet it never gets easier, does it? In fact it gets harder since the neural connections that receive and process new information weaken as we get older.

I have countless stories about my personal struggle with learning. But none as tricky as having to learn how to cycle at the age of 27. So when I started my new career as a User Experience designer early last year, and a lot of similar themes started to emerge, I decided to inspect things a little closer.

As strange as it may sound, when I moved to the Netherlands at the age of 24 I didn't know how to cycle. It took me three years of self-deception, and a steep formula of public transport and Uber-rides, to finally admit to myself that I was scared shitless. The only thing that stood between me and the bike lane was fear. And if I ever planned on cycling I had to face it.

When I finally committed to learning how to cycle I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I expected the physical discomfort, sure, but not the emotional distress. Not only was I going to expose myself to the harshness of the exterior circumstances (Dutch cyclists are notorious). I was also about to wake up all sorts of biases, old beliefs, and destructive patterns. **Inner barriers whose main job is to protect me from failure by predicting it. And ironically, by manifesting it.**

Fast forward to three years later, I now hop on my bike without giving it much thought. I forgot how awful it used to feel, and how much anxiety I had to grapple with when I was new at it.

When I reflect back on the past nine months at my new job, that same emotional distress continues to linger—the discomfort of being new. Much like the first time I rolled down a slope at the park holding onto my bike handles for dear life, I often feel raw and vulnerable with no clear sense of direction. I'm growing and learning, I know. But somehow I can't always see it.

What I remember most from my experience of learning how to cycle are these three specific barriers:

**My inner critic in combination with negativity bias telling me that I was doing it all wrong. Shame as a by-product of shame culture, which keeps moments like these in the dark and praises success as if it came out of nowhere. And my own ego, or individualism if you will, telling me that I should be able to take this step completely on my own.**

But I've managed to challenge all three, otherwise I'd still be paying 80 euros a month on public transport (ouch). So what can one growth experience teach me about the other? To find out let's take a ride down memory lane.

Barrier one: Inner-critic meets negativity bias

It's difficult to explain what rush hour looks like in Amsterdam unless you’ve experienced it yourself. But I’ll give it a try.

The bike lane in a no man’s land. It's a wild jungle of Amsterdammers who were practically born on a bike. These natural born riders are either rushing to work while being confronted with the reality of awful weather (which is 95% of the year), or are rushing back home. Hangry and frustrated they will show no mercy.

Now imagine learning how to cycle in that environment. It was tough. It was my worst nightmare turned into a reality, where the voices in my head had finally conspired with the outside world to break me. I felt as if everything and everyone was constantly reminding me of my shortcomings. Telling me that I was either cycling too slow, not using hand signs, or cycling too much like a tourist (the biggest insult of them all). Every new cycling experience added to my compounded dread. I would start sweating at the simple thought of having to cycle. 

**What I didn't know back then is that I was under the spell of my [negativity bias](https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/negativity-bias/). I was subconsciously collecting more and more of the same negative information and internalising it as "I'm not good enough" and "I suck at this" and "I'm failing".**

You could think of it here as the engine that runs the inner critic by feeding it more of the same information. Much like [confirmation bias](https://taniashoukair.com/dont-let-a-job-break-your-heart/) except in this case it's all doom and gloom. If you ever felt like you can't see anything positive about a situation, then you can probably thank your negativity bias for it.

Turning a negative loop into a positive one

I'm not exactly sure how it happened. I think I just got fed up of all the negativity inside my mind. But one day I decided that I had a choice: **I couldn't control the outer critics, but I could learn how to tame my inner one.** Every time my inner critic tried to join the choir of bullies, I fought back by reminding myself that I was surrounded by people who have been doing this their entire lives. It wasn't fair to compare. And if I ever planned on going forward with my plan I first had to let go of my unrealistic expectations about myself.

**It was time to challenge the story of "not good enough". Because that story was simply untrue. I was good enough considering my own experience. But just not as good as those who had more time to learn and practice.**

And as I started to challenge the story "not good enough", I also began to make peace with the outside world. The bells ringing, the shouts and the insults, and my sweaty palms started to bother me less and less. They were no longer a confirmation of how much I sucked. Instead they were a normal consequence of being new and inexperienced at something.

When the inner critic started to quiet down my confidence began to grow. Which improved my focus and performance. And my improved performance created less friction with the outside world. Until eventually the outside critics began to quiet down too. Which of course, gave me even more confidence.

When I started my new job as a UX designer I couldn’t help but notice how seamlessly everyone else was going about their day. While I was literally crawling out of my skin trying to make sense of everything: the acronyms, the ambiguous prototyping tools, and all the gibberish tech terms. Imposter syndrome hit hard. And before I knew it my inner critic was back at it. 

Different environment, same story: "The reason they're all better than me is because there's something wrong with me. I'm just not good enough." But the simple truth is that there is nothing wrong with me, or you, or any of us. Learning and growth take time and energy. And we can either make it harder on ourselves by listening to our inner critic, feeding our negativity bias, and believing stories of "not good enough". Or we can make it a little easier by creating a new narrative of "good enough, considering".

**By saying "I'm good enough for someone who's never done this before". Or "I'm good enough for someone who's only done it once, or for a week etc." you slowly begin to shape a new, kinder reality. One that's not destroying your confidence, but is instead building it up. The choice is entirely yours.**

When children fall we comfort and reassure them. We tell them that falling (failing) is just part of the learning process. But there comes a moment when falling gets taken out of the equation. Instead, it becomes intertwined with stories of shame—something that needs to be avoided. Because grown ups are not supposed to fall or fail. They’re supposed to magically have their act together.

But where does this nonsense narrative come from? I'll tell you: shame culture. [Shame cultures](https://www.lexico.com/definition/shame_culture) are designed to use shame to keep people in-line and/or to steer their behaviour. And it works. 

Shame creates separation to manipulate desired behavior. It puts you in a corner and says "there's something wrong with you, and that makes you different from the rest of us". By doing so it also kicks you out of the tribe. And back in the day when we lived in actual tribes and small tight-knit communities, being separated from our tribe meant death. Literally. Because surviving on our own wasn't an option. We needed our tribe to find or hunt for food, and to ward off predators and enemies.

When we experience shame in this day and age, be it internal or external, we spiral back into our primitive minds. Feelings of shame activate our limbic stress response, which floods our body with stress hormones. And [Research shows](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26404712/) that stress disconnect us from our prefrontal cortex, which controls logical thinking and plays a big part in learning. In simple speak, learning and shame are polar opposites.

I was raised to be a perfectionist and to avoid error at all cost. Failure wasn't part of my inner or outer narrative. Instead, myths about perfectionism steered me towards familiar options, and away from experimenting and learning new things. I sticked to what I was already good at because it meant not having to face potential setbacks, and consequently not having to feel shame.

I didn't know how to deal with failure, so technically I didn't know how to deal with growth either. And for the longest time I didn't question the destructive narrative that was handed to me. **Because where and when do we talk about facing the shame of failure? We don't. It's just too dark and raw for us to handle.**

When I started cycling in Amsterdam what scared me most wasn't the pain of falling off my bike or getting hurt. **It was the shame of having to pick myself up in front of everyone. The shame of "failing" in public and having to deal with the humiliation of it all.** And when I started cycling with friends I was terribly ashamed of telling them that I wasn't enjoying cycling side-to-side carefree and chit-chatting, and that I still needed to focus fully on the road. I was also ashamed of my shame and so I tried to hide it, while experiencing immense emotional stress.

And yet I fell, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. But what I didn't know back then is that everytime I got back on I was becoming more and more shame resilient.

Insight two: The other face of shame is courage

[Brené Brown](https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en), aka the queen of shame resilience, said it best: "Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change." What she meant by this is that change and growth in any shape or form can't happen unless you are willing to face shame. And facing shame is super uncomfortable.

To survive the sting of shame I started a new practice of distancing myself from it. When shame came knocking I would take a step back and focus on what I wanted instead of what it was trying to tell me. And what I wanted above all was to cycle everyday like it was no big deal. 

In my new career I've rubbed shoulders with shame more times than I can count. I've been asked questions to which I had no answers in workshops and meetings full of important stakeholders. I've had to admit not knowing how to use multiple tools. And I've hit dead-ends in my process, not knowing what to do next because I've never done it before. **But I didn't let shame get to me. Why? Because I've learned that this discomfort is a sign of me being out of my comfort zone. Which also means I'm growing and expanding. And if I resist listening to shame in that moment then what I'm ultimately choosing is courage.**

So what if you can't answer a question? It's an opportunity to learn something new. So what if you don't know how to use a tool? Aren't tools just means to an end? If you don't know one, chances are you know many others that can get you very similar results. I will never forget [this talk](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/818/) by Apple designer Guillaume Ardaud titled "60 second prototyping" where he used Keynote to prototype and test an app. Keynote!

And what about not knowing how to get yourself out of a situation? May I suggest stepping over your ego and asking for help? After all, you're probably not the first human on earth to face the same problem. And someone else might be able to nudge you in the right direction. Which brings me to the next barrier.

Don't get me wrong. Self reliance is important and sexy. But it can also be self-destructive and a big barrier to growth. Let me explain.

I used to praise myself for being an "independent woman". I bought my bike convinced that I'll learn how to ride it on my own. And then it just sat there, collecting dust, rain and pigeon crap for a year. My do-it-yourself ethos didn’t cover this part of the journey. 

I tried doing it my way, really hard, but I needed more than just grit and Youtube tutorials. I needed someone to hold the back of my bike. And I was lucky enough to find a volunteer, a mentor. Someone who took the time to show me the ropes, and who was brave enough to watch me cycle into a busy street of cyclists (thanks [James](https://jamespac.co.uk/)). But man was it hard to swallow my ego and accept the help.

The tricky part about asking for help, and the reason it feels so vulnerable, is because the other person has the option to say no. So most of the time what stops us from reaching out is our fear of rejection. **Our ego doesn't handle rejection very well. We take it personally, assuming that it has something to do with us. When in reality there could be a million other reasons why someone decided to turn us down at that moment.**

It also doesn't help that capitalist cultures perpetuate myths like "[the lone genius](https://www.nobelprize.org/martin-chalfie-npii-canada/)". We assume that successful people got to where they are completely on their own. When in reality there's often entire teams supporting and rooting for them. And although it makes complete sense once we say it out loud, we often forget that we're not entirely on our own and that asking for help is nothing short of human.

I started working on my transition into UX two years ago. And in that transition I had to ask for help and guidance A LOT. I approached people on Twitter and LinkedIn. Cold-emailed professionals for advice and feedback. Drilled instructors with questions after training was over. And probably did a lot of other things that were completely out of my comfort zone.

I needed to understand what I was getting myself into. So I had to rely on the kindness and willingness of strangers to guide me. And although I got a lot of kind responses and most people were genuinely helpful, I also got rejected and ghosted a lot.

And that's completely fine. Not everyone has the mentor gene or the courage to invest in you and then potentially watch you crash and fall. Not all companies have the resources, time and space for new blood. Not all strangers have the patience and space to return your email or answer your questions. So if you want the right kind of help you need to be persistent and thick skinned. You need to swallow your pride and get over your fear of rejection.

Insight three: You get the help you think you deserve

When I was switching from graphic design to UX design I felt very lonely. Everyone around me seemed happily settled in their careers. That's why joining supportive groups to establish a sense of community was so important. For me that was [Ladies that UX](https://www.ladiesthatux.com/).

I also felt super insecure and thought I lacked a lot of skills. But by talking to people who had made the same move I was reassured over and over that I have many valuable and transferable skills. And that in fact I was at an advantage because I had a fresh perspective. And when I was applying for jobs I worried about over promising or disappointing my future employer. Which is why I chose to be super honest. It was very tempting to skip this part and immediately jump into "I got this" and "look mommy, no hands!". But that would've been self destructive.

**So if you're planning to embark on a learning journey, remember: joining a community, seeking reassurance and practicing honesty can go a long way.** And if you feel like you don't need help and struggle with reaching out, try to ask yourself why. Is it because you're genuinely fine on your own? Or is it because you've subscribed to the idea that you're supposed to be doing everything on your own? Because ultimately, you deserve support. You deserve an entire team, chearlers included.

Last week I drank a coffee while cruising through the park on my bike. It was great. I no longer have to think about navigation as much or avoid rush hour (which used to haunt me). I'm proud of myself. Considering where I've come from.

Part of continuous learning and growth is marking your own little wins and celebrating them. Afterall, it's *your* process, and you should only measure your growth against yourself.

And there will come a time when you'll forget what it was like to be new. I’m not there yet with UX, but I’ve been there before with other things, so I know it will come. And it will come for you too.

Riding the bumps of inexperience

This article was inspired by heartbreak. Except in this scenario my ex is an agency and the break-up happened in the form of a contract that wasn’t extended.

I started calling it a heartbreak when my compulsive stalking behaviour struck me as oddly familiar. You know how in a post break-up manner you might find yourself lurking on your ex’s social media accounts? That was me, systematically and shamelessly checking my ex employer’s website, blog and LinkedIn page during the first months that followed our separation.

I wanted to know what they’ve been up to. I wanted to see what cool projects I’ve been missing out on. Like a good masochist I wanted to add insult to my injury.

Clearly, I haven’t moved on. What I needed is closure. And my way of healing from any kind of break-up, professional or personal, is by turning pain into insight.

Luckily there’s no “new girlfriend” to compare myself to. I have not been replaced and I don’t think I will be. But this didn't ease my obsession, instead it only seemed to feed my “you were supposed to be the one” narrative.

We were a match made in heaven. On paper this position seemed to fit me like a glove. I remember reading about it and thinking: this is it. But for many reasons, which will not fit in one article, we were also a match made in hell. 

Like the majority of challenging relationships we recreated the infamous trinity of bad communication, unmet needs and unrealistic expectations. And like with any dysfunctional dynamic, I had to step out of it to realise how much damage it had done to my self-esteem.

It takes distance to have a full perspective. And now that I’ve had time to reflect back I’m ready to own my part.

The truth is, I took this job against my own intuition. I had spent months planning and preparing for my next career move. I read article after article about company culture. I compiled lists on the kind of job I wanted and the kind of employer I wanted to work for. I did one hell of an expensive training to push my career forward. I developed an intricate plan for where I saw myself in the next couple of years. But it all went down the drain when I met my ‘bad boy’.

So what went wrong? The answer now seems so simple: flawed design. Let me explain.

An interview is nothing more than a dance of seduction where everyone is on their very best behaviour. We desperately want to be liked, so we dress nice, smile a lot, and say things that are not necessarily true. It's human nature. 

And I knew this, because I'm interested in and have been trained in understanding human behaviour. So I designed my own process to sift through the bullshit. But my design was completely centred around my future employer.

Behaviour science had taught me that "The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour”. So in addition to the usual small talk, I asked my potential managers about how they handled certain situations in the past instead of buying into their aspirations and plans for the future.  I also took note of their possible cognitive bias. My plan was to notice when they were sounding overly confident about something without providing any concrete proof, and then to challenge their self-assurance. I did everything by the book. Meanwhile, I failed to hold myself to the same standards.

The only way for me to ensure that I was making sound and rational decisions, in a realm that triggers so much false behaviour, was by designing a process that also takes my own irrationality into account. 

In simple speak, what I needed was a mechanism to protect me from my own biases and faulty judgements, not just theirs.

When we enter the domain of decision making we’re rarely prepared to see the truth. Instead most of the time we see what we want to see. Our brain is an association machine. In an attempt to be helpful it’s constantly trying to give us more of the information we already have. This is known as ["confirmation bias"](https://www.nirandfar.com/confirmation-bias-terrible-life-choices/).

For example: Maybe you’ve looked up your future manager on LinkedIn before the interview, found out what kind of college they went to and it’s a school you admire. And you have this pre-existing belief that everyone who goes there is talented and hardworking. **When you meet this person your confirmation bias will start doing its job to prove your hypothesis right.** 

For all you know, this person could have partied their way through school, barely graduated and then gotten this position through good connections. But instead you will fall into the false belief that they are hardworking and admirable because they went to that school. Maybe there were signs of their true nature at the interview, but your brain was too busy connecting the dots elsewhere. And you could get lucky, or you might end up working for someone incompetent.

Another bias that comes to life during interviews is the ["halo effect"](https://www.readthesequences.com/The-Halo-Effect). Something as simple as a pair of glasses or the person’s bone structure could trigger a list of false assumptions about their leadership style. It could have you believe that they are more intelligent or empathetic than they truly are. And you don’t know why, but you might leave the meeting feeling like you could *really* trust that person, a judgement that is grounded in no real evidence. 

When I stalked my ‘bad boy’ the night before my interview I noticed that he had been working for that company for a while. I figured that's what dedication looked like (confirmation bias). And he did seem devoted, he had that passionate stare thing going on when he talked about serious topics. The details of which I don't remember because I was too focused on his strong jawline, which reaffirmed that he must make a good leader (halo-effect).

But my ‘bad boy’ also made remarks that made me feel uneasy. He described my work as "quiet and clean" like it was a shortcoming. He also made condescending remarks about the culture of UX, even though I had told him that this is what I was headed towards in my career. But I wanted to be liked by him, because he worked for an agency that had the name of that one designer I admired since college (halo-effect).

Fast forward a couple of months later and I'm working for someone who can't mentor me in the areas I want to grow in. Turns out we're very different people who want very different things. And it was all right there in front of me, I just had no way to filter through my own bullshit.

These are just two unconscious bias that wreaked havoc on this particular career decision. **And although it’s nearly impossible to be 100% unbiased, I do think it's possible to catch yourself before you make a final judgement.**

If you're already familiar with the topic of cognitive bias then you probably know they're there to ease the cognitive load of decision making. They're shortcuts designed to drive behaviour by triggering an emotional response, which in turn masks itself as a rational thought worthy of driving a decision. **So between every bias and decision there is also an emotional reaction. And that, if properly harnessed, can become your guiding light.**

Educating yourself on cognitive bias is step one. Accepting that you are capable of irrational decision making, just like every other human on this planet, is step two. And flagging emotional triggers before they develop into decisions is the last and most crucial step.

This is why I developed an **internal red-flag handbook for interviews**. To keep things fun, but not any less serious, I will be using dating analogies. Since what we’re ultimately trying to avoid here is heartbreak.

Some persuasion masters might try to convince you that there is nothing wrong with a bit of smoke and mirrors. Others might even teach you how to use the halo-effect to your own advantage. I, however, am an advocate of authenticity. **There is nothing more destructive than building a relationship based on illusion and the false promise of perfection.**

Why? Because while you’re going about your seductive dance, your potential employer is falling in love with the fantasy version of you. Once they’ve committed to you, you’re going to have to spend the rest of your time together being the false self you presented at the beginning. And because being seen as perfect is a full time job on top of your full time job, this could get exhausting fast.

**So if you notice that you're being triggered into presenting a false-self, or wanting to be perceived as perfect, stop and reconsider before you set yourself up for failure and misery.**

Maybe this is your confirmation bias reaffirming that you're not good enough to protect you from failure. And your strategy/coping mechanism is to over impress and over deliver. I don't know your demons personally, but this is definitely the case for me. 

So you caught yourself getting triggered, good job. Now step away from the theatrics and try sharing something authentic instead, something real and vulnerable. Maybe share about how nervous the interview is making you. Or tell a story about a project that went sour from which you learned nothing but how to recover from failure. It’s terrifying to be real, but it will also foster real connection.

If they don't respond to your vulnerability it could be that they're driven by a culture of perfectionism, so you might have dodged a bullet. And if they do hire you or ask you out on a second interview, it will be because they liked you for who you are and not who they think you are. So in a sense, **your authenticity can also challenge their bias about you.**

Red flag 2: You can’t stop thinking about them

But surely this is a good thing? Doesn’t it simply imply that you’re excited? Or maybe this is a sign that the job is ideal for you, which in turn is making you nervous?

For a while I believed that I was simply passionate, and cared so deeply about my job that I just couldn't get it out of my head. And generally speaking there is a thin line between passion and obsession. The difference between the two is that passion is about free will, you can have control over passion. Obsession, however, is about compulsion and the illusion of being in control.

**So if you can’t stop thinking about your upcoming interview, or if when feeling anxious you catch yourself compulsively stalking future colleagues on LinkedIn, or lurking on the company’s website, or constantly checking your inbox for updates, there’s probably something unconscious at play.**

It’s good to be informed and prepared for your interview, but there’s a limit to how much information you actually need. This emotional and behavioural response could be a sign of much more compulsion to come.

For me, compulsive and controlling behaviour is always rooted in some kind of false belief about myself. And confirmation bias feeds false beliefs. It will keep you looking for evidence to reinforce what you already believe in.

**If you notice yourself falling into obsession and compulsion ask yourself: what am I trying to control here? And why?**

Sometimes what I'm trying to control is the thought of a job being too good for me and how awful it's making me feel. That's why I no longer apply for positions that make me feel insecure about myself. I don't see it as lack of ambition. What I'm trying to prevent is ending up at a job where I'm constantly trying to prove my worth. Been there, done with that.

Red flag 3: You're always putting yourself second

Did you say yes to an interview even though it's at an inconvenient time? Did you use money you don’t have to buy an outfit you can’t afford? Did they ask you if you could split your time between their two offices, and you know in your heart that this would wear you out in a couple of months, yet you're still considering it?

**A healthy and equal relationship is one where the comfort of both parties is taken into consideration. And I refuse to believe that professional relationships are any different. Here too your well-being starts with you setting your own boundaries and then not crossing them.**

So if you are being triggered into putting yourself second, check your beliefs and bias about hierarchy and power dynamics.

Maybe you believe that you’re not in a position to say no to a future employer because they’re the ones with all the power. Or that it’s up to them to set the rules and for you to simply follow. Or maybe you think that you should never make the people in charge feel uncomfortable. Whatever you believe will set the tone for your future relationship dynamics. Remember, **beliefs drive behaviour.**

If for example you don't want to make anyone in charge feel uncomfortable then you’re in for treat, because people get uncomfortable A LOT. You might make your employer uncomfortable by asking for a well deserved promotion for example. But at that point they'd already know that their discomfort could make you change your mind. They won't even have to talk you out of it, all they'd need to do is sulk a little.

**It’s good to be flexible, but having a spine can come in handy too.**

So challenge yourself, try being assertive by setting boundaries early on. It will build the foundation for the kind of relationship you will end up having with the ones in charge. In the words of the iconic couples therapist turned workplace relationship expert [Esther Perel](https://howswork.estherperel.com/episodes/prologue): “As any parent of a 2-year-old knows, power can come from the weaker party”.

As long as we have human brains making human decisions for us, the process of finding a new job will never be completely rational.

I started working on this article in anticipation of my new job, and I have no idea where it will take me. During the interview process I did my best to learn from my past mistakes and to follow my own advice. I was honest, vulnerable, and I respected my boundaries. But you never know.

What I do know is that relationships of any kind require work. There’s inner work and then there’s the work you do as a team. I'm only one half of the puzzle.

I also know that getting my foot through the door is just the beginning. There will be more bias to challenge, and more unconscious and destructive patterns lurking in the background. So I will carry this **internal red-flag handbook** with me daily, because that's my only safe bet against the biggest breaker of my heart: myself.

Welcome to my blog, where I write about behavioral insights, design, psychology, and more with my fellow creative Fiamma Degl’Innocenti.