We do this all the time. We just don't use the word "underthink". "You didn't think this through." "It sounds like you haven't gotten to the details yet." "Are you sure that's how it works?" "You need to start thinking things through." "You have a brain. Use it." "Pull your head out your ass." I think all of those phrases are suggesting the same thing underthink would.
If you run into traffic and get hit by a car, the conversation is about that, not "under thinking" because the impact is painful and obvious.
However, it's more subtle for someone to notice that it takes you 30 minutes to cross the street because you're way too cautious, and the impact of that ("you could be doing a lot more with your life than standing here") is less obvious.
- Look before you leap. - Measure twice, cut once. - Stay silent and have people think you're a fool, open your mouth and confirm it.
I'm sure there are many more common idioms pointing towards the idea of "think before you act".
- Don't dive head first into water.
- Measure nine times, cut once.
And a random saying I just remembered: "Autumn has the eyes of a summer and the teeth of a wolf."
Edit:formatting
- being late (acting in "autumn") ...looks/feels similar to
- being on time (seizing the moment at the right point, in "summer")
...but has a nasty bite?
Very good point.
> But we don't have the same cultural concern against underthinking. I have never heard someone telling their employee or friend "you're underthinking this". Surely overthinking is bad, but when underthinking can be severely dangerous, it's easy to see why some people overthink.
I believe that it's largely a cultural thing.
For instance, in French companies, US Americans definitely have the reputation of underthinking things (which US employees feel is "being productive"). Reciprocally, in US companies, the French have a reputation for overthinking them (which French employees feel is "assessing risks").
One more reason for which balancing cultures (and backgrounds, etc) is actually really important for the future of a company: we all have different blind spots.
I'm not going to dabble in your cultural representations because I think they're a bit dangerous. I will say that maintaining the idea that we have blind spots is good, overaddressing this is usually called "hand wringing" and is equally prohibitive. To me, it's about having a mix of the two. Think about things critically, but accept that you are not in total control of the world and that any good solution takes iteration and learning.
In France, if there's no law allowing it, you can't do it.
It's hardly enforceable, but wait until you encounter a zealous police agent that's been tasked to give a certain amount of tickets
Article V of the French constitution:
> The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.
Given that the US constitution was greatly influenced by the French one, and given France's influence and substantial aid in helping to establish the USA as an independent country it's hard for me to imagine how anyone could believe this, unless they were completely unaware of both French and American history and culture.
I mean, probably not with those exact words, but isn't that essentially the feedback you would get for almost any mistake you make at work that was foreseeable but not foreseen? Or even things like a code review, where pretty much all comments are of the form "you might want to consider how this effects OtherSystemX," which is a more helpful way of saying "you might be failing to think about something you ought to think about."
If you're like me, this is probably because the time spent thinking wasn't necessarily productive. It wasn't spent thinking about the right things, or about the things in the right way, with the right understanding or knowledge, etc.
This is hard to overcome because at least in my case this occurs because of a lack of understanding of what I'm doing, or perhaps a worry that I won't execute on something as well as I believe I could. But in there lies a significant problem. My overthinking is motivated by 1) impressions and hypotheticals (could I actually execute better? And what if I don't need to understand the problem better? What if there is no attainable solution to the problem that's better enough to warrant researching it?) and 2) insecurities like fear of failure, fear of being wrong, of appearing incompetent.
I often overthink because I want to do the best job I can (good) but... I want to do it on my first try (bad). I end up with massively diminishing returns on the thinking I do because of the first point mentioned above. I'm pursuing something that is arguably imaginary, and if I make good progress it's often pure luck rather than a calculated, predictable step forward.
This is what makes it overthinking in my case. I'm wasting my energy and potential. I could act on what I know much sooner and be more productive, then revise my work with what I learn in the process or what I learn later. I should move forward with a better balance of confidence and critcal thinking, being sure to consider what I know carefully, how well I understand what I'm engaging in, but also knowing that I'm acceptably competent and that I'll learn more by doing.
Easy to say, harder to do. But I do believe I lose a lot of my potential to overthinking. It becomes more neurotic than effective after a point. I'm often unaware that I'm even doing it; almost like I'm addicted to the process of analyzing, deconstructing, reconsidering, starting again. It feels somehow safer than taking the risk of making a (likely correctable) mistake!
I agree that underthinking, or I suppose an absence of thinking, should be more critically considered and addressed when it occurs. It's a much different beast though. I believe they occur for perhaps entirely different reasons.
- That was a stupid idea
- Do you even have a plan?
- Do you know what you’re doing?
- Darwin awards
- …
I think there is a lot of cultural concern about not thinking enough.
This guy in the article only thinks it's a problem because people are acutely aware of overthinking. They are completely unaware of under thinking.
There are simply too many topics in the world to think about so in order to make sense of the world at a macro level you under think almost everything.
I mean the guy is a software engineer OF COURSE he overthinks software related stuff. Guaranteed he's under thinking most of everything else.
It was not easy to express that A gave a quick response with a largely false content.
It is called rushing, it came from a culture of stopping well before decent quality, and it should not be a value.
Is the director the hero, who gave clear feedback to her employees then listened to the response and corrected the course?
Or is the director a lizard who demanded the impossible received junk in reply and didn’t recognize it even when courageously told?
It would be interesting to know how many times the outcome is "hero" and how many "lizard", under which conditions, in which contexts etc.
Of course you can assign the design tasks, but the rest of the tasks are depend on the outcome of it, so it doesn't work in practice.
Waterfall on the other side, does overly encourages overthinking.
Maybe you are just thinking? It only becomes overthinking when you have been at it for "too long". As in, it is not reasonable to guess that thinking more about it will be of value.
Of course, knowing when that is the case is hard. IMO we should spend more time figuring out when it is overthinking than warning people about overthinking.
When 99% of the world are under thinking, not thinking it through or worst and most likely the case, not thinking at all, then of course the 1% are overthinking.
There are downside to overthink on small things, procrastination.
"We need to think about it more" definitely exists. "We need to turn it into proper plan first" exists too.
But we don't have the same cultural concern against underthinking. I have never heard someone telling their employee or friend "you're underthinking this". Surely overthinking is bad, but when underthinking can be severely dangerous, it's easy to see why some people overthink.
I overthink everything all the time and there are still many things I miss and do wrong. I can't imagine trying to limit my thinking just for the sake of not overthinking.
I'm not necessarily concerned about this blog post, but I'm curious if our frequent warns against overthinking can be a net loss?