The problem with something like e.g. funding applications is that unless deep honesty (which I agree would lead to the best outcomes!) is actively rewarded, then whoever is that honest ends up being a sucker who loses to those who express more confidence, even if unwarranted. This in fact I’d say is a big problem with funding and investments, because the shallowness of the honesty required (in fact, the encouragement of all sorts of truth twisting this side of outright lying) creates a situation in which it’s very easy for people to slide directly into fraud or at least delusion about their own prospects as soon as things go awry.
There are ways of showing that you are probably being honest in such situations and thereby making yourself more credible than those that are not. Viz. setting out your own weaknesses. For example, in business plans for investors this can be done in a SWOT analysis (which includes listing weaknesses and threats, as well as how you aim to deal with them).
People who claim to have no weaknesses, or at least do not mention any, or who only admit to slight weaknesses (and not to obvious larger ones), lack credibility.
The problem with something like e.g. funding applications is that unless deep honesty (which I agree would lead to the best outcomes!) is actively rewarded, then whoever is that honest ends up being a sucker who loses to those who express more confidence, even if unwarranted. This in fact I’d say is a big problem with funding and investments, because the shallowness of the honesty required (in fact, the encouragement of all sorts of truth twisting this side of outright lying) creates a situation in which it’s very easy for people to slide directly into fraud or at least delusion about their own prospects as soon as things go awry.
There are ways of showing that you are probably being honest in such situations and thereby making yourself more credible than those that are not. Viz. setting out your own weaknesses. For example, in business plans for investors this can be done in a SWOT analysis (which includes listing weaknesses and threats, as well as how you aim to deal with them).
People who claim to have no weaknesses, or at least do not mention any, or who only admit to slight weaknesses (and not to obvious larger ones), lack credibility.