I strive with every issue of the Business Times to shower readers with my wit and wisdom. I’m almost always successful. In fact, I’m something of an expert when it comes to writing newspaper columns.

Yeah, right.

If nothing else, I’m realistic enough to know what I don’t know about writing newspaper columns — or most other subjects, for that matter — much less profess any sort of expertise. If you could measure it, the accumulative volume of what I don’t know would be massive.

Rather, I’m exaggerating to illustrate a point about a psychological phenomenon involving the inverse relationship between how much people know and how much some claim to know. The phenomenon has attracted increasing interest in part because of what’s seen as a disconnect between the confidence with which President Donald Trump expresses himself and dubious factuality of some of his statements.

But as business owners and managers know too well, there’s a risk inherent in people claiming expertise — or even familiarity — when they possess none. It can lead decisions astray, disappoint customers and, in the worst cases, trigger disastrous operational or financial results.

Perhaps you’re familiar with this phenomenon in getting stuck at a family gathering conversing with the notoriously obnoxious uncle who holds forth on a topic when it’s obvious he doesn’t possess a clue as to what he’s talking about.

For those who remember, comedian Jon Lovitz personified this behavior in his skits on “Saturday Night Live.” He claimed to have invented rock ‘n’ roll and insisted he was married to Morgan Fairchild. After a particularly outrageous lie, he’d say, “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

The phenomenon has been named the Dunning-Kruger Effect after David Dunning and Justin Kruger, psychologists who conducted research on the subject. Dunning and Kruger quizzed people on a certain subject, then asked them to assess their performances. Those who fared poorly in the tests tended to rank their competence much higher. In some tests, people who scored as low as the 10th percentile ranked themselves near the 70th percentile. The results have been replicated for a variety of professions, among them medicine, software development and teaching.

As usual, William Shakespeare was on point in describing the paradox. Shakespeare wrote: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Confucius put it this way: “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”

The Dunning-Kruger Effect remains harmless when confined to dinner table rants and comic sketches, but becomes problematic in other situations. Think overconfident surgeons or airline pilots. Think elected officials trusted with setting government policies.

The effect also plays out in a variety of situations in business. An important task is assigned to an employee who claims to have the requisite knowledge, but either fails to complete the work or just plain fails. A salesman who claims to know the specifications of a product or details of a service promises a customer something that can’t be delivered. An owner or manager insists on following an ill-conceived course of action when employees are too afraid to speak up about their misgivings.

Unfortunately, Kruger and Dunning found the knowledge and intelligence required to perform a task also happen to be the very attributes needed to recognize the inability to perform a task.

I suspect there are other forces at work. It’s sorely tempting to offer confident assurance as a sign of competence, insight and leadership while hiding shortcomings in knowledge or skills. That’s unfortunate.

While it might seem counterintuitive, there’s profound power in admitting,  “I don’t know.” For one thing, admitting “I don’t know” affords opportunities to discover potential solutions to minds otherwise limited by assumptions or speculation. For another thing, the admission constitutes an invitation to collaborate, to share ideas and develop relationships in the process. And guess what? The willingness to admit you don’t have all the answers and seek out help constitutes a genuine sign of competence and leadership.

Contrary to the first paragraph of this column, I admit I’m not an expert at much of anything. I don’t know if that makes me wise or knowledgeable or more likely unaccomplished. At least I don’t have to worry about the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

I wish, though, I could claim otherwise and just let the wit and wisdom shower down.

By the way, did I mention that Pulitzer … I mean Nobel … Prize I just won? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Phil Castle is editor of the Business Times. Reach him at phil@thebusinesstimes.com or 424-5133.