“I NEVER turn down something for free that I know isn’t going to kill me!” retorted one manager in response to Sah’s survey.
“A free lunch from someone? Go for it! If the guy is fool enough to think his free lunch/dinner/use of cabin, etc, is going to influence me, he doesn’t know me at all! People don’t influence me beyond what I, and I alone, allow!”
In the study for the Academy of Management Perspectives, Sah equates this “professionalism paradox” to the Dunning-Kruger effect, according to which poor performers lack even the ability to recognise their own hopelessness.
CAN PROFESSIONALS REALLY REMAIN UNBIASED AFTER RECEIVING GIFTS?
Sah’s study is based on surveys of managers, but some of the pernicious real-world effects of her paradox are clear.
In the extreme case of the opioid epidemic, books such as Empire of Pain and Dopesick (now also a television series) have chronicled the way respected physicians were dragged into the overprescription of painkillers after receiving free gifts and conference invitations from manufacturer Purdue Pharma.
Yet their ability to self-regulate against conflicts of interest is still many professionals’ first line of defence when watchdogs and legislators start threatening to curb their autonomy with new rules.
One problem is that we are all professionals now.
The term used to be almost the exclusive domain of lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, and others who had laboriously acquired specialist knowledge, shown integrity, and deserved an elevated status.
Now the same status is loosely claimed by everyone from salespeople to, yes, journalists. The currency has been debased.
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