Circle of Competence

SKILL.md

---
name: circle-of-competence
description: "Activate when: user says 'should I enter this market / make this hire / invest in this domain,' 'am I qualified to evaluate this,' 'stay in your lane,' 'stick to what you know,' or is about to make a consequential decision in an unfamiliar domain. Do NOT activate when: the decision is small and explicitly framed as a learning bet; the domain is genuinely frontier for everyone and no one has competence yet."
---

# Circle of Competence

## Overview

Every decision-maker has a domain where judgments are reliable (inside the circle) and one where they are not (outside). The discipline: identify the boundary, act decisively inside it, refuse to act outside it without explicit acknowledgment of elevated uncertainty.

Canonical source: Buffett (1996) — "The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."

Composes with [`dunning-kruger`](../dunning-kruger/SKILL.md) (cognitive mechanism the circle counters), [`metacognition`](../metacognition/SKILL.md) (self-monitoring the circle relies on), [`first-principles`](../first-principles/SKILL.md) (only reliable inside the circle), [`opportunity-cost`](../opportunity-cost/SKILL.md) (refusal has a real cost — measure it), [`probabilistic-thinking`](../probabilistic-thinking/SKILL.md) (calibration training establishes the boundary).

## When to Use

- Evaluating an investment, acquisition, or partnership in an unfamiliar domain
- Deciding whether to enter a new market or product area
- A board member or investor is pushing you toward a domain outside your background
- A founder is asked to take on a function (legal, finance, sales) without the relevant track record
- Hiring senior roles in unfamiliar functions; allocating significant capital to a new business line

**Not when:** decision is small, reversible, and an explicit learning bet; refusing everything outside the current circle is genuinely worse than acting carefully; domain is genuinely frontier for everyone.

## Coaching Novices (Adaptive Front Door)

- **Engine mode:** user has a specific decision → run The Process directly.
- **Coach mode:** user is unfamiliar or has no concrete case → guide step by step.

In Coach mode, respond one step at a time. Each [WAIT] is a hard stop — output only that step's question, then stop.

1. One-line: before acting decisively, ask whether you have calibrated competence to evaluate the decision — if not, refuse or size the bet to the uncertainty.
2. Check fit: small and reversible → circle test is less load-bearing. Consequential and hard-to-reverse → essential.
3. Elicit the specific decision and the basis for evaluating it.
> **[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]**
4. One question at a time: have you been right in similar cases? Do you have calibration data? What's the boundary of your competence? If outside, what's the bet size?
> **[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]**
5. Close: decision matched to circle (act decisively inside / refuse outside / small-bet to expand) + name the boundary.
> **[WAIT — do not advance until user responds]**

## The Process

**Step 1 — State the decision:** domain(s), gut call (yes/no/unsure), confidence (low/med/high).

**Step 2 — Circle test:** (a) Past decisions in this domain with measurable outcomes? (b) Calibration data on prior calls? (c) Can you articulate specific drivers of outcomes — would experts agree? (d) Would 3 domain experts consider your evaluation credible? → If yes to most: inside. If no to most: outside. Key trap: *exposure* (read about it) ≠ *competence* (can reliably evaluate decisions in it).

**Step 3 — If outside, pick a response:**
- **Defer:** hand decision to expert whose circle includes it; you retain ethics/mission veto only.
- **Wait:** identify what would move you inside; build feedback loop (12-36 months).
- **Small-bet:** acknowledge outside-circle status; size to uncertainty (half-Kelly or quarter-Kelly).

**Step 4 — If inside, act decisively.** Speed and decisiveness inside the circle is the empirical advantage; don't use the discipline as an excuse to over-think.

**Step 5 — Document the boundary:** current status (inside/outside/partial), basis, what would expand it, re-evaluation date.

## Output Template
```
# Circle Evaluation: <decision>
Domain(s): | Gut: | Confidence:
Circle test: past outcomes <Y/N> | calibration data <Y/N> | articulable drivers <Y/N> | expert credibility <Y/N>
Verdict: inside / outside / partially inside
Response (if outside): Defer / Wait / Small-bet — specific plan:
Boundary: current boundary | what would expand it
Decision & rationale: | Re-evaluation date:
```

*→ Method in Action: [Buffett's Tech-Stock Refusal, 1990s](examples/buffetts-tech-stock-refusal-1990s.md)*

## Pack: Application Patterns

| Domain | Inside-circle | Outside-circle risk |
|---|---|---|
| Investing | Industries with deep operating experience | Industries you've read about but not operated |
| Founder operations | Functions you have shipped in | Sales / finance / legal without track record |
| Acquisitions | Business models you've operated | Structurally unfamiliar targets |
| Senior hiring | Roles where you can evaluate work-sample directly | Roles where the work is technically unfamiliar |
| Technology choices | Stacks you've shipped in | Stacks you've read about but not shipped |

## Applying It Well

- Circle size is not the goal — boundary clarity is. A small well-bounded circle beats a large poorly-bounded one.
- Opportunity cost of refusal is real; accept it as the price of avoiding the larger expected cost of acting outside the circle.
- Circle expansion is slow — years, not weeks. Honest sign: calibrated feedback data, not increased confidence.

*→ Primary sources: [references/sources.md](references/sources.md)*

## Common Rationalizations

**[D] = designed upfront | [O] = observed in real use. [O] entries are more valuable.**

| Fake move | Reality |
|---|---|
| [D] "How hard could it be?" | Reliably correlated with being outside the circle — use it as a red flag. |
| [D] "I learn fast" | Learning fast still takes 12-36 months of structured feedback; it doesn't make tomorrow's decision reliable. |
| [D] "I've read a lot about it" | Reading is exposure, not competence. Self-assessment after reading is consistently inflated (see [`dunning-kruger`](../dunning-kruger/SKILL.md)). |
| [D] "Everyone is doing this; if I don't I'll miss out" | FOMO is exactly when circle discipline is most valuable. Booms produce concentrated losses for those acting outside their circle. |
| [D] "I have a great gut for this" | Without calibration data, gut feel in a novel domain is uncalibrated. |
| [D] "I'll figure it out as I go" | For consequential decisions, this is the empirical signature of operating outside the circle without acknowledging it. |
| [D] "I don't want to seem timid" | Munger: "It is much better to look like a fool by staying out than to be a fool by going in." |
| [D] "If I don't act now, I'll never get another chance" | Almost never true. Opportunities recur; circle-violations rarely recover. |
| *→ Add [O] entries here after each real use — paste the actual failure pattern* | *What went wrong and why* |

## Red Flags

- High confidence in a domain with no operating track record; "How hard could it be?" as operative phrase
- Dismissing expert advisers who counsel caution; decision is consequential and hard to reverse
- Cannot articulate specific drivers of outcomes; not consulting the experts you could name
- The cost of being wrong is meaningfully higher than the cost of waiting / deferring / declining

## Verification

- [ ] Domain(s) named and tested against the circle honestly (past performance, calibration, articulable drivers)
- [ ] If outside: legitimate response chosen (defer / wait / small-bet); bet sized to uncertainty
- [ ] If inside: not using discipline as an excuse to over-think; acting decisively
- [ ] Boundary documented to prevent future drift; opportunity cost of refusal acknowledged

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*Part of **deciqAI Knowledge Skills** — open-source thinking skills that make rigor executable for AI agents. Built by deciqAI · https://deciqai.com · Contributions welcome — see the template at the repo root.*