If you are a real estate researcher working in the industry for several years, you may wonder how to take your career to the next level.

How can you position yourself to go beyond presenting what data shows to communicating what it means?

How can you be ready to answer the question “So what?” when presenting your findings?

How do you move from being a market commentator to an investment strategist?

If you want to progress to an investment strategist, here are six steps you need to take.

Step one: understand the difference between academic and investment research

Academic research focuses on discovering universal truths and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. It requires a high level of evidence and certainty before making statements.

There is a lower bar when working in the real estate industry as a researcher, where decisions must be made based on imperfect information with limited time. Even when you prefer to have more data, undertake more analysis, or do further research, you often must express a view with conviction.

A critical competency to develop is making a judgement call despite uncertainty. Future outcomes aren’t predictable; you need to chart a path anyway. That is the job of an investment strategist. It might not feel comfortable, but you need to accept that.

Step two: know that levels of conviction are a poor guide to the quality of judgement

There are a lot of people in the real estate industry who have firmly held-views and big egos. They express their views with high levels of conviction. Understand that the conviction other people communicate has little to do with the quality of their judgement. People’s confidence does not indicate how right they are.

Remember the Bertrand Russell quote: “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Tune out others’ attempts to communicate conviction—instead, position to trust your judgement.

The following steps discuss building your judgment skills so you have confidence in your decision-making.

Step three: know your personality traits and how they affect your judgement

To trust your judgement, you must know yourself.

Your personality traits, cognitive biases, emotional states, and motivations can significantly impact how you perceive and process information. They can also affect how you react to uncertainty and risk.

So, for example, it is essential to know whether you are a pessimist or an optimist. People’s tendency to focus on positive or negative aspects of a situation varies. You need to know where you sit on the scale to calibrate your judgement appropriately. You need to see if you are more prone to overconfidence and confirmation bias or under-confidence and negativity bias.

Similarly, some people are more risk-averse than others. You must identify whether you are more cautious or confident by nature and how these traits may influence your judgement.

Step four: keep calm and carry on.

Your judgement skills vary in relation to your stress levels.