There Are Rivers Running

James and Bryan

Welcome to Examining Competence. If this is your first visit, it might be worth stepping back to read in chronological order. This article is describing people with a nuanced set of meta-competence skills that would make more sense having read about some of the other skills first. But that’s entirely your call.

In terms of timeline, you’re still getting to know people who I met in the context of martial arts. I probably had the good fortune to meet each of the two in today’s story fourteen or fifteen years ago.

Today to get at the skill in focus, I’m going to talk about a specific role you might find inhabited by a Competent person. Competent or not, it takes skill to get these jobs and a whole lot more to stay in them. But it takes this particular skill to get the role, and to keep it and be good at it. This role is everywhere in movies and literature, it’s almost the only representation of Competence.

I’m talking about the “right hand man” or “Girl Friday.”

If you’ve seen or read “The Devil Wears Prada” you’ve watched a smart capable person over the course of a film become a Competent person. Being the Girl Friday is an ideal way to take raw material and mold it into Competence (or flame out, that’s always an option).

Consider the opportunities (and “opportunities”) a right-hand person can get: Seeing organization big picture while being constantly immersed in the details; delegating; working often grueling long hours (hyper-compressed experience). The Girl Friday either sees how a skilled leader operates, or sees up close how not to be a leader (everyone is a teacher). The role requires both invisibility and, presentation of authority to get things done. It takes brains. Enough humility to avoid stepping on the egos in a leader’s ecosystem. it takes an ability to “manage up.” Being a Girl Friday isn’t for the faint of heart, and most people can’t handle the job (or don’t want to, see again Devil Wears Prada).

Today I’m going to tell you about two of those people. In my observation, it takes multiple Competence qualities to be good at supporting a leader, but following our usual practice, this article will focus on one of those qualities. Let’s tease it apart from the others to consider it with more attention.

In the martial arts world, you will often see a very senior student at the side of an established head of a school or style. This “Sempai” will teach classes, help demonstrate techniques, and always be around the Sensei to just…handle things. It is both an envied and an unenviable position.

Let me bring up something I mentioned in an earlier article since it’s been a little while. I am sticking with my practice of using first names in this series. For others not keen on first names for senior instructors, this is uncomfortable for me as well. I habitually give titles of respect to martial artists senior to me. One of the two I’ll describe today is extremely senior, and I have trained with him directly. So in person, even years later, it’s unlikely I’d ever refer to him as “James.” But these articles are about human qualities of people I know, and in this context I’m going to stick with first names. (The other person today, Bryan, is a peer of mine, a few years younger, though he’s now passed me by a couple of impressive belts and is a whole lot more able to kick my ass than I am his. Kudos on a recent promotion!)

So let’s dive in.

James spent decades at the side of the head of our style. James was ubiquitous in seminars and videos as the “uke.” (The person who comes off worse in a practice encounter, usually. The one receiving the technique being practiced.) In my opinion there is no better way to learn a martial art than being the instructor’s uke. You learn precisely how a technique is supposed to operate. So not surprisingly, James is one of the best practitioners, and I think one of the best instructors in our style.

But this article is less about “where do you find Competent people” or “how do you become a Competent person” (we have other articles for that, and will have more to come). This story is more about what qualities might put someone in that specific situation where they can grow their Competence skills. A bootstrapping skill.

Jame is a robust, average sized, average weight person. He’s smart, but it’s never in your face. He listens a whole lot more than he speaks. James has a background in security work, so maybe not surprising that if you watch him he seems to have eyes on everything in the room. That’s accurate. So he’s good at being in the right place at the right time. As a father of three young kids he would be picking up those skills, but his “eyes in the back of the head” were already well-practiced long before the kids arrived. 

James’ self-deprecating humor and entirely-fictional presentation of “averageness” is doubly-unusual. He’s more self-deprecating than the average person for sure. But It’s unusual for someone who is as mastery-level skilled at a martial art as James is to be so humble about it. That’s the goal, skill without ego. It’s a rarely-achieved goal. The ego usually rears its head. With most outstanding senior martial artists you get less “Mister Miyagi” and more “humblebrag.” Some ego at that level (or even much lower levels) is justified. It can seem superhuman what people like this are capable of. So the absence of ego is notable. James is in no way unsure, but he’s also in no way got a big head. 

What James can do well (beyond the portfolio of painful skills) is be welcomed. He can “fit.” He’s a genial, well-liked person. To call him “inoffensive” might sound as if I’m minimizing this skill. Try being “inoffensive” to hundreds of martial artists for decades, while holding the coveted “right hand man” job, and see just how easy you find it. Spoiler: “not easy at all.”

Some of the work done by a right hand person is to give bad news or to say unwelcome things on the leader’s behalf. That’s a skillset in and of itself. Doing it for years could make a lesser person disliked or unwelcome. James, never. 

Sometimes a leader will communicate, and the right hand person, whose job it is to ensure the instructions of the leader are carried out, will see that the listeners didn’t get it. Competence skills are needed to pick up new things quickly because having heard it once, it’s now your job to teach it or direct it. Or (like Radar O’Reilley) you may not get even that much. You’ll need to predict what’s intended and see to it that others jump in the right direction.

Bryan filled the same role for many years at a single school. Managing on the lead instructor’s behalf, being the go-to uke. Bryan has a powerful “golden voice” that gets attention and helps others follow instructions. He’s got a talent for mimicry that I’ve never seen elsewhere. Picking up a skill quickly, but then also keeping it at hand for years. I’ve seen Bryan manage impressive “Mr. Smith does it this way” <demonstrates> “but you’ll see Ms. Jones move like this.” <demonstrates> based on a video he once watched and a class he attended years ago. When Bryan demonstrates how someone else’s technique looks, it’s like watching a video of the original. (He can also put it all together in ways you’d rather not encounter up close. More than the sum of those parts.)

Like James, people like and respect Bryan. He’s skillful at not competing with others. He’s always there supporting not just the chief instructor, but also everyone else. Students of course, that’s the job, but peers, other instructors, everyone in the room. He’s a peacemaker. He practices many of the skills we’ve described in these articles.

This isn’t a treatise on leadership. But I’ve observed to you in other articles that this “second in command” may be a comfortable perch for Competent folks. They tend not to seek the top job. Being in that secondary role gives a chance to do more things, and sometimes more fun things than leaders get to. If you’ve been a leader of any kind that will make sense to you; it may sound a little backward if you haven’t. But if you’re a leader lucky enough to have one or more Competent people on your team, then the top role becomes more fun and much much easier. The Competent person clears away nonsense and bears a lot of the weight.

If instead you love a challenge, being the right-hand person can make or break an organization. I’m starting to see articles come out of business schools and other sources now talking about where to look for keystone people in an organization, and I think many of those keystone types are Competent. I saw a reference to “six levels down” from the top. And maybe in a very large organization that’s a good place to start. But in any sized group, check the person the leader relies on. And don’t be blind to what role that might be. It could be their Admin. It could be a Vice-something. It could be a sole contributor off to the side. It’s not a given that the leader has picked a solid supporter, but if you look at enough of the Girl Fridays I bet you’ll find a handful of Competent or proto-Competent people among them.

On the flip side, not all Competent people choose to avoid leadership themselves. Look at successful, respected leaders, (not the whacky Elon Musk kind, but the ones who succeed long-term) and you’re likely to find that the best ones, the ones who are more substance than image, have been someone’s right hand person. It’s a mentorship program. And what have we said? Competent people soak up new skills. They seek out ways to learn, even uncomfortable ways. They grow whatever parts of themselves are missing until they’re the shape they need to be to succeed.

It’s hard to boil down the characteristics that make someone interested in this Girl Friday role. What makes a person a good fit for a demanding job like that? What skills make them excellent at it? I can rattle off a bunch: curiosity, being a quick-study, that self-deprecating humor, a temperate good nature, rock-solid steadiness and reliability, willingness to do the dirty work.

But today I’m focused on patience. Quick tempers need not apply. I’m talking about the ability to shrug off what others won’t accept, and just keep going. It may go with the lack of ego. Not being triggered in ways most of us are, or maybe they’re just as triggered but better at handling it without showing it.

That rare quality might come from different internal motivations in different people, but every single Girl Friday I’ve known has had that saintly-seeming patience. I think Competent people are good at not taking it personally.

In The Devil Wears Prada, the main character spends a few months in the job, and learns a fictional amount in that time, but she never does make it “not about her.” That character had very little of the patience I’m describing. No shame, it was a terrible (fictional) boss and a job in an industry that didn’t even interest her. And again, all fiction. That character learned a lot about a topic she didn’t care for, and her character’s ego wouldn’t let her fail.

But if you’re like most Girl Fridays, devoted to the subject matter, if you’re in a right-hand role because you want it, then you’ve got to exercise equanimity until it’s your leading hallmark characteristic. Failing at the role would mean failing at what you’re passionate about. That’s likely to be worth more than ego most days. And patience is a skill that gets stronger with practice. Once you learn you don’t have to respond to provocation, it gets easier to say “pass” when others would dig right in.

I’ve described some, and plan to offer more ways to evolve into Competence. I’ve also told you a few places to look for it if you’re recruiting or building a team. This is a little of both. I didn’t know James before he was in that role, to me he’s always been as he is now. Bryan I’ve had the opportunity to watch. The skills he started with, and the ones he’s had to learn on the fly. But he started with an unusual measure of patience for a guy in his 20’s, and that’s grown to a reliable practice in the interim.

Consider the right hand people you know, don’t be blinded by how “important” the job is or your preconceived notion of how the “second” ought to look. Once you’ve identified a few of them, watch and learn. You’ll see a whole lot other than patience. But consider how patience makes the role possible so all the rest can come out.