What competence isn't

You know it when you don't see it

This is a publication about competence. It’s not about incompetence. I’ll be offering stories about the many competent people I’ve had the privilege of knowing. I want to start with why it matters, and why I think we don’t consider competence NEARLY enough.

Everyone has experienced that person in charge who doesn’t know the job, takes credit for the work of others, or maybe gives credit where it’s due but still takes home a bigger paycheck and gets more opportunities than the people who really did the work.

Those folks just blot out the sun, don’t they.

Maybe you wonder how that person ever gets hired, promoted, respected. I don’t know. It’s baffling. But it’s actually not that useful to focus on what you don’t want. if you take your eyes off of the people who have confidence rather than competence, there are much better things to see. The world rides on the shoulders of people who know things, who can figure things out, who can pull it all together. The world runs on competence. Too often the best people are totally unnoticed (whether it’s because those incompetent charismatic people make it that way, or because the competent people like it that way). But in good organizations competent people are respected, treated well, and allowed wide latitude.

So the essays here aren’t about the incompetent people. They may nibble around the edges of the stories (who creates the messes that need cleaning up?) but they aren’t the stars. You can go to every corner of Western literature (most literature) to find those bumbling, useless “heroes” if you want to read about them.

In these essays you’ll read about the web of real heroes propping up the protagonist in the real world. They also appear in most fiction. It might ruin your favorite books and movies. Focusing on competence has made me question why our “hero quests” are about people who make transparently bad choices and have to be rescued. Maybe people think that competence doesn’t seem that exciting? I assure you it is.

These essays are about greatness. Very small greatness. Unnoticed greatness. (Only the greatness I or some of you know firsthand.) I’ll introduce you to people who deserve to be known, but may prefer not to be (names changed in those cases). We can break down what competence really is. People often strive for the things that make them unhappy. To get a particular job, or earn a lot of money, or get a lot of power or attention. If that’s you, this may not be the newsletter to read.

This is about the people who work hard, always get better, know things, do things, make the world around them a better place. The “helpers” as Mister Rogers described them. Not many people seem to aspire to that, but some achieve it anyway. It might not seem attractive, because you might do that work for little or nothing. You’ll probably watch a string of incompetent-confident persons steal your credit, but it’s nice to be able to sleep at night. Having an easy measure of how much you’ve put into the world is priceless. Moms don’t do it for the paycheck, and lots of moms are the standard of competence. If you search your workplace, unless it’s so bad they’ve driven off everyone capable of leaving (and competent people have choices about who they work for) you’ll find the people I’ll be writing about. I think you’ll find a collection of genuinely content people in these pages. People who get good things out of life. People worth learning from.

So for contrast, before we settle down to study competence, give a quick thought about the opposite. Think about those people you hate working with. The ones who make everything harder. The obstacles. The lazy ones. The smiling bastards. The co-workers who may be the nicest people on earth but who just can’t figure out how to do what needs to be done. Picture what the world would be like if instead you worked with their opposites. The genuine people, the resourceful people, the helpful people, the ones who know exactly how to get from point A to point Z and bring everyone with them on the trip. The people who make everything easier.

The world needs more competence. To get it, I think we need to understand it, recognize it, focus on it, treat the people doing the work as the people to emulate. Put your eyes where you want to go. If you love those competent people, if you love seeing things done really well, then you’ll probably enjoy these stories. Welcome.