The Curse of Competence

Our whole society seems based on competence. At a BBQ or Party, you rarely hear “Hey Roger, who are you?” but rather people will enquire, “G’day, what do you do?” I have a good friend, then a housewife, in the UK, who at a Garden Tea at the House of Lords was approached by a Baroness with, “Oh, so what do you do?” Her reply, “I run a home,” met with “Oh really, which one?” As Laura chuckled to me later, “47 Fulmar Drive hardly seemed appropriate at that point.”

But my point is, we’re evaluated, judged if you will, on our competence. The value that we bring, or can bring to the people we meet. Never is this more regarded than in business. Everything from an advert, a resume, to a business card shouts our role, our value, our competence. For high achievers, this drives an intense effort to increase our competence, & competencies, to be become better at what we do, to scale the heights of expertise, mastery. To become the guru.

But there is a poison to this chalice. A curse to competence. I’ve come across this particular curse a number of times in my career. First as a consultant, then particularly as a manager of high performing teams, but it has become really evident as an entrepreneur. I’ll try to decompose the nasties of this gift:

1. The Underestimation of your Value

The first is based on assumption. When you’re good at a bunch of things, you assume everyone else is too. In it’s worst form, this can lead to frustration when others don’t (can’t) meet your expectations. But this assumption affects you in more benevolent ways too.

Y’see, if you believe everyone else is as competent as you, you struggle to find the value that you can bring to others. How can you possibly charge someone for doing something that’s as second nature to you?

2. The Stifling of Expertise

You see this all the time. It happens in families, where parents do everything for their children (how many primary school projects have you received an “A” for ); sport teams where the goal scorer becomes the captain, neglecting to pass the ball; & definitely in business where a manager does “everything.”

The truth is, you may be better at doing something than that PFY* you’ve just recruited, you may have the big picture that your team doesn’t see, but ultimately your job as a manager (captain, parent) is to bring out the expertise of your team. To make them shine, let them develop. To co-ordinate their resources. This is tough, very tough to do, especially when you’re competent. It’s where the Peter Principle comes from, and why so many managers are ineffective.

3. The Constraint of Resources

Yes you can design your logo, build your marketing strategy, do your books, edit your videos, write your blog, develop your business, and produce your product. But you don’t have the time/or money to do all of those things. At least not effectively. To paint the extreme picture of this, Richard Branson doesn’t fly his jumbos, nor activates mobile phones.

Common entrepreneurial lore says:

“If someone can do something faster, cheaper, or better, than you, they should.”

My edition:

“If someone can do something faster or cheaper than you, they should!”

The insidious lie is that because you’re as competent, hell, more competent than most, you can do the stuff yourself, right?

This lie is exacerbated by your thought, “I can’t afford someone to do my accounts, or book my travel.” Really? Then there’s a problem with how much value you put on your time. Two questions:

1. How much can you earn selling your product?
2. How much does it cost developing your product?

If either of amounts are greater than it costs to hire an accountant or a virtual assistant, then you’re robbing your business. But even if you don’t have cash flow, the solution to the problem is not substituting effort (aka your time) for money, because you simply don’t have enough hours in the day.

It’s harder to be a technician for a full workday, with at least one other full workday of businessy, non-technical stuff to do on your business, than to work for someone else. This is what leads to the 80% of start-up failure (most in year 1) not to mention a large portion of the 66% of marriage failures (those people neglecting their families to keep their business/projects/work running).

Whilst it’s true, you can do virtually anything, particularly in an age where affordable technology enables you to do everything so quickly. You shouldn’t!

4. The Inability to Scale

This flows on from the previous point, but is different enough to warrant discussion. If you’re that good at something, and you do it yourself all the time, then how do you scale? You become indispensable. There’s no sick leave, no holidays, no early retirement. No opportunity to learn new skills. No possibility for growth for your organisation, because you’ve created a business model constraint such that

Achievement = Your Competence x Your Available Work Hours

It’s a lie of course. But it’s a remarkably common lie, and one that is seen everywhere from music groups to consultancies. Counter-intuitively, the best person to manage your team, and grow your business does not have (or rather, use) your competence. They don’t have to make a copy of themselves to grow the business.

You do everything yourself, you can’t take on any more work, because no-one can do it quite like you. Can they?

5. My Favourite….

…Distraction!

To achieve something great, requires, for the most part, committed execution of excellence. In another word, Focus! Take your greatest skill, focus it to a laser honed edge, and apply it to your challenges. It’s the trumpeter playing the right notes in the symphony, perfectly in time, timbre and tone. But if you can also play the timpani, and the violin, and conduct – well, you have a one man band. Entertaining? Sure. Greatness? Well no.

Personally, this is my biggest challenge. It’s not only that I can do many things well (sic), but that I want to!!

This distraction is intense. It leads to procrastination, that seems, well, like it isn’t procrastination, because you’re just so busy. Busy, doing stuff you love, stuff you’re good at, stuff that’s important. Just not the stuff you need to be doing to achieve the results you want.

Breaking the Curse

Like any curse, there is a counter spell. More on that later

Tagged as: Channel42, Competence, Consulting, Entrepreneur, Professional Skills, Start-up