You know who they are. And if you don’t, be assured that everyone else does.
They’re the incompetents. And they are everyone’s greatest frustration.
What do we mean when we say someone is an incompetent? Try this definition: An incompetent is someone who is defined by his mistakes.
Corporate incompetence takes many forms.
A front-line worker may simply lack basic skills that are intrinsic to success in his job.
A manager – likely promoted from a lower-level position at which she was competent – may lack any of the above, plus a host of other abilities and characteristics.
At senior levels, the issue isn’t so much skills or bad interpersonal management – though an executive may lack those in abundance – as it is judgment. Executives live and die by the quality of their decisions, how profitably their gambles pay off. It doesn’t take many lost bets before observers begin wondering whether the executive can win bets.
And yet, there is no reason to think that people today are fundamentally less capable than their parents or grandparents. The working world is increasingly complex, and many of us regularly take on more responsibility for more things, often juggling them simultaneously, despite research that proves that every time you toggle between tasks – say, studying a spreadsheet and checking e-mail – you lose both time and focus.
In short, today’s working world creates incompetents. And the situation will only worsen: Departments are so lean, there’s little or no redundancy within your staff.
Of course, it’s not only the modern workplace that creates incompetence. Hierarchy itself, through promotions, can transform capable workers into shaky bosses.
Still, displays of sheer ineptitude are rarely sufficient to spur supervisors into action. Few companies have any history of purging – or disciplining, or training, or counseling – those who are barely keeping their heads above water.
Companies lay off people when they absolutely have to, and certainly they fire people when it’s called for. But the directive for layoffs typically comes from on high, and its targets are financial.
Otherwise, things have to get pretty unbearable before anyone makes a move.
So you’re stuck with handling an organization riddled with incompetents, right? Well … not completely. The problem, fundamentally, is that your people have ended up in the wrong positions. To solve the problem, therefore, you need to do a better job of ensuring that your people end up in the positions for which they’re best suited.
“We need to carefully reexamine how people get promoted in our organizations,” says Bill Catlette, co-author of “Contented Cows Give Better Milk.” “I don’t have a problem with promotion from within. It’s a good thing. It’s a great thing. But we need to be mindful of the fact that oftentimes, moving to a new job involves a different skill set.”
Why do people want promotions in the first place? It’s obvious: People higher up in the organization get tangible benefits (higher pay, more perks, a nicer office), psychic benefits (recognition of one’s ability, others’ deference), and the opportunity to take another step up in the future.
But we all know what happens, all too often, when a promotion opportunity leads to disaster. Take a classic example: The manager of a sales group departs, so the organization looks to the group itself to replace him. Fred, the top performer, gets tapped to supervise his former colleagues, but he turns out to be a terrible manager. The overall result: The company will have lost its best salesman, the sales group will suffer from poor management, and Fred – too incompetent for further promotion – will be forever stuck in a position for which he’s unsuited, blocking others from making the leap he did.
“This happens a lot,” Catlette says. “And it’s a perfect example, because selling and leading a group of people who sell are two hugely different skill sets.”
So is there anything to be done? “There is a lot we can – and should – be doing with people whose career has outrun their skills,” Catlette says. “If you catch it early, before the person is stigmatized by the ‘non-performer’ brand, you’ve got the chance to work with them, get them the help they need … or let them leave with dignity.”
The difficulty comes in our strong cultural resistance to moving people down in the ranks as easily as up. Catlette argues that the problem is largely one of perception and speed. “It hinges on being a whole lot quicker to realize that it’s not working,” he says. “Once the person is stigmatized by the internal perception that he’s failing, it’s too late to make a move.”
Companies have existed, in some form, since ancient Rome, meaning that there’s a very long tradition of workers striving ever upward, seeking more authority and responsibility and pay. One could argue that this striving is largely responsible for the ambition and energy that has driven organizations throughout history.
Knowing how to channel that impulse will go a long way toward cleansing an organization of the stain of incompetence. Added flexibility is key – it can reduce the effects of multitasking as responsibilities and workloads are more easily shifted between people, removing the taint that often comes with reassignment.
In addition, being able to have your staff offload the tasks they can’t handle, while taking on more of those they can, will help to restore the most effective workers to a high level of functioning, and your organization to one that more accurately reflects its potential.
Matthew Budman is managing editor of The Conference Board Review, from which this article is excerpted. The full article is at www.conference-board.org/articles/atb_article.cfm?id=359. articles/atb_article.cfm?id=359.
