In the face of change, the competent are helpless.
(Seth Godin)
The alternative title for this article could have been: ‘Why I don’t believe in Competence Management’.
Competence management is dead because it is based on pre-determined sets of competences and predefined scales of performance and weighing. The idea of competence management is to preserve a framework for getting better at what we are already doing today. The preservation of a closed and stable system. The only problem with closed stable systems is that they never produce anything new… and they are becoming a bit obsolete nowadays…
Getting Flatter
Sometimes it’s even worse: an approach that I would label as “getting flatter”. Getting Flatter is based on the problem-solving mindset that looks at competences as a ‘problem to fix’.
We should rather focus on what we are good at and develop those skills. Else we run the risk of ending up as ‘average overall’. Sure, ‘average’ is better when we want to play safe and ‘fit in’. On the other hand, when we take the decision to stand out, it’s better to focus on the development of the skills we are good at.
The Crack in Competence Management
So far the good news on how to properly look at competence management for our personal benefit. Now, let’s focus on a different question: what is the added value of competence management in today’s world? Turns out that the answer is quite pale in comparison to the work-around we found for getting flatter.
Today’s world is characterized by unpredictability and constant change, and for an individual to cope with this world, skills such as ‘change management’ definitely are a plus. But that is still the level of coping. Competence management (and talent management for that matter) should be about ‘mastering’.
As far as mastering today’s world is concerned I think we would be better off with the skill of ‘not knowing’ or ‘ignorance’. Of course this goes against all logic of competence management because that competence has no scale to weigh against; it has no curriculum to commercialize, and it certainly does not figure well on your resumé. You cannot even get endorsed for it on LinkedIn.
What Matters Now
Yet I am convinced that this is the skill we need most: the ability to be confronted with questions and chaos and at the same time be comfortable with them. Note the difference with learned helplessness: it’s not a matter of apathy. It’s a matter of being with a question or ambiguity and letting it do its work.
There is a tremendous value in unanswered questions. Being comfortable with the tension they exert and working on those questions in order to increase their pulling force – that’s what’s missing in competence management.
The curriculum for not-knowing does exist, but it is taught in a different school. The competence of not knowing works on the level of being instead of the neurotic problem-solving, gap-closing level of doing. By the way, I wonder if anyone ever popped the question: ‘Did anything new ever arise from competence management?’ Or is that still a taboo?
