Competence..?
I can’t seem to get away from this no matter what I do. I am constantly reminded of "competence." It’s not rocket science – you have a job to do and you do it. There are too many instances in society today of people that do not do their job, or the job they are paid to do. I call it competence, other may call it something else. Basically it’s a problem wherein people do not take their job seriously and only give it minor attention; thus, work that should be completed as part of their job is invariably passed on to someone else. I don't know why it should be complicated, but somehow it is.
I recently read John Wooden’s book on leadership and if you accept his premise, any failure in an organization, or with people in an organization, can be directly attributed to management or a lack thereof. It is management’s responsibility to make sure that people are accountable. They pass on credit for success and accept responsibility for failure. Being in a management or leadership, in his words, position does not mean less work; in fact, it means more work.
Let’s face it, certain people will thrive no matter where they are, or what they are doing, but others will never have the basic skill set to make them successful, and as far as I’m concerned should not be given a "free ride" because they lack it. I do not care to do extra work to make up for someone else’s shortcomings. Maybe that makes me sound Republican or something, but I am a Darwinist at heart – biology is what it is. I do believe in a social safety net, but that’s just intelligent design.
In the end, I guess it’s about values.