How Demonstrated Competence Unlocks Growth
This article is about how people generally live up to what’s expected of them, how hiding behind the unknown creates waste in your business, and how demonstrated competence helps you eliminate waste.
What’s Expected
People are who they’re allowed to be.
I’ve written on this as an idea and from company, manager, and individual perspective.
What’s another way to say this?
People perform to the level you expect.
Or if you prefer:
People perform to the level you tolerate.
Perhaps not exactly. Some overachieve. Some under-deliver. But in general, especially in the work context, many people perform only to the level that allows them to keep their job.
Story one:
I worked with a company that had defined, expected times for routine tasks. In one such scenario, the task could, on rare occasion, take up to 3 hours to perform. This company decided to set the default time, then, to the maximum the task could take.
I recommend putting the default time to what you expect it will take on average, but this company had their reasons for choosing otherwise.
And wouldn’t you know it? The one frontline person who could do the task always took 3 hours!
The curious thing is, when that person was out, their manager would step in and get the task done in 45 minutes. It wasn’t a skill issue. The person who usually did the job was by every definition at least as capable of completing the task within their boss’s demonstrated competence level of 45 minutes. So why didn’t they?
It was expected that they their work get done, and it was expected that it could take 3 hours, so they took 3 hours.
Now look. I’m not advocating for shrinking the expected work times down and saying that will fix everything!
In this case, however, the expectation wasn’t that the work get done in the average amount of time. It was expected, simply, that the work get done.
The issue, however, hid a variety of problems.
With a 3 hour task, the person never got more than 2 tasks complete in a day. If a push was needed, maybe 3 tasks could be performed. But, this didn’t keep up with the demand. Backlog was growing. The customer was always paying for 3 hours of technical time, despite it not taking that long. This meant that the projects never had any breathing room in any other areas. This meant the customer was getting billed for overage when, by all accounts, it simply wasn’t needed. This also meant the employee was “fully utilized” at 6 hours a day… for only 1.5 hours of actual work!
This meant the company wasn’t as efficient or as profitable as it could be, simply because they allowed things to be hidden behind the unknown.
Hiding Behind the Unknown
Hiding behind the unknown doesn’t mean things were truly unknown or unknowable.
In this case, hiding the unknown meant, “Well, that subject matter expert isn’t willing to explain what they do or why it takes so long, and because they’re the only one to do it, we just let them do what they want.”
You could rightfully argue this was a management issue. The manager knew how to get the task done in less time, and the frontline worker had the skill to do it faster.
But honestly?
The manager didn’t care. Whether they had bigger fish to fry, didn’t think it was a big deal, or because they were coasting to retirement, they didn’t step in and manage.
Both the manager and the frontline person were hiding behind the fact they were the only ones that knew the details. They were hiding their lack of efficiency behind the fact that others didn’t know the technical details.
It takes trust to run a business and doubting your technical experts sows mistrust. And, it’s OK and appropriate to verify things!
The technical experts who gatekeep is one version of hiding behind the unknown.
The over-promoted egoist is another version of hiding behind the unknown.
Story Two:
In another of my ventures, I was tasked with helping a company solve their scheduling woes. I went to see the person who was their scheduler SME. I vetted out the needs and set up a fantastic proof of concept demo with an ideal fit of a solution. To start, the provider asked questions, verified the problem, and verbally talked through what the solution would look like. The SME agreed everything was understood and the solution was exactly what they wanted! As the demo unfolded, their sales engineer made sure to state, “Now this is the screen that solves your first problem.” They did this for the second and third need.
At the end of the demo, the SME said, “I mean, it looks impressive, but I didn’t see anything that solved my first need.”
We all sat in a stunned silence. The sales engineer chimed in, “So, do you recall this screen?” “Yes,” they affirmed. “Did I understand correctly that this was your need?” “Yes,” they again confirmed. “I want to make sure I understand, but this does solve that problem, correct?” “Oh, I see. I guess you did show that. But you didn’t solve my second problem.”
This repeated for the second and third problem!
What was going on?
The SME either didn’t want their problem to go away because they thought it meant their job would go away, or the SME didn’t actually know what they wanted or needed. In either case, it wasted everyone’s time. I’m sad to say this company never chose to solve their problem!
This is one of the most visceral stories I have of working with someone who was hiding behind the fact that they didn’t know their own role well enough to see the solution, even when it was presented in as clear and concise a manner as possible. (Or worse, willfully chose to prevent a better solution from being implemented!)
Whatever the reason, it wasn’t a good outcome for the company. They were never able to keep up with their growth. Because they stuck with antiquated systems run by people who didn’t understand the process, they ultimately capped their revenue growth, hurt their own ability to deliver at a high rate of satisfaction, and stunted their own market share.
What a waste!
There’s an oft-repeated phrase I hear when I work with clients like these. After asking someone to explain their issue to me, they reply with a tone of intellectual superiority and pride:
You wouldn’t understand, it’s too complicated.
What they really mean is, “It’s too complicated for me to understand clearly, but I’m not going to admit that out loud. I’m going to instead choose to blame your lack of intellect.”
There’s a better way, though.
Demonstrated Competence
In each of these stories, there could have been a better outcome.
In your world, you can get there with three simple measurements:
1. The Current
2. The Ideal
3. The Delta
Let’s apply these measurements to our two stories.
Let’s look at the first story where the technical expert always took 3 hours to complete their task.
In this case, we believe the expert had the knowhow to do the task in less time. But, there were hundreds of instances where the person always took 3 hours. This might tell the company that the task should indeed take 3 hours. This is The Current.
But, the manager could routinely do the task in well under an hour. They didn’t have as large a sample size, but enough to demonstrate The Ideal.
The Delta, then, was 2 hours of lost time. Even if the company didn’t want to lose revenue, the could have gained margin. But, due to a simple unwillingness to address the issue, either by coaching up the expert or letting them go, nothing changed.
In the second story, the person had a limited number of projects they could schedule at once. They tended to keep things under control until the total number of projects hit 20. This is their Current.
With the software provider, it was speculated that they could handle 50% more, or a total of 30 projects. This is their Ideal.
The Delta, then, might seem like 10 projects. And, at surface level, that’s true. But the real Delta is even larger. You see, when the norm hit more than 20 projects, it wasn’t just that the 10 extra projects didn’t get handled. All 30 projects suffered. Timelines grew, assignments were missed, travel arrangements were in shambles. As time went on, the company’s reputation was affected and sales suffered.
That’s why there is a fourth step:
4. Take action.
The road is full of dead squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.
A southern colloquialism I’m quite fond of that well sums up this fourth step. In either case, the businesses decided to do nothing. They didn’t coach up the technical expert, they didn’t deal with the manager who did nothing, they didn’t hire another person to do scheduling, nor did they invest in tools that would have handled the growth they were trying to keep up with.
Perhaps coaching up the technical expert would have resulted in their leaving. Perhaps that would have caused new issues. But, someone would have filled the gap, and the company would have increased their profit margin. Instead of acting, they stayed in the middle of the road, crushed by their own indecision.
Perhaps the new software tool or second scheduler would have complicated things, but they didn’t get different results by doing nothing, either.
Demonstrated competence doesn’t have to come from within. In the case of the technical expert and the manager, it happened to. In the case of the scheduler SME, it came from an outside solutions provider (and the industry).
If you think you can do better, look for demonstrated competence. It can come from those already in your building. It can come from new providers. It can come from industry norms.
Then, act and go for it.
If you’re struggling to find the demonstrated competence in your own work life and business, let us know. The Healthy Company Framework can help you unlock how to find this. Company Connections is here to help.
You might have the right tools, but what demonstrated competence does your team show? Which tools do they reach for when it comes time to do the job right?