Category Archives: Learning

Competence and Happiness

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“A new day, a new way?” I asked.

Sophia smirked. “Yes, but this is more difficult than I thought. I mean, I thought I would like this kind of work, I thought I would be good at it.”

“Conventional wisdom,” I said. “Isn’t that the pursuit of happiness? Find something you like and you will be good at it.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the work, it’s interesting, but it doesn’t seem to come natural to me,” she said, shaking her head.

“It is possible you have it backwards,” I nodded. “We like activity in which we are competent, not the other way around. Just because you like something doesn’t mean you are competent. Just because you are interested and read a book about basketball does not mean you are a good 3-point shooter. On your way to becoming a good 3-point shooter, which takes practice over practice, as you become competent, you will find your happiness. Those who are competent in their pursuit will find the most satisfaction. Those who are not competent, who did not practice, will soon become disinterested and go another way.”

Never Do That Again

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“Needless to say, we will never do that again,” Charlotte announced.

“Indeed? How so?” I asked.

“I should have seen it coming,” she replied. “We had a similar situation last year that turned out great, though we all attributed it to blind dumb luck. This year, blind dumb luck turned out to be blind, dumb, BAD luck.”

I nodded. “They say experience is the best teacher. Is that not true?”

“Absolutely true. Like I said, we will never do that again.”

I chuckled. “Experience may be the best teacher, but it’s not experience that gets the credit. It’s the way you interpret the experience. And, what you learn, is no better than your interpretation. So, when you do your post mortem debrief, you have to look at the circumstances, the observable events, AND you have to look at your interpretations. That’s where the thinking kicks in.”

Most Important Variable

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“But, shouldn’t we start with the great management books in the literature?” Leonard questioned. “I mean the great management books, not the mediocre, not the lousy ones. Those people have tried and failed, tried again and finally succeeded. Shouldn’t I pay attention to how they did it?”

“How they did it, might be instructive,” I replied. “IF you were in those exact circumstances, at that exact time and IF you were who they were. But you’re not. You expect all things to be equal. Your circumstances are different, your time is different. Most importantly, YOU are different. The cogent variable is not the step-by-step instructions. The most important variable is YOU.”

The Way It Works

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“So you are not so high on reading books about leadership?” Leonard pushed back. “You read books on leadership. Are you saying that I shouldn’t listen to you. After all, you are the teacher.”

I smiled. “Yes, I read books. And, you choose whether to listen to me or not, it’s your choice. I know for a fact that I cannot teach leadership or management. It doesn’t happen that way. I also know, for a fact, that leadership or management can be learned. That’s the way it works.”

Conscientiousness

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Mariana counted on her fingers. “Necessity requires clarity, competence and habits,” she nodded.

I smiled. “Did I mention conscientiousness?.** It’s a mental state related to personal responsibility. You would observe conscientiousness in the things a person feels obligated to do, in their persistence to complete a task, to maintain necessary standards.”

“How will I know, if a person is conscientious or not?” Mariana asked.

“It’s there in front of you to observe. Given a task, the person may have a few questions, but they do not procrastinate. They get right to it and work to the end. They will never ask – Is that good enough? If you were clear in the standard, they will know what is good enough.”

“We started this discussion,” Mariana said, “because you told me the reason my team underperformed is because I had not made the performance standard necessary. Making performance necessary must be my accountability.”

I nodded in agreement, before I added one more thing.
—
**Conscientiousness is a trait measured by the Big Five Assessment, free version here.

Perfectly in Flow

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“My team struggled with this problem all last week,” Regina was almost giddy. “I took one look at it and knew exactly what to do. Like a pop up fly right into my glove. It’s really satisfying to solve a problem, almost by instinct.”

“You seem pleased,” I responded.

“Perfectly in flow,” she replied. “Athletes get like that sometimes, where the world slows down, they are one with the motion that perfectly connects.”

“And, your team? What of your team?”

“They were relieved. It was a really hard problem. They discovered the cause, and generated some alternative solutions. It was actually staring them in the face, but the real solution, the one that saved the day was the first part of one alternative connected with the back end of another. Honestly, I don’t know why they didn’t see it.”

“And, you, in flow, took their discovery away?”

Regina’s delight turned cold. “It’s not like I took candy from a baby,” she defended. “I solved a problem for them.”

“So, the next time your team struggles with a problem, what are they going to do? Who are they going to call on?”

Best Practices

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“That was a terrific conference,” Pauline happily reported. “I met a bunch of interesting people and came away with a ton of best practices.”

“Tell me more,” I replied.

“I created this chart from the conference,” she continued. “One side is the problem we see, in the other column is the best practice solution. Neat.”

“Great. So, now you have a solution for all the problems that you see over and over, again and again. Neat.”

Pauline stared at me, no longer happy.

Do What Is Expected

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Gillian had a smile on her face. “I think I finally have the right team. Everything is working smoothly. And every team member has the competence to do what it is expected. What more could I want?”

“Dangerous to ask me an open-ended question,” I replied. “Do you feel prepared? Do they have the skills? Not to do what is expected, but to grapple with the unexpected?”

Increasing Customer Service

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Regina was proud, “We just got an increase to my annual budget for my customer service team.”

“Oh, really?” I replied.

“Yes. Two years ago, we had a small team and our customer service scores were 1-2 on a 5 point scale. Not good.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I spent a lot of time working on how we respond to the various glitches in our product and warranty claims. Turns out, there were five problems we had to deal with most often, so we trained hard on those.”

“And?” I nodded.

“And, our scores improved. I got the green light to hire ten percent more to the team. Last year, we actually won a customer service award, averaging 4.8 on our scores.” Regina was bursting with pride. “And, this year, I got the go-ahead to really ramp up the head count on my team.”

“Regina, did you ever have a conversation with your operations team to talk about the five things that created so much customer service traffic?”

Screwed Up Again

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“They screwed it up again,” Charmagne protested. “Luckily, I managed the risk, so it wasn’t a devastating mistake.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“What do you mean, perfect? You mean perfectly wrong?” she stated flatly.

“I find competent people always in learning mode,” I responded. “To build the competence of the team, you have to keep them in learning mode. Do people learn more by accidentally getting it right? Or inevitably making a mistake? As the manager, this is your perfect opportunity to get your team in learning mode.”