I’ve been thinking a lot about competence lately – what it means to be competent, and why it’s so important to me to be seen as competent.
In the U.S. the legal definition of competence in a criminal trial generally hinges on the answer to one very simple question: did the defendant understand the difference between right and wrong at the time the crime was committed? Growing out of this question is the implication that if the defendant could judge his or her action as right or wrong the defendant is capable of understanding that wrong actions have punitive ramifications. Competence in a working environment speaks more to the denotative definition of the word: able, fit, possessing specific skills. I don’t think, though, that even together these means meanings manage to express the connotative definition of the concept.
Many of the people most important to me place a high value on competence, but not just the simple flavor of competence that doing something like changing a light bulb evidences. Cleverness and the ability to see not just that the light bulb needs changing but why it would be better to use this type of light bulb versus that type of light bulb is highly prized. Being able to see through specious arguments to find the true root cause of a problem is a mental competition that my family has engaged for certainly my entire life. Smarter, faster, and better has always been the message as I grew up – and continues to be the message in professional and personal relationships – and it’s right in line with the family’s traditional motto.
Competence means not only being more highly skilled, but also confident in that skill. It means knowing you have the abilities to call upon at any time, and that you’ve tended to those abilities so that they are sharp and honed (or that you’re so “good” in the first place that you can call on a skill you haven’t used for a decade and still have it respond as if you’ve used it every single day). But even this definition, I’ve realized lately, doesn’t encompass what it truly means to be competent as an adult.
Yes, it’s being able, having the ability to do things and make judgments, but competence is more than that. It’s also being able to judge when you, having the ability to do something, should stand back and let someone who is struggling with a task complete that task himself and when you should offer your assistance.
Basic competence – the acquisition of skills – seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it? So why then, is it so hard to achieve? Why is it that Americans have moved from rewarding achievement into a model where prizes are given simply for showing up?