In 2016 while I was studying the Master in People Management at the University of Navarra, I had the opportunity to live two intense weeks at the IESE Business School Barcelona campus and among the subjects we reviewed one caused special attention in me, Decision Analysis.
Miguel A. Ariño Professor of Decision Analysis at IESE Business School said with deep conviction and conviction: There is an evil in organizations, the incompetence of the incompetent.
Immediately in the light of the case method I asked myself some legitimate questions: can one be incompetent in administrative work? in what way does a person become incompetent? what are the risks of incompetence? can the top management become incompetent?
The administrative work can be hindered or atrophied by the excessive obsession to keep everything the same, by the desire not to be uncomfortable and dare to mutate or change. The various lines of business move in a V.U.C.A. environment (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) and it is impossible to want to adapt strategies and develop new businesses with obsolete forms of management, nor is it convenient to think that everything must be destroyed to build it again, it is not about complying for the sake of complying, it is rather about analyzing in depth how we can do it better. Limiting thoughts, which look adversely at change, tend to dilapidate the future of organizations and their stability over time. Family businesses suffer strong administrative blows when they have not been able to determine in time, a clear line of succession, with policies that allow the generation of a corporate governance.
People become incompetent when they cease to contribute value to organizations, when behind the desire for mediocrity, tempers settle in the comfort zone. Smart organizations are those that constantly create knowledge and training spaces, environments in which innovation and development flourish. People are the most important resource for organizations and this resource must be cared for in two ways, on the one hand it is necessary for organizations to map talent and identify possible ways of improvement, and it is also necessary to engage the employee so that he can give the best he has, without fear of remaining silent because his opinion does not count for the company or the representation of the opinion is represented by a few who pretend to rule by years of experience in it or by lack of openness for others to grow and be formed.
The risks of incompetence are very great, since they bury organizations in a dead end, in a loop from which it is difficult to get out, for organizations not being able to forecast possible future scenarios can become the main loss of competitive advantage in the market, in the disappearance of presence in new markets, in the inability to manage improvement processes. The lack of training in the members of the various teams that arise in companies becomes what I usually call the “repeated error syndrome”, an error not identified in time is multiplied by 5, by 10, by 15, by 1000.
The top management has a great task, to ensure the overall stability of the organization, but when a captain is not in the heat of battle, he forgets the weight of the sword. The bureaucratization of the boards of directors, the superfluous and shallow vision, the “label and the gourmet food”, the mismanaged delegation, let us glimpse that also the boards of directors can go through dark moments, in which after the vainglory of power they have stopped treading on solid ground and have put efforts on what is not important, therefore it is important that the boards of directors, It is therefore important that boards of directors obtain first-hand information from those who are in the “heat of battle”, from their co-workers, that information flows upwards and downwards, that they do not look at others as those who know little because they are at a lower organizational level, but that they build teams in which all those who work in them become ambassadors of the organization.
In conclusion, the incompetence of the incompetent mentioned by Prof. Miguel Angel Ariño has become a terminal cancer for organizations, which is why they stop growing “ad intra”. It is necessary to reformulate new ways, to find the course again; and in many occasions, to recognize with humility, the principle of wisdom: not knowing. Those who know that they do not know will be open to learning, to developing new ways of doing business, managing change and developing a solid competitive advantage that will echo into eternity.
Boris Espinoza
Leadership teacher in Business Master's Programs
