Recently read an article by Seth Godin in Fast Company.
Here, he says "In the face of change, the competent are helpless."
To say that I was confused would be an understatement. Wasn't winning and being the market leader all about building competence? Wasn't core competency the most important edge a company could have?
On the face of it, it starts making sense after pondering for a while. Competence after all is a person's ability to be quite good at doing a particular job. And since he is good at doing it in its current form, he is resistant to any change with it.
This 'sense' is shortlived, though. Because the understanding of the word 'competence' is incomplete. Looks like even Mr. Godin got it wrong.
Competence, as defined by Wikipedia here, means it is about skills and abilities and knowledges. In other words, competence is not knowing just one successful formula and applying it everywhere. It is actually about knowing a full range of formulae and also knowing which one to apply in what situation.
Given that, a competent person might embrace change, not resist it, because he is constantly looking at better ways to do it.
In that sense, change = better competence!!!
1 comment:
hey, read the article on Fast company...though i dnt completely diagree with you or seth, the fact is that both of ull say the same thing. the words used to define them are different. Seth mite have confused with the term competent but it says what you are tryin to say. we can discuss this....
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