Ben,
This is a tough subject, and I want to compliment you for sticking with it
through all the barbs, including some of mine.
I would like to discuss this issue of the link between competence and
morality, and I think I can do it best through some specific examples.
I agree with you that there are some extreme examples of incompetence.
Personally, I subscribe to the notion that the organization has some
responsibility to help that person overcome their problems, but it is also
true that there are generally limits. For some organizations, the limits
come sooner than for others. It is somewhat contradictory that in my
organization which practices assessment pretty vigorously, the limit
leading to termination occurs almost never. Good, sound, vigorous
assessment has a great deal to do with reducing terminations to
practically zero, and this is not as paradoxical as it sounds.
Let me describe two of the specific examples I mentioned. I have
terminated 3 people for the kind of incompetence you are describing. That
is in an organization of 170 people over a 17 year period, or 3 out of
roughly 3,000 person-years. I bring up the numbers because I want to
distinguish between the kinds of numbers others have used of 10% or
something like that. Any system that results in 10% "incompetence" is a
very 'special' system. It may be very legitimate, like paratroopers,
where extraordinary competence is the norm and is required for success.
However, it is pretty rare in business. So my experience is 0.3%
termination for what you call extreme incompetence. I suspect this is not
extraordinary.
One of those people was so negative that she could not bring herself to
see the positive potential in anything. She was a manager, which was too
bad, because she had an extraordinary influence on others. It turns out
that her parents were survivors of German concentration camps, and her
mother had committed suicide. I tried for years but without success to
change her behavior. We - I - ended up terminating her because she would
not be demoted back into a 'doing' role. It was a failure on my part, and
her situation was easy to empathize with, but the organization could not
tolerate her behavior and her impact on subordinates. As you believe, I
believe it was basically her problem, but as her supervisor, it became my
problem as well. I accept your statement that it is up to her to change.
At the same time, I am painfully aware of how difficult the required
changes must have been for her, given the history. I have a hard time
relating her behavior to immorality. She was a victim of her life, and
change was just too hard for her.
My second example is a happy one. This was a drunk, an alcoholic, who
recovered, then relapsed several years later. He could not get to work on
Mondays and Fridays. I did not know of the history, but when I explained
the symptoms to a psychologist, he said it sounded like alcoholism. I
checked this person's co-workers, and that was what they thought as well.
This person hated himself for his drinking. He had lost his wife, his
kids were estranged from him. I confronted him, and told him all his
friends were convinced he was drinking. I did not know if it was true,
but he should know that was what they thought. I told him a lot of people
cared about him and were deeply concerned. That we loved him and wanted
him back and healthy. But that we could not cover up for his behavior. I
told him he would lose his job the next time he did not come to work and
did not have a doctor's excuse. I offered him assistance of a number of
different kinds.
To make a long story short, he pulled himself together, and never drank
again. When he retired he told me that no one had ever told him they cared
about him before, and that was what gave him the courage to stop. After
he was recoverd, he went out of his way to talk to young people who were
having drinking and drug problems. He was a model member of the
organization. We all loved him. So, Ben, was he incompetent before I
talked to him? How about after? What if I had not told him we loved him?
What if he had never known that someone cared? What if no one actually
did care? How did his morality change during that 20 minute interview?
Where did the courage come from to really stop drinking? You know, he did
all the work to stop drinking, but he needed something from outside
himself to get started. I know others who have substantially changed
their behavior single-handedly, but far more people need some support.
Again, I have a hard time connecting his incompetence to immorality. Do
you see my point?
My experience and my belief is that each individual is responsible
ultimately for their own behavior. No one can change it except that
person. My wife cannot change me, I cannot change my wife. On the other
hand, for change to occur most people need some outside help. We are not
solitary people struggling each against our own demons, but parts of a
whole in which each of us has experience and knowledge that ultimately may
benefit someone else. My fear is that the label, expecially the one of
immorality, may be enough to prevent us from reaching out and giving
someone the little help they need. Too often, once we label someone, we
think we understand them. We are seldom as simple as we appear to outside
observers. I know far too many things about my self, for example, that no
one else knows, and I am confident that virtually everyone on this list
can make a similar statement. I would hate to have a distant observer
witness something I did, classify me as immoral, and never reach out to me
again. I may need their help some day.
--Rol Fessenden
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