Competence Vs. Greatness

September 18th, 2009

by John R. Sedivy

justiceCompetence is a good thing. Or is it?

While reading Seth Godin’s Small Is The New Big I happened upon an interesting concept – competence may not be all that it’s cracked up to be.

It appears that competence comes at the expense of greatness. Sure competence is predictable and predictability is safe. Competence is the safe bet for a safe job, in other words a commodity.

A competent person wakes up at the  same time every morning, is at work the same time every day, and quits at the same time – without fail. There is generally a lot of rigidity and routine involved with competence. Nothing bad will happen with competence, however nothing beyond mediocrity will likely occur either. Performance is a straight line.

To many this may sound great – but competence comes at the expense of greatness.

Great individuals on the other hand are all over the place. They do things differently than the rest of the world. They are constantly changing and evolving. They have to change – they become smarter with each passing day and as a result change the way they do things.

Try to get a competent person to change the way they do things, it probably isn’t going to happen – at least not without a fight. Try forcing a great individual to be merely competent and you will likely have an equal fight on your hands.

I had experienced this firsthand when I started encountering more creative type individuals. They were unpredictable, lacked focus, had little regard for authority or structure. This was my initial impression.

Here is my revised impression after having befriended and worked with creative individuals – dynamic, possessed broad horizons, and independent. In other words these great individuals were exciting.

And guess what? At the end of the day the job still gets done. Even without the predictable schedule, routine, or competent individual. Amazing things tend to happen. Completely unexpected. Expectations are not merely met, but exceeded.

This is greatness, not mere competence.

When confronted with the choice which would you rather have – competence or greatness?

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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Filed under Books, John's Articles, Personal Developement | Comments (2)

2 Responses to “Competence Vs. Greatness”

  1. Jamie Favreau on September 19, 2009 3:04 am

    Coming from an experience where I have worked the predictable schedule and was fine with it for years and years and now I feel like I wasted away those years. I would say, I would kiss the predictability away to have a rewarding career and a great family.

    It wasn’t until I started studying what I found a passion for and realized life sometimes does not fit into a box. Gary Vee states it best when he says something about hustle.

    I think great people have hustle, brains, and the drive to get past whatever the problem is. I work with a bunch of autoworkers and people who work in the auto industry as security and they are stuck in the grind of the 9-5 p.m. thing with out any desire to move forward.

    So I can see your point.

  2. CCB on September 19, 2009 9:40 am

    I had a similar experience so I can relate. You should learn over time that the structured job was not a waste of time. You needed to go through those experiences to get to where you are now. What you are doing now prepares you for what you are going to do next.

    Thanks for sharing your experience!

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