How to detect sneaky incompetents

After the last post about Brandy's propensity to bite the hand that feeds it, I've had to endure countless innuendos about Zorro's manliness, and, by association, my own. 

So, last night after dinner and a few stiff digestives, I decided to post a picture of Zorro making his scary face (on the left).

A picture fit to make Cujo wet his panties and go hide under the bed.

Proof beyond doubt that he is in fact a testosterone pumping, bad-ass Labrador.

A man amongst men. A baby eater. A ball chewer.

Not.  

Zorro is not so good at being a guard dog,  but will prentend to be (for my amusement).  That brings me to the subject of incompetence:

We all know and understand overt incompetence: The kind that creates a burning desire to grab someone by the head and smack it down on the table until it stops moving.

Governments of the world actively recruit these people. Eventually all overt incompetents end up in government. Viva.

When I say "incompetence", I don't mean the "healthy" kind. The kind where you know you don't have the right competencies for the job so you do something about it. Healthy incompetence (acknowledging it) is a driver for improvement and growth.

Unhealthy incompetence is people who know they don't have a clue and they don't give a hoot.

They flock together in governments. Viva.

But there is a third, more insidious and much more dangerous incompetence: Covert Incompetence. 

In technical industries they are not only covertly incompetent, they are sneaky too:

They know they don't know. They know you don't know they don't know. They know they will get away with it.

Sneaky incompetents flock together in the IT industry.

The IT industry is so diverse, so over complicated, so over hyped and so scary to Joe Rapalalamisimangtangnang and Mary Koekemoer, the sneaky incompetents thrive here. A huge and poorly con

tested hunting ground full of willing prey because people (wrongly) think IT is so complicated they do not have the mental capacity to ever understand it. 

Too many movies about computers building robots and taking over the earth and all that.

Forget about computers taking over the world. A much greater danger to you, your sanity, your wallet and your company is the sneaky IT incompetent. These people are the real danger to the rest of the world.

Here is 5 ways to detect Sneaky IT Incompetence (SITI). It works like garlic lip gloss for Dracula's wife:

1. Super relatives (aka hyped hype).

When communicating the SITI will use adjectives and hype to convince.

Example: "This computer is EXTREMELY old. It is TOTALLY hopeless to upgrade because it will cost a HUGE amount, and anyway XP is FULL of bugs and NEVER EVER work as expected. Trust me: ALL my clients have EXACTLY the same problem."

Professionals use reason for an argument - not language.

2. The Titanic speech (aka nothing ever goes wrong):

Competency is required to understand risk.

Example: "Nothing can go wrong, don't worry. What? Loose all your data? Me? Never. Can't happen."

Professionals know things go wrong. All the time. When you least expect it - and they plan for it.

3. Nerd speak (aka dictionary attack):

In the old days the pagan priests made up a language just before they chopped someone's head off. Much simpler to intimidate than to communicate effectively.

Example: "It looks like a RAM party error on the MB or CPU S1-Cache or perhaps the IDE or USB bus interrupt event cueing"

Professionals will help you understand the problems and solutions - at least at a conceptual level.

4. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail:

Remember the SITI cannot be bothered to learn new skills or tools, so don't dare suggest using something he does not know.

Example: "What? You want me to use that tool? It sucks! It kills baby kittens! My tool is much better. You can do anything with it from tuning pianos to deep sea fishing."

Professionals will either refer you to a colleague or learn the skills to use the new tool.

5. The WMD (aka omnipotent certainty)

Only the wrong and ignorant fear new ideas.

Example: "You do it like this. There is no other way. Other ways kill baby kittens...and melt the polar caps."

Professionals study the new idea first, and have an opinion after.

So. The moral of the story?

A scary face does not a guard dog make.  (Zorro apologized  - see the pic left)

I'm sure you compete with sneaky incompetents in your industry too.

So, how do we professionals win this fight?  

By educating our clients.  

The more they know about what we do, the easier it is for them to spot the incompetents: your most effective sales technique is clear, honest and quality information.

Always assume postitive intent, but Brandy does bite

I told you about my Labrador, Zorro: A big black guy. He is 10 or so, but seems to believe (and behave as if) he is still a puppy. He poops more than I feed him. Everything is his favorite: Eating. Sleeping. Pooping. Playing. Birds. Cats. Snakes. Sticking his head under water. His collection of toys. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

This dog is so docile, I've seen a three year old dig a bone out of his mouth while he was chewing on it. Bones are Zorro's favorite. He looked a bit confused for a second or so and then began to enthusiastically lick the toddler's face, because toddlers are his favorite. After washing a considerable amount of dog spit off the three year old, I tried to explain that she should not do that because dogs may bite when you interfere with their eating.

Of course labs don't bite. Ever.

But Carl's dog does. Bite the hand that feeds him, I mean.

(You met Carl a while ago in the post "The tong bearer".)

After a nice, long braai Carl went home and played with his dogs. When I say "play" I mean "tease". When I say "after a braai" I mean his wife told him to stop drinking and get in the car. Now.

His two Cocker Spaniels are beautiful dogs. They love everybody - bouncing all over the place whenever someone comes for a visit. Long fluffy ears with big, round brown eyes. Wikipedia describes them as "extremely loyal and affectionate".

Evidently Carl never read the rest of the Wikipedia article where they talk about how Cockers can be aggressive - even suffer from "rage syndrome" and "attacks suddenly and savagely".

He played (teased) until one of the two Spaniels bit his hand. Not a bite as in "Stop that you are irritating me", but a bite as in "I'm going to rip these fingers and thumb right off and eat it it like human sushi" kind of bite. No fun at all. Carl's lovely wife had to rescue him from Brandy (no pun intended), now known as Cujo.

The tong bearer eventually had to go to hospital for an antibiotic drip.

When I first heard the story, I thought: "Was Carl drinking Brandy that night? Did he bite the dog back?".

Fortunately he did neither. The dog was not hurt - even though it almost ate the had that feeds it.

And this incident made me think about judging intent. Carl did not react blindly to the attack: he did not assume malicious intent...

(By the way, kids at home: Remember - Brandy can bite.)

Always assume positive intent

That is perhaps the most important piece of advice anyone can offer you. It means that instead of immediately and automatically thinking that the person (or dog) has malicious intent, one assumes that the person (or dog) did not act out of a desire to harm you, but rather that the person (or dog) has his/hers/it's own set of problems, desires, point of view, anger management issues and sharp teeth.

Us humans are basically egotistical. We tend to think the world is how we perceive it to be. It is a perfectly sane perspective of course:

Your genes belong to a long line of ancestors who did NOT jump in front of the hungry dinosaur to save the day. Your million or so grand parents were guys and babes that looked after themselves and their offspring first. Guys that pushed other people in the way of the dinosaur. They were egotistical - that's how their genes survived.

The problem with this "Darwinian incentive" is firstly that there are no more dinosaurs, but secondly that our egotistical point of view invariably makes us believe that things are personal. From our point of view we are the world. Everyone acts and re-acts to us.

Not so I'm afraid.

None of us are that important.

The guy who cut you off in the fast lane was not doing it because he did not like you. He did not see you, or he was lost in thought, or he is just a bad driver. It was not personal.

The check-out clerk you thought was rude to you was worried actually about her sick child, or being retrenched, or was suffering from a headache. It had nothing to do with you. It was not personal.

When your husband forgot your birthday, it was because he was stupid enough not to put it in his diary - not because he does not love you (enough). It was not personal - and he's going to suffer for it anyway.

When your child forgot to thank you for making dinner it was because he was dreaming about a girl at school - not because he does not appreciate what you do. It had nothing to do with you. It was not personal.

The client screaming at you on the phone has other big problems. He does not know you. It's not about you.

The supplier giving you bad service is understaffed and overworked. They don't know you. It's not about you.

We are genetically predisposed to think all these things are about us. Because our point of view is egotistical we automatically assume malicious intent - it must be about us - personal - we think.

Not so.

By realizing that it is incredibly dumb to think that everything revolves around us, we should rather assume positive intent: The action the other person took was not necessarily intended as malicious toward us.

Taking a second or two to try test your assumption of positive intent, you give yourself the chance to avoid many, many mistakes in your relationships - personal and business.

Give the other guy the benefit of the doubt. It is not about you. It's not personal.