STAY PUT IN YOUR CIRCLE OF COMPETENCE
Jenne, a middle-management editor at one of the major newspapers in America, sustained a leg fracture by falling on a slippery hillside while she went on a company picnic; her doctor ordered her to take rest for several weeks. Jenne’s boss asked her to divide her staff of follower reporters into two groups: those who were highly competent self-starters, who needed only occasional consultation, and those who were going to demand a lot of direction and nurturing.
As she made up her list, she was shocked to discover that only about a third of her staff were capable of doing their jobs with minimal management. “Half of the time it came down to a competence problem: they needed specific directions on where to go to find information or how to get around some obstacles. So also, the work they eventually turned in needed a lot of editing. And between the reporting and the writing, they also needed a lot of confidence-building sessions. When I realized how much hands-on managing I had been doing, I thought about going into the office on my crutches and demanding a raise”, she said after compiling the list.
But Jenne’s second reaction to the list was perhaps more telling. “I had a newfound appreciation for those reporters who had their act together. They weren’t just sitting at their desks waiting for me to tell them what to do. They were thinking about story ideas, and investigating on their own. And, when they were given an assignment that wasn’t their idea, they researched the hell out of the topic before coming to my office, so that when we talked, it was a very efficient, productive session”.
Jenne also had a new appreciation for the value of good followership, and she thereupon started to work on ways to inculcate the traits of her stars in other members of the staff. One behavior she discovered that stood out as a paradox was that the most competent followers knew their weaknesses as well, very well.
They were also aware of their strengths, of course, but the sense of knowing in what areas they might fall short prompted them to take proactive steps to compensate. If they were asked to produce in an area where they didn’t feel qualified, they looked for assistance on their own. If they couldn’t find help on their own, they didn’t waste the company’s time going in circles. They took the initiative of speaking up and working with the lead editor on a solution.
(From the book ‘How to Be a Star at Work’ by Robert E. Kelley)
You have to figure out what your aptitudes are and where your strengths lie. If you play games where others have the required aptitudes and skills, and you don’t possess them, you’re going to lose. You have to find out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve to play within that area of expertise. Call it ‘the circle of competence’.
What’s this Circle?
According to Wikipedia, a circle of competence is the subject area which matches a person’s skills or expertise. This concept was developed by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger as what they called a ‘mental model’, a codified form of business acumen, concerning the investment strategy. Says Buffett: “The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital”.
Each one of us, over time, through experience or study, has gathered useful knowledge on certain areas of the world around us. Some of them are understood by most of us, while many others call for a lot more learning and practical application.
If you want to improve your chances of success in any endeavor, then you’ve to identify and define the perimeter of your circle of competence and confine your operations within that circle. Can we expand this circle? Yes, we can, but only slowly and over time. Mistakes are often made when due to overconfidence or other reasons, you outstep the said perimeter.
Imagine a small circle within a bigger one. The outer circle is what you think you know, although you’re not an expert, and the smaller circle inside it is what you indeed do know –where you have the expertise and the know-how. Most of the people, many a time, are operating from the outer circle and produce an inferior-quality result or no result. One is reminded of the centuries-old Arab proverb, which reads as under:
The best possible situation in life, the saying goes, is to know that you know. The second best is to know what you don’t know. The third best is to not know that you know. The worst situation is to not know that you don’t know. People operating from the outer circle (of incompetence) are most often blissfully unaware that they don’t know, that they’re lacking in the requisite knowledge and/or skill.
It takes a high degree of self-awareness, courage, and humility, as well as being open to factual evidence to identify and state one’s boundaries of competence. When you are honest about where your knowledge is lacking, you know where you’re vulnerable and where you need to improve, and how. What are the options available if you suddenly find that you’re trying to operate from outside the circle of competence and that you’re stuck?
Ø Pass on it by letting it go by.
Ø Decide to learn about it by developing expertise and expanding your circle of competence.
Ø Outsource by consulting, engaging, or partnering with someone for whom the issue is within their circle of competence. If you’re able to identify others’ circle of competence, it further helps you to develop more meaningful partnerships and collaborations.
Action Plans to grow the Circle of Competence
(Courtesy: model thinkers.com/mental-model)
· Play to your strengths: Operating from your circle of competence involves acting from a place of strength and relative certainty. It minimizes risks and increases the likelihood of realizing the desired results.
· Focus on your passions and interests: Using them will make it easy to identify your circle of competence.
· Engage with people operating from their circle of competence: You could extract their expertise from their places of strength. Identifying the circle of competence of others also helps you to develop more meaningful partnerships and collaborations.
· Grow and learn: One’s circle of competence is not static. Once you are able to identify the boundaries of your competence, you can continually challenge yourself and grow. When you assess a challenge in terms of your circle of competence, it throws out ideas about the sort of action you should undertake to address it.
· Supplement yourself with diversity: Look forward to working with people who have complementary circles of competence so that you can reap the benefits of synergy and achieve better results.
· Say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”. When ego, and not competence, governs our actions, cautions Charlie Munger, we have blind spots that will hinder our progress. Be courageous in identifying and stating the boundaries of your circle, while being committed to discovering and learning more. Communicating your circle of competence along with its weaknesses is also a way of building the trust of people.
Question: Where should we devote our limited time in life, to achieve the most success?
Charlie Munger: “Operate in areas where you’ve built up useful skills and knowledge that give you an advantage over others”.
Everybody’s got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle. (Warren Buffett)
Dr. K R S Nair
keyares51@gmail.com
