Coping with incompetence. Don't.

Sometimes, it's hard to tell who you can trust.

You notice things are not going well and you try to help. You try coaching and counselling to raise the level of performance and you get defensiveness, resistance, or denial that there’s a problem.

You have to conclude those are signs of incompetence. They don’t understand what’s required and don’t have the capability to do it. The people in place are just not up to meeting the requirements of the job.   

You begin to ask yourself, who’s actually doing the job and who's faking it? Who's doing what they think you asked for, but are simply not capable of doing it?

Even worse, those whom you thought you could trust and appear to be doing what you asked them to do, are actually looking after their own personal agenda and leading the organisation away from achieving its objectives and sliding backwards instead. It may not be deliberate sabotage, but they’re complicit in the dysfunction and incompetence that is leading to failure.

Fixing it is a difficult process. It takes time to figure out who's on what side. Before you sort it out, you have to give them on opportunity to succeed. Arrange a test in action, under fire, and watch how they perform. Do they step aside and take shelter to protect themselves or do they push forward against the obstacles to accomplish the worthy objectives of the organisation?  

People may be well intentioned, but in the wrong place at the wrong time. They could work on improving their skills and become capable of doing more. You can help them raise their confidence and put them in a job they would rather have and can do well. What about those who refuse to accept professional advice on how to do better in the job and advance their own careers?

They have to be removed. If they can't be trusted, and don't sign up to support the vision, mission, values, goals, and objectives of the team, they can't work here.

You have to remove them from the team. That's it. That's all. It’s time to move on.

Be better. Do Better. Be an Enlightened Entrepreneur.

Your Uncle Ralph,

Del Chatterson

Learn more about Enlightened Entrepreneurship at: LearningEntrepreneurship.com

Read more of Uncle Ralph's advice for Entrepreneurs in Don't Do It the Hard Way & The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plans - 2020 Editions.

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