The ManicaPost
Simbarashe Musara
SINCE the beginning of time, it is known that you reap what you sow.
This simply means that if you sow wheat seeds, you should not expect to harvest rice.
This is a classical example of how the seeds of incompetence are sown in organisations.
Incompetence is the lack of skill or ability to complete your task as it should be done.
It is the inability to deliver results, inability to satisfy your customers and inability to deliver the service.
The top management are responsible for creating a certain culture that should translate into employee satisfaction, motivation and high performance levels.
An organisation is a society, thus it requires certain norms and values that will govern the social behaviours of people from different ethnic, religious, social and economic groups.
Without these norms and values, the performance of employees will be affected.
The organisation can have highly qualified personnel but if they are in the wrong environment, they will not perform satisfactorily.
High remuneration can be a motivator for someone to go to work every day but a very toxic and unfriendly environment can make this person do their job miserably.
Some employees are actually very competent and have the ability to do their jobs well but if they are put in an environment that has a broken culture, they can be affected heavily.
In the service delivery industry, customer satisfaction can become very low because of the employees’ incompetence.
Leaders of institutions might overlook the importance of a proper culture but this has a direct impact on the performance of their employees.
A very competent person can come to an organisation were incompetence is the norm and it becomes easier for them to join the others in dragging feet at work.
Culture therefore contributes to the behavior of a person and if a person comes into an organisation where there is team work, a sense of ownership, strong brand identity, open and clear channels of communication, goal orientation and hard work as the tools for success, then they will quickly adapt to these unless they are not competent enough to adapt.
Therefore, before leaders in organisations blame the employees for their incompetence, check the environment that you are creating for them.
Parents always want their kids to grow upon good environments, go to schools with good environments and play with people that create a friendly environment.
They tend to do so because they know putting their kids in the wrong environment will pave way for bad behaviour.
This is the same with an institution that has a broken culture or no culture at all, the environment will make it hard for employees to perform their duties.
Being punctual can go a long way in moulding the culture in an organisation.
These intangible ideals, values and norms dictate how the organisation and employees will conduct business.
Many people say “when you are in Rome do what the Romans do”.
For many people, this is an involuntary reaction as they quickly adapt to the norms of the people around them.
Many motivational speakers always say to succeed in life you have to work hard and specifically shut out all the negative people and opinions.
This is a clear indication that for a person to succeed, they need to have a harmonious, supportive, and stress free environment.
This also applies in institutions because for organisations to get the best out of their employees, there has to be an environment that enables them to perform well.
The only way to avoid incompetence in institutions is to make sure that there are employees with the right capabilities working in a conducive environment that enables team work, employee engagement, high performance and creativity.
With enough motivation, this will result in employee job satisfaction.
Dunning and Kruger’s research shows that underperforming individuals reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it.
This incompetence, in turn, leads them to hold inflated views of their performance and ability.
This is the most dangerous effect of incompetence− the failure to realise that you are underperforming.
Normalising low levels of performance is detrimental to the survival of the organisation.
However, there are certain solutions that managers can adopt to tackle this problem.
The first thing that managers have to realise is that not everyone is deliberately incompetent. In most cases they would have been influenced by the environment they are in.
To tackle this problem, clear channels of communication have to be established.
Create a positive culture, be ready to make tough decisions and make time to engage employees.
Also create an overall strategy that suits everyone and conduct team training.
