The Joy of Incompetence

What is it like to attempt something new? Do we really understand what an organization – more to the point, what an individual – goes through when faced with a significant change? In order to talk a bit about organizational change, let me use myself as an example of individual change.

Once upon a time, I was a card-carrying geek, a nerd of the first water, a techie par excellence. I could program in a myriad of languages: COBOL, SNOBOL, APL, FORTRAN, LIST, FORTH, BASIC, and a dozen other lesser known dialects of the digital Arcanum. But, that was a long, long time ago. And, in the last quarter of a century, I haven’t written a single program. I am, in a word, rusty.

So, what have I done? I’ve gone out and bought an Apple computer, downloaded the iPhone development toolset, and a half dozen Objective-C programming books – including iPhone Development for Dummies – each containing about 400 pages of geek gobbledegook.

I have jumped into the deep end of the pool. I am out of my depth. I’m totally incompetent. I’m having fun and feeling like an idiot at the same time. Life is good … sort of.

Let’s pretend for a moment that what I’ve embarked on isn’t some sort of lunatic urge to recapture my youth; that instead, it represents some sort of organizational change. This way, we can map my personal experience to something we can use elsewhere.

The first important question is, “Why?”… Why am I making this “change.” That’s relatively easy to answer. I see an opportunity to capitalize on the growing use of iPhone type devices to supplement/expand my business. In other words? My “organization” has decided to implement a change to seize upon a perceived opportunity.

The next question is, what’s it like making this change? We’ll do that in point form in no particular sequence – because all of these are happening all at the same time.

1. I’m an idiot.

Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but the truth of the matter is that, when faced with something totally new, we do tend to find fault with our own inability to understand what’s going on. There is no better named series than the “X for Dummies” books. Harsh or not, when we are faced with something new, “dummy” is the least of the disparaging terms we use to think about ourselves.

We have an unreasonable expectation of ourselves – and others – that we should understand the “new” immediately, if not sooner. And, when we don’t, we can get depressed by not being an expert instantly. Not exactly a constructive way of approaching change.

2. They should have created this change differently.

I’m a programmer. I know how to do this. I have my own ideas of how they should have designed this language. This isn’t as easy as it should be. Etc.

When forced to embrace a change, it’s all too easy to deflect the reasons for our ignorance and difficulties acquiring a new skill away from ourselves and onto the initiators of the change. In my personal example I direct my ire at the makers of Objective-C. In other situations, we’ll question the initiators of the change we’re facing. The pattern of complaint is the same. I’m okay … the instigators of the change are not.

3. I could do this faster the old way.

This is almost a truism. Regardless of the change we’re trying to embrace, we can always do it faster the old way. Why? Because the “new” way suffers, once again, from our ignorance.

It IS faster to walk to the store compared with the time it takes us to learn how to ride a bike and then ride to the store. Once we remove the time it takes to learn the new thing, then we’ll reap the benefits of the time it took to learn the skill.

4. I’m never going to learn this.

If you don’t know how to do something, then it’s true – there’s no guarantee you’ll ever be able to do it. The chances are very good, based upon past experience, that we can learn how to do most anything … but there is no guarantee. And, because of our current incompetence/ignorance, we lose faith in our ability to learn and overstate our situation: I’m never going to learn this.

5. I’m not smart enough to learn this.

This is where we go off the deep end. It’s not just that it’s going to take a long time … our IQ is challenged by our current state of ignorance. Change, especially drastic change, has us all questioning our innate abilities.

6. I’ve made a bad investment.

We’re in the deep end and rapidly drowning. Not only am I not smart enough to learn this, I made a big mistake in the past.

It might seem like I’m making too much of this comparison between my own personal experiences and the larger organizational situation, but we see examples of this all the time. Consider the “corporate re-organization” as an example. There’s no doubt that it’s appropriate to re-org from time to time, but when an organization is re-orging every six to 12 months, then something is fundamentally wrong with the decision-making process. What is happening is that we re-organize, and then, in the depths of the normal and natural chaos of reforming, we get cold feet – decide we made a mistake – and initiate another re-organization.

7. Oh, look! That’s interesting.

Slowly, we begin to learn the new tools – and begin to see the benefits. Each of these is like a tiny spark of hope in the gloom. (I keep telling myself that’ll happen soon in my project. I’m not holding my breath.)

8. That’s just like …

When we start seeing connections between what we’re learning and what we used to do, then it’s an indication that the shadows of ignorance are receding. It happens sooner or later (or so I keep telling myself).

9. I feel better getting that working.

It takes a while, but there is tremendous joy when we finally get a handle on how the new change works. The sense of accomplishment is refreshing after all the self doubt. It’s a pity we don’t remember this phase more clearly.

While all of the above are drawn from my immediate experience learning this stupid language (See? Change is difficult!) – they are also point for point comparable to what organizations go through when embarking on a significant change. To pretend that these aren’t normal responses to change is to decide that people can change in an instant without self doubt, fear, confusion, and second thoughts.

One of the secrets of change management is to accept that how we go through change as individuals, is likely what everyone else goes through as well. There’s no mystery, just the need for observation and introspection. MW

Yeah right … I’ll never learn this silly language. To hear Peter speak on some of the topics found in this column, head to <Webinars.technobility.com>.

as published in Municipal World, May 2010