Strategic incompetence

Fascinating article popped up today regarding strategic incompetence. That’s basically the idea that from time to time it may behoove you to demonstrate an inability to learn to do something. I am convinced that this behavior pops up in two specific places: one process-oriented and one position-oriented.

From a process perspective, when folks get overloaded then it becomes really tempting to fight off more tasks/responsibilities by sucking at them or screwing them up, thus providing incentive to move those tasks to someone else’s plate. From a position-oriented perspective (and I’m speaking from personal experience here), it’s often more productive to spend two minutes looking like a doofus and having someone bail you out, than spend 15 minutes learning the intricacies of some new label making software or fax machine.

Just yesterday I needed to mail a book from one campus to another. All I knew was that intercampus mail didn’t work for such things and I didn’t know where to begin to figure out how to get the book in the mail. Where are the padded envelopes? What’s the address? Do I need to fill out a form with an account number for the cost of mailing? US mail, UPS, FedEx or campus mail? Jason finally bailed me out by printing a cool label with his desktop label maker and rustling up an envelope. Seemed simple to him, but it nearly paralyzed me.  Ridiculous, I know, but I find this happening more and more often with me. Stuff that I used to bust out in no time now gives me the cold sweats at the thought of spending time on it (unlike writing this blog post, ironically).