The Competence Cure
How to get fuel from your talents
My granddaughter, who is four, found a yo-yo this weekend. She’d never seen one before until she found this one in my partner’s office, tucked away in a box. He explained what it was, and she tried it. Since she is a very small person, the whole gravity aspect was stymied and she managed just to roll the yo-yo across the floor. But since she’s new to the whole yo-yo thing, she didn’t know this wasn’t how it was supposed to work. She ran over to show me and rolled out her new toy.
As she leaned over to pick it up again, she said “ta da.”
Not with a flourish, just a statement, the way an adult might say, “nailed it,” in a confident deadpan.
Ta da.
Competence and the sense of our own skills can be a fantastic corrective for worry or insecurity. Finding and owning our own ta das can be a grounding restorative.
When you feel bad about an aspect of your work, go do something you’re really good at, and you’ll feel better. That’s it, that’s the competence cure.
A friend who works with teens was talking to a young woman who was struggling. My friend asked the girl what she did really well. The girl thought about it for a while and then said, “I’m really good at make-up.” My friend suggested she go home and do her make-up.
My friend saw the young teen later that day with her face done up in a red-carpet worthy array of cosmetics. She was, indeed, good with make-up, and she had a smile on her face.
That’s the competence cure. It wasn’t about disregarding whatever was troubling this adolescent, it was about giving her a break from the tough stuff to focus on an area that brought her joy, where she could rest in her competence.
Generally, there are two cases where we need a competence cure. First is insecurity or self-doubt. The second is when we are working in an area where we lack skill – maybe a new assignment, or a project that challenges us to learn different skills.
Insecurity often happens when we don’t have an accurate sense of our own abilities. While there are plenty of people who overestimate their talents or skills, I’m thinking today about those of us who underestimate our skills.
We may be wildly skillful in one large swath of our work, but disregard that to focus on a smaller challenge area until we feel like we’re not good at all. We may compare ourselves to people who are more accomplished or talented and think how far we have to go, rather than acknowledging our progress. Or we may disregard talents in the mistaken assumption that our skill is commonplace. “Doesn’t everyone have perfect pitch?” “Can’t everyone add large numbers in their head?”
If you have that attitude and it keeps you sharp and learning, great.
But many of us find this kind of insecurity leads to doubt and worry and becomes an energy suck. We lose perspective and feel like we’re fooling other people, we’ll be found out, we’re going to get fired, and it goes downhill from there.
If you are a person who can get caught in the web of worry and self-doubt in spite of clear, factual evidence that you have skills, then the competence cure might help.
The second case is where we are called on to use or learn skills that challenge us and wear us down. Often, people have advanced in their careers and now need to do work that isn’t in their wheelhouse. A creative director who is put in a leadership role and has to work with budgets and projections and margin goals may feel out of her depth and wish she could return to being a straight up art director. An introvert who has worked on his own is put in a management role and has a team to support, mentor and guide and feels awkward about his ability to lead a group effectively.
One of my clients recommended a book by Patrick Lencioni called the 6 types of Working Genius. You can see the framework here. https://www.workinggenius.com/ I read it since it was something a client found useful, although I’m not generally a big fan of assessments. One point I liked was that when you are working in a skill set that is outside of your “working genius” or key strengths, it wears you out. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do things outside of your skill set. It just means that it takes more energy than something that is in your area of working genius. I find that to be true for me.
Think of it in terms of extroversion and introversion. I am deeply introverted. It doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy being with other people, or do well there. It just means that it takes much more energy for me to be with others than it does for my extrovert friends.
How do you know where your competence is? You can usually look back at what has been a constant in your career, what you prefer to do in terms of tasks. What are your favorite things to do at work, what gives you energy and perks you up? Chances are that’s something you’re good at, where you have competence.
But for some of my clients, the most effective competence cure is outside of work; someone who is an avid skier might find a trip to the slopes the mental rejuvenation she needs. For another it may be cooking or baking.
I’ve had situations where clients in executive leadership missed an aspect of the work they did when they were starting out. Even if it is no longer in their list of duties, I often encourage them to find a way to participate in that skill in small ways, since it brings them joy and reminds them why they are going through the rigors of executive life. If I were coaching that same executive who was an art director, I might ask her if she could do some small design projects as her competence cure.
What’s your competence cure? Is it inside work, or outside? Endurance athletes often carry fuel for their journey, high calorie gels or drinks to keep them going. Think of your competence areas as fuel for the times when your energy dips, or you feel overwhelmed by working in areas that are draining or new.
Most of us, when we are hungry, know to eat. I’d like all of us to recognize that when we are dispirited, we may need another kind of fuel, and it’s time to do something we love. Like writing this. Because we all need those moments of “ta da.”