This snail made an umbrella. This photographer captured it in action.
If I call you incompetent, there's a very good chance that I will hurt your feelings. "Incompetent" sounds like a personal slam, like I've judged you lacking as a human being.
On the other hand, if I call you "competent" there is also a very good chance that I will hurt your feelings. Calling someone competent sounds like you're saying they are just adequate. So-so. Meh.
And yet "competence" is the word I've come back to when I study the skills and abilities we need to nurture effective social change organizations. It's the only word that captures the interconnection of knowledge, ability, and attitude.
Why does this matter?
Building, leading, and working in social change requires competence. That maybe sounds obvious or boring, like pointing out that they sky is up or water is wet. But we want social change. We want clean air and water for future generations. We want to loosen racism's hold on western society. None of those things will happen without competent social change groups.
If we want change, we have to be able to talk about how it really happens.
That's why I worry when we don't talk about competence in the sector. I worry when we don't invest in it, nurture it. I worry when we don't expect it from our leaders or managers and help them achieve it. And I meta-worry when board members don't have the competence themselves to recognize and cultivate it in the organizations they govern. (I'm a very competent worrier.)
It's not just that we don't like to talk about competence. It's that we glorify heroes. We build myths around leaders and organizations that sell the idea passion is all you need to change the world. We make it sound like social change comes only from special people, born with a fire in their soul that can never be tamed.
It's not true. Normal people create social change. They may go to extraordinary lengths to do it, but anyone can do it. The good news is that all it takes is competence. The bad news is that it means you're not off the hook.
That's why competence matters. Competence expands the pool of people who can create social change. Competence makes this work teachable, replicable, scalable.
That's why we should reclaim "competent" from its dusty, snarky place in our lexicon. We can infuse it with hope and power.
I want you to be competent because I want you to succeed. I want to overcome my own incompetencies so that I can succeed. I want to be able to say and hear these things without a painful stab of recrimination stopping me in my tracks. And I want the same for you.