Defining incompetency

Almost 10 months, I have been here (in HCL), and I see people coming to the office, working and leaving. They have been disappointed, happy, angry, satisfied sentimental etc. What I never understand is, how come people so easily put a label whether someone can work in a particular project or not.

When I was in class 10^th in 2005 I had a teacher who told me the question paper pattern, there were 2 markers, 4 markers and 6 markers in my mathematics exam. While 2 markers summed up to 20 marks, 6 markers totaled to 30 marks while the rest 40 marks could be obtained by 4 markers. Needless to say marking of a question was done on the basis of difficulty levels and hence maximum part of the question paper was consumed by the 4 markers. Or, the question paper was designed to attain an average difficulty level. Simply speaking, it targeted an average student.

That chunk of average students went on to become employees in different places and they grow up into mighty professionals, as all of us call it. How does an average student become competent or is defined competent is an issue and I am concerned. Because being jobbed is stepping inside a chaos, cluelessness an utter mess of ideas where people speak just to show that they are working but at the core level all those plans are just hogwash, and ultimately tasks are executed on a hit and trial level, not that I am complaining, ideas are outputs of mistakes.

A bunch of kids, step out of their schools enter the market with boards saying, engineers, graduates, mathematicians, scientists needed. While very few are very sure of what they want, and they have always been a creamy layer wherever they go, an average student is one who sees those 60 marks in that examination where he can just avoid a fail grade and if possible, distinction. He doesn’t care whether he is growing or learning that subject because he, as an average student, is plain clueless and is studying and learning for the heck of it.

Once a kid finds a job and is unable to relocate the direction where he can work sincerely, he is accepted on his qualification which is as misleading as his cluelessness. But he accepts it, for the sheer thought of having an opportunity that promises something, sometimes the whole experience of being a professional. But there the biggest problem begins, in that frenzy offers are not accepted, but instructed. Instructions are followed, deadlines are met. But what cannot be achieved is dedicated participation. A normal guy, in his cluelessness, would simply say yes as he has always done, first in front of parents, then teachers, then bosses. In such a fascist system, the whole point of choice is lost. All that remains is finding a way out. How far, is a different problem altogether.

If passing an aptitude test, and joining and clearing an engineering course is sufficient to satisfy a criteria for doing a job then how one can say that person ‘x’ is incapable of doing something? In case he is capable, and he is reluctant in doing it, then how does the organization drive his/her interest in doing it? If the organization feels, that it has checked and all the formalities have been done, still someone is not productive, and then is it always wrong on the employees end? Is everything perfect there?
So all we have is people, a whole lot of them who are clueless, capable, uninterested, imperfect, desiring, lazy, angst ridden, ambitious etc, etc and etc. Now you put them inside an office, and they are capable, you mould them or force them, either they do it anyway, irrespective of it being right/wrong/poorly/brilliantly, or, they don’t, at all. But does that mean they are incapable? Do they deserve de-motivation? Can someone put a label on someone that this guy cannot do a job and throw him out? Because that label of so called incompetency he/she carries, affects a lifetime. Because someone is not interested in doing what you offer doesn’t make him/her incompetent and the one who issues such an instruction, and that is done after events of humiliation, is, in my book, one with lack of regard and empathy and such an action is perhaps least humanistic measure taken. Perhaps, the one doing wrong should be motivated enough to discover what is right for him/her and inspired appropriately and fueled with sufficient confidence that he/she steps out on his/her own and that will be right, both for the organization and the employee. Perhaps then evolution shall begin or else it is possible that running inside a mess, objectives are, resources are, productivity is and, what fears me most, hope is lost.

Because that would be a catastrophe of the highest sort, an unbearable one, one that cannot be corrected. And anyone who can see, hear, breathe or most importantly feel is not incompetent, because someone is not interested in doing what one has to offer, but is doing because of several uncountable constraints and is forced to do so, and is then blamed for incompetence doesn’t make him/her one and no one can call someone inside a meeting room and de-motivate, because that, I can guarantee, will only and exclusively reduce productivity and garner losses.