In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, there have been many questions concerning the competence of those assigned to prevent such an event. The key issue is whether and to what extent those charged with protecting him displayed genuine competence at their jobs.
Some clearly did, such as those who put themselves directly in the line of fire, but what of the management and the advance team? This is a big issue, and it goes to the heart of what is considered institutional competence in the 21st century. It has certainly changed from the past.
In normal times previously, competence meant taking initiative, achieving the goal, using creativity, being adaptive to circumstances of time and place, finding ways to be useful toward the institutional purpose, making excellent judgments even under stressful conditions, being brave, and taking responsibility for the outcomes. In an ideal institutional environment, competence of this sort is rewarded.
Is this kind of competence still valued in the culture of the corporate world today? In government? It seems to be ever less so. The larger the organization the more resources they have, the more they have all built elaborate systems of compliance that end up smothering all the features of employment that used to be valued and replacing them with checking boxes and not stepping out of line.
In most normal times, this suffices, which is precisely why bureaucracies, nonprofits, and corporate structures build such systems. They keep everyone in line. Provided there is no real change in the challenges or circumstances, turning workers into robotic rule followers works, more or less. It doesn’t drive progress, but it does keep everyone out of trouble.
When all is well, revenue is solid, systems are working, and managers are ever more tempted to tighten rules and build ever more elaborate structures of rules, plans, routines, and compliance.
This has been going on for decades, as everyone knows.
The cartoon “Dilbert” achieved fame by creating parodies of this culture as it affects corporations. When I first started seeing these, I took these depictions as slightly offensive to my capitalistic ideology—why was the cartoonist making such fun of private enterprise?
What I did not know is that the cartoon was realistic for millions of people. The author, Scott Adams, had come out of the corporate world and knew it better than I did. There was a reason why the cartoon was so popular: It connected closely with readers’ personal perspectives.
In the “Dilbert” world, the path to success was being the best possible bureaucrat, helping secure compliance as much as possible and otherwise staying out of harm’s way. Much of this involves inventing new vocabularies consisting of fancy words that have as little meaning as possible. Meetings supplant productivity. Doing as little as possible while seeming to be a good team member is the path to job security and promotion.
Not being a big corporate guy myself, I was unaware that this culture was growing within the business world. I could imagine this in government, of course. I could imagine that such a culture could be pervasive in the nonprofit world, simply because such institutions lack the discipline of the profit-and-loss system and therefore strong metrics of success that drive the mission. But I simply could not imagine how the for-profit world could become so dominated by such fakery.
Sadly, the meaning of competence has changed throughout every institution.
Some personal history, if I may. I was probably 17 and landed a nice job as a helper of some sort at a catering company. My first day on the job involved washing what seemed like 100 extremely dirty large pans from an event. They were piled high in the sink. Along with that, there were several thousand plates and other items. Getting it all washed required many hours of work, and I absolutely loved every minute of it.
Once that was done, I left and then returned the next day but with no clarity on what to do. So I stood around, as I recall. A few days later, more dishes would arrive and I would wash them. Each time, I got better at this and had more time to stand around doing nothing.
After a few weeks, I overheard a conversation between the owner and manager. They were complaining that I seemed lazy and unmotivated. “Useless”—I think I recall one person saying that. I was absolutely mortified and shocked.
The next day, I arrived with new determination. I realized that I was not always going to receive marching orders. I needed to find ways to make myself useful. As I looked around, I realized that the place was a dump. I threw myself into making a big difference. I started in one corner of the huge kitchen and started clearing, arranging, and putting stuff away. I went all the way to the other corner. I did the same with the hallways and reorganized everything. I stayed late to get it done and did the same the next day.
A few days later, the owner showed up and walked in. He was amazed at the difference I had made. He pointed out that I made some mistakes, putting some things in the wrong place, but otherwise congratulated me for what I had achieved. Mostly he was happy that I had taken initiative. Later that week, he gave me a pay increase, and I stayed at the job for several more months.
I took from that experience that I should always strive to make a difference and use my own initiative to see what needs to be done. Volition, perception, alertness, and action: These are the keys to success. That is the lesson I took from this experience.
Such lessons seem to be the worst possible ones in today’s organizational culture. Everyone today knows the acronyms: HR, DEI, and ESG. That’s only the beginning of it. Everything today seems to be governed by some document, some protocol, some rule, and some precedent. Success means fitting in and never doing anything you are not told to do by someone or something. This is the path to job security, exactly as described in the world of “Dilbert.”
What I had not entirely understood was how much the world of big business changed after the turn of the millennium.
There are many reasons, but one traces to the new policies of the Federal Reserve. The interest rate kept being driven lower and lower, eventually to zero and then to negative territory, and for a long period of time. Economic theory can predict the consequences precisely. It amounts to a huge cash infusion, a government subsidy of sorts, to the largest of the big businesses, giving them a spigot of money with which to play, a seemingly infinite resource to tap for payrolls and expansions.
Such an environment seems to make everything possible, including replacing initiative with entitlement, derring-do with compliance, and efficiency and adaptability with sloth and waste.
This change in central bank policy created a new beast: the heavily cash-soaked corporation that could indulge in every sort of empire building over genuine enterprise and creativity. The managers and their employees simply went along.
This policy reinforced a new form of culture, one we had not seen before. Private corporations began to operate more like governments, and nonprofits did the same. The affliction hit every sector from media to medicine to tech. The virus of bureaucracy took over completely and utterly changed two generations of workers and their outlook on the meaning of their jobs.
All the old-fashioned views on what constitutes competence began to shift. Instead of taking initiative, obeying the handbook and complying with edicts became the very purpose of professional life. This new culture has eroded all the old standards and values.
Instead of productivity, we have the valorization of obedience and adherence to handbooks, Zoom meetings, dressing the part, flattering superiors, never exercising judgment without permission and oversight, checking all boxes, gaining all the correct credentials including continuing education, playing the part, and finally, the rarest of things, showing up.
Herein lies the problem. The very standards of what qualifies as competence have been upended. It would be much welcome to see the old standards restored. In the case of security agencies, which exist in both the public and private sectors, lives are on the line.
We have all been witness to this in the most vivid way, and it seems to have shifted the whole of the historical trajectory. This is no longer just about getting by and checking boxes. Life has suddenly become much more serious. It’s a good wake-up call to all individuals and institutions.
