Levels of Competency: by way of Roller Skating, Mastery & Tall Toddlers

The great Ada Ryland, an outstanding startup and innovation mentor who I’m incredibly fortunate to also call a friend, shared the following framework with me. It is not mine. She isn’t even sure it’s hers. She thinks it came from her business mentor. Maybe one day we’ll sort that out…

In the meantime, with Ada’s permission, I’m sharing this framework here. It’s made a huge difference for me; I reference and share it often in one-on-one conversations. So much in fact, that I thought to post it here and share it widely.

Ada masterfully laid out the framework in the analogy of a roller-skating rink:

Beginners

Most everyone can make their way around a roller-skating rink: maybe they are gripping onto the side for dear life, hand-over-hand pulling themselves along, but by golly they will make it along. This is an example of a beginner level of competency.

Low Competency

People who can get around the rink, without holding onto the rails, but they have very low competency. They can skate forward but mostly they are not sure-footed, their movements are noticeably not smooth. Sometimes, they are “bulls in a china shop” — if they’re not given a wide berth, their low competency can do harm, taking down even those with more competency.

Competent

These folx are simply skating forward around the rink. Their movements are smooth. It looks easy. But, as you see from this analogy, it took some time to even become competent.

High Competency

These outstanding skaters can skate backward! Some of them are dancing! Wow! Look at them go! They have clearly built on their competency to a high level on the rink.

Mastery

These skaters are not limited to the rink. They often blow your mind. When you see them skate, you may say, “I didn’t know that was even a thing someone could do!”. They create new realms of what is possible. Sometimes, when it’s discovered by outsiders, their genius gets mistaken for something so obvious we forget we didn’t think it up. Their mastery, by virtue of the mastery, makes their presentation of mastery incredibly consumable. Got it?

On the flip side of the scale of competency is doing harm…

Jerks & Criminals

Defined by their level of intent and impact, these are people who throw marbles on the rink or push people down, on purpose. They intend to, and sometimes succeed in, causing harm. Do not confuse these actors with the low-competency blunderers.

Applications & Observations

THIS IS IMPORTANT: “people” are not “low competency”, people can have low competency, AND many, many people can gain competency.

ALSO IMPORTANT: don’t weaponize this framework! I’m sharing it as a tool to use in service of distinguishing and navigating what is possible. As I just said, people are not low-competency; don’t fall into a trap of scanning and labeling people as a level of competency forever and ever amen. As you probably know: people are complicated, multi-faceted and fluid. #meta: it’s low-competency to slap this framework on people and use it to write people off; try it out and gain competency to empower all with this scale!

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT: assessing competency requires competency. (again, with the #meta, I know…) Assessments grounded in evidence, including personal and professional expertise gives one competency to judge others’ competency. Ya dig? Said simply: consider the source.

The grace of surrendering to low competency: It can be relieving to understand where you are not committed to gaining competency! Eg. “I am going to remain low-competency at auto-repair. I will pay someone with high-competency in auto-repair to do any auto-repair I need.”

Domains of expertise & grounded assessments:

• Sometimes you need someone with high competency in a particular domain to find another highly competent person in a specialized version of that domain. Eg. “I tapped my mechanic to find a great diesel mechanic.”

  
  

• Additionally, you may want someone with high competency in multiple domains. Eg. “When I say I want an excellent mechanic, I want my car repaired well and I want someone to do the repairs with the bedside manner/communication style I prefer.” That person has the high level of competence preferred in the domains of functional, emotional and social (see another post for those distinctions…)

  
  

Tall toddlers!

Sometimes people who have gained mastery in one domain are assumed to have mastery in others — and others get frustrated with them for not being competent in that domain of expected competence. The short-hand for this among another mentor and I is the curse of the “Tall Toddler”. To the outside observer, the Tall Toddler appears more capable than they are — but they’re not! Afterall, they’re only a toddler — but they’re tall!

(If this is happening to you, depending on the situation, it’s probably best to graciously say, “while I deeply appreciate that you know me as incredibly competent at ABC, I’m still learning XYZ. Can you share more about how that works?” Decent people you want to hang out with anywayz love to help. Give them a chance to be a hero — especially to you, Tall Toddler, earnestly clomping your way through a new domain — and they’ll usually, graciously be happy to lead you on your way to higher levels of competency in said area of growth.)

Imposter Syndrome

Whoa boy. This is a whole ‘nother post. TLDR: perhaps you’re familiar with certain segments of the population who, in fact, have high levels of competency in certain domains (or many) and they are socialized to believe they don’t possess the level of competency that they, in fact, do. Further, oftentimes this socialization is internalized. This results in all sorts of missings-out on the talents and innovations to be given by these folx. “Total bummer” doesn’t begin to describe the experience and loss for them — and also for all of us.

Over-confidence

I’m willing to bet my house that we’ve all met someone who is CERTAIN they have competency in an area in which they clearly don’t. Perhaps all widely-accepted data contradicts their point of view — except their point of view is expressed so confidently it seems* like FACT.

*This is in contrast to “fake it until you make it”, of which, generally, hopefully, the messenger has self-awareness about the level of integrity/progress of the concept or venture and is consciously choosing to share a vision vs. actuals.

This problematic performance of competency will definitely seem like Fact to the messenger; sometimes they are so effective in their presentation of competence that they influence others; and sometimes they even are SO successful in their presentation of competency that they may even convince you, dear smart reader of their (misplaced) competence. Oof. These ones are slippery!

How this has made a difference for me:

As noted above, I just love this framework so much.

It’s not uncommon for me to be in conversations with colleagues who are familiar with this framework for us to short-hand “ahhh, low competency”. This short-hand shifts the whole conversation into dignifying what’s possible — or not — regarding the issue at hand.

Practical applications of framing people’s actions in levels of competency versus their behavior, intentionality, a fixed way about them, or morality, has given me great access to:

• qualifying leads, requests, projects and opportunities in business;

  
  

• leadership and partnership that honors people for where they are at and where we want to go, together — or not;

  
  

• and, my own personal sense of grace, freedom, generosity, peace, and humor in dealing with myself, others or circumstances (frankly, rather than coming from a place of judgment of character or behavior, knowing that I am or someone else is simply not very competent at something causes me to be a much nicer person than I might otherwise default to…).

  
  

Example:

Some time ago, I kept getting mad at someone who was requesting my partnership on something I am known to be an expert in, which is important to both of us. My reaction was that they are “doing it wrong”: both the project and how they were asking me to partner. I made suggestions, while irritated, and that also wasn’t working. (Obviously, my judgments were getting in the way of our shared goals.)

What made a difference — for me at least — was realizing that we were at two different levels of competency (about this — I am clear that there are many areas in which I am lacking basic competence! And this person, in particular, is likely more competent than I am in different domains.)

Further, believe it or not, I deeply like and respect the person in this example. I wanted them to be at a higher level of competency than they were at with the issue at hand. My expectation was foundational to my frustration: they were at a beginner level of competency (if I’m telling the truth, my experience was of them stomping around on the rink, while I was weaving to avoid them knocking me and others down while I was expecting them to be better — and also outwardly expressing — while they were trying to skate their darndest — that they were not very good at skating. Oof.) Who’s low competency now? Yep. You guessed it: one can be high competency in a technical field of study and low competency in communication and partnership. Ugh! The worst, right?

On the other hand, have you ever noticed those with true mastery are actually very graceful in their interactions? Aren’t they The Best?! I’m convinced that some time in the development of their mastery of competence, they also developed themselves to have mastery in interacting with others. Ain’t that just awesome?!

(A personal goal… I’m on the rink with this one!)

Anywho, at the risk of further belittling the earnest actor in this example, I’ll push this a step further: even though most of us decent people wouldn’t get upset with children for not knowing things they couldn’t possibly know — let alone have mastery in — at times, even us decent people will get mad at people for simply having low competency in a particular domain.

Instead of that, what is much more effective — and pleasant — is when I try standing in the inquiry of whether they have the level of competency I am expecting. And, I work to take responsibility for my own assumptions about where I might think they ought to be or what I think they ought to know. (It’s nice when people do this with me, too. Ya know, giving the benefit of the doubt!)

Last thing

Here’s an annoying tip for anyone who may have mastery in a domain: by virtue of you having mastery in that domain, you are mainly going to be surrounded by people who don’t. Duh, right? My recommendation is to sniff out where someone might be coming from in relation to their interest in your domain of expertise and how much you’d like to engage with them on it. It is not on them. After all, they aren’t competent to do that!

TLDR:

We all judge and assess situations and people; it’s a fundamental part of human nature designed to keep our lizard brains from walking off a cliff and/or getting murdered by someone not trustworthy. Very few of us live with those challenges in our everyday lives — thank goodness!

Hopefully, this framework empowers you in your personal and professional interactions. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it and how this is or isn’t working for you. Holla!

PS.

Ada Ryland is fantastic and full of additional frameworks that help startup founders, innovators, intrapreneurs, and leaders with an innovation mindset create strategic, data-driven high-growth ventures. She’s particularly adept at the early stage and/or identifying what was missing at the early stage that’s resulted in everything being the fruit of the poisonous tree — whoopsie! If you’re trying to get something off the ground, or looking for why it’s got no lift despite lots of effort, you can learn about Ada’s consulting offers and request training and development from her here.