By looking at some of my blogs you might get the idea that I'm only concerned about top achievers and experts. But that's not really true. I am concerned that people get employable and stay employable. And in our world, that's a major task we can't ignore. So I emphasize it.
Truth be told, I really believe that well-designed systems filled with competent people are much more lucrative for companies over the long run. I'm a realist. There is a limit to the number of experts floating around, and besides, if you get too many of them together they might not get much done. It could be bad for your business.
One of the unsung business thinkers of the twentieth century is James March of Stanford. His straight-forward realism and simplicity is awe-inspiring. Here's March's insight on simple competence that I picked up on Bob Sutton's blog:
The importance of simple competence in the routines of organizational life is often overlooked when we sing the grand arias of management, but effective bureaucracies are rarely dramatic.... Much of what distinguishes a good bureaucracy from a bad one is how it accomplishes the the trivia of day to day relations with clients and day-to-day problems in maintaining and operating its technology. Accomplishing these trivia may involve considerable planning, complex coordination, and central direction, but is more commonly linked to the effectiveness of large numbers of people doing minor things competently. As a result, it is probably true that the conspicuous differences around the world in the quality of bureaucratic performance are due primarily to variance in the competence of the ordinary clerk, bureaucrat, and lower manager, and to the effectiveness of routine procedures for dealing with problems at a local level. This appears to be true of armies, factories, postal services, hotels, and universities.