{"id":24755,"date":"2019-11-06T21:47:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T05:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=24755"},"modified":"2019-11-06T21:47:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T05:47:52","slug":"visioneering-competent-inversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/visioneering-competent-inversion\/","title":{"rendered":"Visioneering: Competent Inversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can a desire for self-improvement, as well as, a desire to deal with the pressures of a stressful job lead to impacting some of the most influential leaders in America? It can if your name is Shane Parrish a former cybersecurity expert for a Canadian intelligent agency. His desire to learn how to improve his decision-making skills and reduce job pressures has drawn the attention of Wall Street.[1]<\/a> In his book The Great Mental Models<\/em> Volume 1 <\/em>he unfolds his great desire for helping people see problems through multiple lens to hopefully avoid unnecessary mistakes by exposing the reader to the \u201cGreat Mental Models\u201d.<\/p>\n

When discussing the \u201cCircle of Competence\u201d Parrish states \u201cWhen ego and not competence drives what we undertake, we have blind spots. If you know what you understand, you know where you have an edge over others. When you are honest about where your knowledge is lacking you know where you are vulnerable and where you can improve.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 The model explains that the best place to operate and make decisions is within a circle of competence. Why is this the case? According to Parrish this is because we have an understanding of the things we don\u2019t know. This allows us to press into what we do know because of the years of experience we have gained through mistakes and seeking better solutions. What if we have failed to learn from our mistakes, does this shrink our \u201ccircle of competence?\u201d There is a different in having 20 or 30 years of experience and having 1 year of experience lived 20 or 30 times! What validates the experiences that increases our level of competence? Does all experience add to our competence?<\/p>\n

In 1968 Laurence Peter published a best-selling book entitled The Peter Principle<\/em> which was intended to be a satire of how people advance in life. This principle though based on fictitious data basically stated that everyone rises in business to their level of incompetence. Meaning that people can only succeed to the level where they are competent and can\u2019t go beyond that, due to reaching their point of incompetence. Though the book was humorous in nature the truth of the satire became apparent over time. 3 professors of the University of Minnesota looked at data provided by 214 American Companies between the years 2005 and 2011 of over 53,000 sales employees. Over the 7-year time frame there were 1531 sales reps promoted to management positions. What they found was that the best salesmen don\u2019t always make good managers. Many of those promoted lacked the abilities needed to be good managers but had what it took to be great sales reps.[3]<\/a> After spending 27 years with the same company I can attest to the truth of The Peter Principle. Some of the best engineers I know made the worst managers. I found it interesting that the criteria needed to be a good engineer and the criteria to be a good manager though obviously different didn\u2019t seem make a difference to upper management. I remember asking a good friend who was a very accomplished engineer if he was happy as a manager. His reply was not surprising. He explained he became an engineer because he related to numbers and complex problems, as well as, enjoyed the challenge behind designing solutions to fix problems. He then stated that solving people problems and finding ways to cut the budget was an entirely different issue for him. Bottom line he wasn\u2019t happy but thought that climbing the corporate ladder was what was expected. I do believe it is possible to increase our level of competence to move us forward on the Peter principle process. But all the competence in the world doesn\u2019t replace the need for a personal mission and vision. Just because we have the ability to advance in the workplace, should we? Should we sacrifice peace of mind and happiness for money and position? Does taking a position for just money become a form of prostitution?<\/p>\n

What if we incorporated Parrish\u2019s inversion tool by flipping the process and thinking backwards? Could this help us avoid making choices we would regret later? \u00a0\u201cUsing inversion to identify your end goal and work backward from there can lead to innovation.\u201d[4]<\/a> By looking into the future and envisioning a desired outcome it opens our minds up to creative possibilities that can assist us in setting goals, making action plans and avoid the unsuspected pitfalls and potholes of bad choices. There are risks! Looking forward into the end goal isn\u2019t perfect, but it is affective. This is a common practice used in coaching to assist a client to come up with creative innovative strategies that can provide possible solutions that may otherwise be overlooked.<\/p>\n

A common bible verse that leaders often quote is Proverbs 29:18 \u201cWhere there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.\u201d (NASV) Part of visioneering is the inversion process. By looking and focusing on the vision our ability to see and make present day decisions is enhanced. We often willingly place restraints on our choices by only saying yes to those opportunities that will forward us toward the future vision. We even gain a level of joy as we see the vision begin to unfold in our lives despite that sacrifices that may have been made in order to move forward. Working from a \u201ccircle of competence\u201d can also play a vital role in the visioneering process, just as incompetence can hinder it.\u00a0 I wonder how the inversion process affects our competence levels. Does it broaden the size of the circle? Can it speed up the learning curve and increase the process of gaining solid experience? The power of our choices today often dictates the fruits of tomorrow.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cHow a Former Canadian Spy Helps Wall Street Mavens Think Smarter\u201d, NYTimes https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/11\/11\/business\/intelligence-expert-wall-street.html<\/u><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models Vol.1<\/em> (Ottawa, On, Lattice Publishing) chap. 4, loc 568 of 2056, kindle<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0[3] \u201cNew Evidence The Peter Principle is Real and What to Do About It\u201d, Forbes\u00a0https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/roddwagner\/2018\/04\/10\/new-evidence-the-peter-principle-is-real-and-what-to-do-about-it\/#4cb7576f1809<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models Vol.1<\/em> (Ottawa, On, Lattice Publishing) chap. 4, loc 1574 of 2056, kindle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can a desire for self-improvement, as well as, a desire to deal with the pressures of a stressful job lead to impacting some of the most influential leaders in America? It can if your name is Shane Parrish a former cybersecurity expert for a Canadian intelligent agency. His desire to learn how to improve his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1602,1700,1709,1708],"class_list":["post-24755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp10","tag-great-mental-models","tag-shane-parrish","tag-visioneering","cohort-lgp10"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24756,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755\/revisions\/24756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}