“Often wrong, never in doubt.” That’s the mantra of many consultants, CEOs and development directors who survive year after year despite non or lousy performance.

Like you, I’ve often wondered why so many dumb asses survive in our sector.

Of course all of us know the answer: there are scores more nonprofit openings than competent folks to fill them. Consequently the incompetent can flee, move on, job after job, without consequence and always with higher compensation.

The reasons behind my fears and suspicions have now been dignified by the exalted Harvard Business Review.

ITEM #1: Overly Confident

“…. overconfidence can be dangerous. Overconfident people continue to occupy positions of power. A team led by Jessica A. Kennedy of The Wharton School suggests why: Overconfidence engenders high status even after overconfident individuals are exposed as being less competent than they say they are. In a series of experiments, overconfident people suffered no loss of status after groups received clear, objective data about participants’ true performance on a task.”

ITEM #2: Delusionally Stupid

“In a logic test administered to people who had volunteered over the internet, a team of researchers found that the lowest scorers vastly overestimated their performance, believing, on average, that they had gotten 7 out of 10 items right, when the actual figure was 0, according to Thomas Schlösser of the University of Cologne in Germany. People who lack the skill to perform well also tend to lack the ability to judge performance (their own or others’); because of this “dual curse,” they fail to recognize how incompetent they truly are. But skills aren’t set in stone: Teaching poor performers to solve logic problems causes them to see their own errors and reduce their previous estimates of their performance.”

Tom and I’ve been going round and round on which is worse — dumb or incompetent? Which is most prevalent; which is the most dangerous?

We’ve come to the conclusion that between consultants, CEOs and development directors in nonprofits it’s pretty much a draw. The flaws are equally distributed.

What do you prefer in your consultants, CEOs and fellow workers? Overconfident? Stupid? Both?

Roger

P.S. Of course I’m over-stating all this for a reason. There’s far too little experienced talent at a time it’s most needed in our sector. This may be the greatest threat to the future of the nonprofit world.

So far we’ve not figured out a way to deal with the shortage of experience and talent. Until we do, poor performance will be the only constant.