Learned Incompetence

Want to stop being annoyed by the repeated reminders from your People people? Then stop practicing learned incompetence.

It’s a Spicy 🌶️ Friday post!

A few weeks ago I was explaining the concept of “learned incompetence” to my husband … and to be clear, it had nothing to do with him.

In this instance, I was explaining it in regards to the number of times that people in a work environment have to be reminded to do something, usually an HR/People-related something.

Complete performance reviews.
Do merit planning.
Take an engagement survey.
Respond to a 360.
Elect benefits. (This one always makes my mind wobble.)

A few weeks ago I wrote about how procrastination is a protest reaction, and that’s true. But I think there is something else at play here.

Learned incompetence.

Learned incompetence is when someone develops a dependency on others for tasks they’re fully capable of doing themselves. It’s not that they can’t — it’s that they’ve learned they don’t have to.

In the case of these People-related tasks, employees learn that they don’t have to take responsibility because they’ll keep getting reminded (and reminded and reminded) and even if they mess up and don’t do it, HR will probably fix it for them. Sure, we’ll do your benefits on the back end. Ok, I’ll submit merit planning for you.

Employees complain about the reminders. But they rely on them.

HR people, we’re not off the hook here. More often than not, we WILL fix it because we care about people and don’t want them to be negatively impacted. We might also not be doing a great job communicating the importance of what we’re asking people to do.

So yes, HR contributes to learned incompetence.

And it’s our responsibility to stop enabling it.

Ponder this: What might happen if you only sent one reminder?

People need to take responsibility for their own experience. At some point, the repeated reminders and last-minute fixes remove that obligation.

So to everyone who wants to complain about the reminders you’re getting from HR: stop and ask yourself what you’d do without them. The reminders AND HR.

And then just do the thing they’re asking you to do.

Amusingly, not five minutes after I explained learned incompetence to my husband, he asked me how to spell “doxycycline.” My point was made.

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