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Industrious Incompetence
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Proverbs 19:2 Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who moves too hurriedly misses the way.
Listen to the radio broadcast of Industrious Incompetence
Download audio fileThere’s only one thing worse than incompetence. And that’s industrious incompetence. Someone who works hard, who throws all their energy into something, and does it badly.
Yep, industrious incompetence is much worse, much more damaging, than just straight incompetence.
Back in my military days, I worked in a large logistics headquarters. There were over a thousand military and civilian personnel there, responsible for purchasing everything from tanks and missiles, through to pens and toilet paper. And there was this one particular major who was, by far, the hardest working, most prolific producer of reports and paperwork that I have ever met in my life.
You couldn’t fault him for his work ethic. The problem was he was a fool. I don’t use that term lightly. He continually strayed into areas where he simply didn’t have the knowledge, without even understanding that. And because of his lack of knowledge, and his lack of recognition of the fact that he didn’t know things, he just consistently made a mess of things.
I mean, he would send out memos, letters, reports, that caused so many people so much work, because the stuff was just wrong!
I remember one wise, experienced senior officer looking at this guy through a glass partition in the office one day, watching this fool race around just messing everything up, and the senior officer said something that I would never forget:
The only thing worse than incompetence, is industrious incompetence.
Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who moves too hurriedly misses the way. (Proverbs 19:2)
There it is, desire without knowledge. Industrious incompetence – it’s even in the Bible! Can you believe it?!
It’s easy for us to pretend that we know something about things that, actually, we know little or nothing about – probably because we don’t want to show our ignorance. So we pretend we know.
These days, years on, I have a head of grey hair that I didn’t have back then. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in growing up, is that – even more important than the things I know – is recognising the things I don’t know.
And the exciting thing about that, the liberating thing about that, is getting to rely on other people, people who do know stuff that we don’t, people who have abilities and talents that we will never have.
Come on, how easy is it for us to rush headlong into something that we don’t really understand – we think we know it all – throw all our energies into it … and make a hash of it?
Remember that term: industrious incompetence. There’s nothing worse. Because desire without knowledge is not a good thing!
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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