The Three Elements to Success

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Many people complain about being held down by various prejudices. No one is held down by prejudice. In reality, there are only three skills  necessary to advance in any endeavor. If you have those three skills, you will advance. If you do not, you will not.

1) Competence in the task at hand.
2) The ability to create in others the impression of your competence in the task,
3) The ability to maintain in others the impression of your competence in the task.

To advance, all three must be accomplished. There are no other criteria.

Notice, the first piece is the only piece that doesn't necessarily require social skills. But, notice also that the first piece, by itself, is not sufficient to advance your career. If you are competent, but unable to either create or maintain in others an impression of competence, you will not advance. Many people are technically competent in an area, but do not possess, or are not interested in acquiring, the social skills necessary to excel in the other two tasks. Insofar as they do not, they will not advance.

Now, if you are not competent, but you are good at creating the impression of competence, you will achieve temporary success. But, if you cannot maintain that impression of competence, you won't advance far. Indeed, people who are only good at the second piece have a very specific name: they are confidence men, con men. They aren't actually competent, nor can they maintain the impression of competence for very long, but they are excellent at creating the impression of competence.

Of course, some would reply, it is possible to advance without having any apparent skills at all. Politicians such as Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama are frequently brought forth as examples. But, this is only a misunderstanding of what the job of politics requires. Any job that is built entirely around social skills, as politics is, combines the first principle with the last two.

Just as it is a Napoleonic actor's job to create the impression that the actor is truly Napoleon, so it is the politician's job to create the impression that s/he is competent in some area. That is, the only skill set required is the skill to create and maintain a specific impression in the minds of the hearer. The job requires competence in maintaining the impression: that is the competency they bring to the table. THAT is the task at hand.  Politics is theater. Many jobs in many companies and/or roles do not require a skill set above that of any competent actor. We may grouse that X got and keeps his job because s/he is the company president's child, and that is certainly often true, but that child keeps the job because the job requirements are being met: the job was created for, and is maintained for, the company president's son.

Similarly, the children of famous politician's get and keep high-paying jobs because - no matter what the job title may say - their job is to maintain a good relationship with someone in power, bring in clients based on the parents' influence, etc. As long as that competence holds, they will stay employed, and at a much higher salary than you or I. We can't create or maintain the impression that we are close to someone who wields levers of power. They can.

So, when you hear a woman throwing a femper tantrum (feminist whining about how they aren't advancing in their career because The Man is holding them down), what you are really listening to is the whine of someone incompetent in at least one of those three skills. The same is true when you hear the cry of "Nepotism!", "Racism!", "Sexism!", "The company doesn't appreciate me!" or anything similar. It is the cry of someone who lacks skill in one of the three areas above.