How to avoid the 3 “I”s: being Incompetent, Irrelevant, and Immaterial

Published in the Kankakee Daily Journal Wednesday, February 22, 2003

by Dr. Don Daake, Ph.D.

Incompetent, Irrelevant, and Immaterial!  Anyone who grew up watching the Perry Mason Show, or has ever watched the reruns over the subsequent 65 years, will recognize the phrase.  While not created by the Mason Show, the program undoubtedly made it famous.  Most often used by the beleaguered District Attorney Hamilton Burger, who, along with the troll-like Lieutenant Tragg, could not win against Mr. Mason.  (Well he did win 2-3 out of 271 cases.) I have a theory that many of the baby boomers who went on to become lawyers were influenced by the compelling cases that Perry won.

These days there seems to be a lot of incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial babble, especially in the political arena.  (A topic for a future column.) But if we aren’t careful, we can all fall victim to this problem.

A couple of interesting side notes about the show.  Barbara Hale (who lived to age 94), played Della Street, was a brilliant and beautiful woman, and no doubt many of you, like me, had a crush on her.  With his raspy voice, D.A. William Tallman was a lifelong smoker who, shortly before he died of lung cancer, made an antismoking public service announcement for the American Cancer Society.  He was a lifelong heavy smoker. He knew he was dying when he filmed the commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmjRkpge-jk

Today, no matter your political preferences, we see those in charge of governing us daily, who are guilty of being incompetent, irrelevant in their actions, and having little to no substance.  On the other hand, most of our public servants work hard and serve us well.  I will return to this in a future column, but today I want to address us as individuals at work or in other groups.

While the “3 I’s” have specific, legal meanings, I want to broaden the idea and lay out some guidelines on how to avoid these faults and become competent, relevant, and a person of material or substance.

Moving from incompetence to competence.  We all have experience interacting with incompetence almost on a daily level.  Incompetence, as I’m using it here, aligns with the Oxford Dictionary definition of “inability to do something successfully; ineptitude”  One common reason we see this today in the work environment is nepotism in hiring friends and relatives who have little to no skill levels to meet their responsibility.  Another related issue is the famous Peter Principle.  According to Investopedia, “The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence.”

To be perfectly honest, even the best people will initially feel a little uneasy and even incompetent in their jobs.  The difference between those who go on to become highly competent and those who don’t is the former realize it.  They get training, seek out mentors, and display a sense of humility that allows them to grow.  Have you ever noticed, though, the most incompetent people are the ones who are arrogant, have no sense of others, and are like bulls in a china shop?  It is also true that certain people should never be hired (or elected) at all because they don’t have the underlying skills or aptitude to be successful and never will.

Can irrelevance be fixed?  This time let me quote the Cambridge Dictionary. Irrelevance means “not related to what is being discussed or considered and therefore not important.”

Diversity of thought is almost always helpful.  A broad perspective with dissenting views is necessary to reach a good decision.  But we have all sat in meetings where someone goes off on a tangent unrelated to the issue.  I’ll admit I have been guilty of that occasionally during my long career.  But I continue to work at that.  The problem is that these tangents distract us from solving pressing problems and wastes the time of others.

A few years ago, at a meeting where we were hammering out solutions to some crucial issues, the issue of people leaving on the coffee pot overnight and that practice leaving an awful burnt coffee residual came up out of the blue.  We must have spent 10-15 minutes on that.  Rather than designating a person to solve that (and, of course, there are low-cost Mr. Coffees with a two-hour turn-off chip built-in), we went on and on.

One of my best bosses at Eastern Iowa Community College had a terrific solution that kept us on track.  He had two essential rules.  All agenda items must be published 2-3 days before the meeting.  Too often, in many organizations, the agenda is passed out at the beginning of a meeting, leading to an irrelevant unfocused discussion.  Secondly, each issue was given a designated time for discussion.  These two rules together help create focus, timeliness, and relevance.

From immaterial to material or substantive discussions.  Back to Oxford.  Immaterial means “Unimportant under the circumstances; irrelevant.” As you can see, immaterial and irrelevant are highly related.  Again it is important to let people have their voice in a discussion.

Widely attributed to Barnard Baruch but also used by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the phrase “People are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts has often been repeated.  In some conversations, intentionally or from ignorance, immaterial, unrelated, not substantive information is put forward.  So whether you are in a group meeting, writing memos, or just talking, make sure your facts are well cited and have something to do with the current discussion.  Remember, in many situations, there is an inverse relationship between the amount someone speaks and the relevance, substance, and materiality of what they have to say.

With work and effort, you can develop the reputation of being competent, relevant, and providing material facts.  Not even Hamilton Burger could object to that.

Don Daake, BS, MBA, Ph.D., holds degrees from Kansas State University, the University of Iowa, and Florida State University.  He is a Professor Emeritus at Olivet.  He has published numerous peer-reviewed Journal articles, several book chapters, and over 30 professional conference papers.  He can be contacted directly at ddaake@olivet.edu

Ground Hog Day, Chaos Theory, and Protecting yourself from Catastrophic Risks

This week I’m going in a very different direction.  The column starts out relatively light-hearted but leads to a serious issue that can have for life and death consequences.

Punxsutawney Phil was once again up to his old tricks this past week.  His forecasts are about as accurate and laughable as throwing darts blind folded.  But it is good fun.  Chances are most of you have seen the 1993 award-winning movie “Ground Hog Day.” It features Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.  Incidentally, the film was not filmed in Punxsutawney, Pa, but rather in the town square of the Chicago suburb of Woodstock.  Like many people who every year at Christmas time watch “A Christmas Story,” “Ground Hog Day” has become a similar perennial favorite on February 2^nd.

As it turns out, Phil (Bill Murry) gets caught in a time warp where he keeps repeating Ground Hog Day over and over again (38 times in all.)  Eventually, Murray figures out the bizarre space he is trapped in.  He also learns he can cumulatively remember what happened the previous day.  He also realizes he can do anything, including jumping off a building, kidnapping the groundhog and driving off a cliff, stepping in front of a truck, and survive to wake up to yet another Ground Hog Day hearing Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve Got You, Babe.” 

After utilizing this peculiar time trap for devious and mean purposes, he starts using it for growing up, maturing, and helping others.  At this point, he is freed from the time trap.  Good fun and lots of laughs but this is not life at all.  There are many cases where you don’t get another chance.

I’m leading to a somber topic, but before I go there, I must also share a little about chaos theory.  From the Oxford dictionary, chaos theory is “The branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences.”

If you have driven long enough, most of us are involved in auto accidents.  Hopefully, they are minor fender benders, but many of you have been involved in more severe collisions. 

Fortunately, in driving over a million miles during my lifetime, the accidents I’ve been involved in have ranged from minor to moderate in nature.  But one of the first things I always think is, “If I had had one more cup of coffee or maybe one less cup, I would not have been at the intersection or stretch of road at that moment.” I am confident that you may have had the same thoughts.  

Chaos theory helps to explain this phenomenon.  Still, we ask why.  In worst-case scenarios, people naturally question, “Why would God let that happen.” That being said, we fail to consider all the times something did not happen.  Whether you think life is purely random, believe in guardian angels, or share my view in Providential mercy, during our lifetimes’ hundreds if not thousands of things did not happen that could have!

Regardless bad things happen to good people, but there are some things we can do to give ourselves a much better chance of surviving.  At work, wear safety equipment, slow down on snowy highways, and refrain from texting.

Next, I will focus on two recent tragic stories in my new state of Iowa that resulted in the deaths of several people, because of failing to wear safety belts.

After over 50 years of evidence on wearing seat belts, about 10% of drivers still fail to do so.  In 2022 some 15,000 lives were saved by seat belts, but an alarming 51% of people killed in accidents were not wearing them or not in proper childhood restraints.  Across the years living in Kankakee County, I recall countless deaths because of failure to do the right thing.  This is on my mind this week because these two tragic accidents, I will summarize below, probably all 5 lives lost could have been saved.

KCRG TV of Cedar Rapids summarizes the first one. “State officials have named the four people killed in a single-vehicle crash in Grundy County on Friday.  “According to the Iowa State Patrol, [persons] age 22, 4, 2, and 1, were killed in the crash.  9 other people were injured.  Troopers believe that the van lost control, entering the median and rolling.  Four people inside the van were ejected from it during the crash.  Troopers believe that nobody  killed in the incident was wearing a seatbelt or using a child’s car seat at the time of the crash.”

What a great tragedy!  Perhaps the van was overcrowded, and seat belts or restraints were unavailable, but these were senseless deaths.

In a more personal case for us, a 44 year old man, the son of some very close friends, was driving on a rural gravel road at about 8 pm in early February.  The roads were slick.  Whether he was driving too fast is unknown.  But his Ford F350 truck slipped off the road into a deep ditch and hit a creek bank.  He was partially ejected from the truck, and the truck rollover on him.  This happened less than two miles from his home.  Even though there was a farm home just across the road, the snow was so deep that he was not discovered until the following day at 2:30 p.m.  This relatively young man was an ambitious entrepreneur whose life was needlessly cut short.

My message to all of this whether you are a driver, passenger, employer, or employee never ever pull out of your driveway without buckling up.  Employers must make this absolutely mandatory on company time.  If you don’t have enough seat belts to buckle everyone, don’t take them; if your seat belt is broken, get it fixed; if you won’t wear one, cut up your license and don’t drive at all.

Parents and grandparents- set the example but also reinforce this message verbally. Consider clipping this column out and sharing it with your loved ones.

“Teaching the world to be careful is a constructive service worthy of God’s great gift of life to man.”– U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harold H. Burton (1946)

Don Daake, BS, MBA, Ph.D., holds degrees from Kansas State University, the University of Iowa, and Florida State University.  He is a Professor Emeritus at Olivet.  He now lives in the Cedar Rapids/ Iowa City area but frequently is back in Kankakee County.  He can be contacted directly at ddaake@olivet.edu