Power Game Conflicts With Competence

I got the impression that PowerGameConflictsWithCompetence. By PowerGame, I mean striving for power, getting to the "top" by overpowering others, NeverApologize, always being right. By competence, I mean scientific or intellectual competence in a broad sense.

It seems as if most people have only brain power for one of these paths (or to divide it between these too conflicting goals).

Playing the PowerGame is demanding: You have to continually watch out for your opponents' errors, know them well, predict them, outmaneuver them, remember all your lies... It's a complex social game. Becoming competent in any intellectual area like science is as demanding, so you have to choose.

This could be the reason for the PeterPrinciple and the general impression, that competence seems to lack the further up you go in management or politics. Or am I missing something?

Obviously, the management types are competent at power games almost by definition, otherwise they would not get into managerial positions. Please note that there's more than one way to play power games successfully in a corporate bureaucracy. It is a general perception amongst geeks that their man-management lacks technical competence, but the perception may be misguided by their geeky bias. Managers in general don't need extensive technical competence. Sometimes, however, the most dangerous managerial type is the "I was once a developer" type who has some pretension of competence (UnskilledAndUnawareOfIt). KrisJohnson wrote quite a few pages on this subject.

If one describes "Power Games" as "Giving the constant impression of superiority", then I would suggest that developers are equally as guilty as managers (in general terms regarding both categories). I have often seen the case where a developer who has enjoyed early success feel compelled to maintain an aura of knowledge in all things. At this point, the individual loses the capability to hear ideas from others and cannot acknowledge their contributions for fear of undermining his own standing among his peers. Competence relies on constantly learning from others; Power Games rely on constantly trying to teach others.

CategoryManagement