Defining "Competence" | Competence = Effective Effort × Effort Reproducibility. Any questions? → 10 arrived

I have lived by a meritocratic philosophy for about 10 years. I am Showme, a Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant and a verbalization consultant.

This time, I would like to break down this concept of "competence" a bit further. We often hear that "luck is part of competence," but what else is included? I will define things like how competence influences compensation. This is a must-read for those who want to increase their competence and lead to higher compensation.. Using this mindset, I more than doubled my annual income over the last five years while remaining a salaryman..

■ Equations related to "Competence"

• Compensation from society = Results × Alignment with social expectations

• Results = Competence × Luck

• Competence = Effective Effort × Effort Reproducibility

• Effective Effort = Potential × Amount of Effort × Environmental Alignment × Goal Alignment

• Effort Reproducibility = Opportunity × Challenge Rate

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■ Questions start here

I want to define "competence" by factorizing it. This is to provide a guideline for those who want to increase their competence on where to start strategically. I have come up with the following formula for competence. Also, in defining competence, I have included related formulas before and after it to make it easier to understand what it refers to.

• Compensation from society = Results × Alignment with social expectations

• Results = Competence × Luck

• Competence = Effective Effort × Effort Reproducibility

• Effective Effort = Potential × Amount of Effort × Environmental Alignment × Goal Alignment

• Effort Reproducibility = Opportunity × Challenge Rate

Please ask me questions from the perspective of someone with little professional experience.

■ ChatGPT's questions

■ My Answers

Question 1: Is potential variable? How do you measure it?

Potential is unchanging in the short term. Potential may only fluctuate if there are changes to the elements that form your foundation, such as your body or values. In some cases, potential in athletic ability can be partially estimated from external indicators like physical measurements or strength tests, while in other cases, such as business skills or English proficiency, potential cannot be accurately grasped through external tests. Once you stand on the premise that "potential is unchanging and unmeasurable," you are left with no approach other than to grow other indicators, which allows you to work on improving your ability more constructively.

Question 2: How to create opportunities

Please consider that there are mainly two types of opportunities: those you create yourself and those you happen to get. The expected value is the same for both, but there is a difference in the probability of occurrence and the size of the opportunity. In many cases, opportunities you create yourself have a high probability of occurrence, but the size of the opportunity itself is generally smaller on average. Conversely, those you happen to get have a low probability of occurrence, but the size of the opportunity varies, and can include large ones. The optimal approach is to steadily increase the small opportunities you create yourself while also increasing your challenge rate so that you can capture the large opportunities that appear rarely.

Question 3: Should I change jobs if my environmental fit is low?

If you are suddenly dissecting "environmental fit" without considering other factors, based on the premise that you want to increase your ability, changing jobs might be a premature decision.
When looking at the formula "Effective Effort = Potential × Effort Amount × Environmental Fit × Purpose Fit," please look back and see if all other factors are satisfied. Have you tried measuring your potential using external methods? Is your effort amount sufficient? Does the purpose for which you work align with the direction of your effort? If you ask yourself and find that everything else is sufficient, I think changing jobs to fill in the final piece is the optimal solution.

Question 4: What is purpose fit? When is it misaligned?

It is the degree of alignment between the purpose for which you want to increase your ability and the direction of your effort. If the purpose is not based on someone else's expectations or an extension of your past self, but rather a purpose from the bottom of your heart that you currently want to increase your ability for, and it does not align with the direction of your effort, then that is "forced effort". When you are forced to make an effort, your purpose fit becomes low.

Question 5: Ability = Effective Effort × Effort Reproducibility. Which should be prioritized?

The first thing you should work on is effort reproducibility. This is because you are just challenging the opportunities in front of you. Opportunities can be large or small. If they are small, you will definitely find them. And when the number of challenges increases, the frequency of reproducing effort increases, and effort reproducibility rises. Once effort reproducibility hits a ceiling, it is good to switch to an approach that increases effective effort.

Do you have any other questions?

■ ChatGPT's Questions

■ My Answers

Question 6: How to increase effort amount

You just have to do it. You have no choice but to fire yourself up in one way or another. However, if I had to say, my approach is two-fold.

【1】 Finding your own balance between freedom and compulsion. 【2】 Making plans and progress visible and measuring them with quantitative indicators.
Regarding 1, since there are individual differences in the balance between the part where you control your effort with your own will and the mechanism where you force yourself,

I think it is good to try various things and find that boundary early. Regarding 2, it means visualizing your effort amount using calendars or charts so that you can see your progress (see the end).

Question 7: How to increase challenge rate

You just have to do it. You have no choice but to fire yourself up in one way or another and muster your courage. However, if I had to say, my mindset might be useful. The risk of challenging is "failure," but I believe that people who have failed have saved up that much luck. The number of failures = luck. "Luck" appears in the formula for results, and the only way to control this is to fail a lot. Once a certain amount of failure is accumulated (if you still haven't given up), a moment will come when explosive luck rushes in.

Question 8: How to increase and control alignment with social expectations

Please read this book ↓

First, "reward" in this context does not refer only to money. Being thanked, being recognized, being loved—all the motivations that make you want to work hard and build competence can be rewards. The one who gives you that reward is, at the very least, not yourself. It is someone other than you. What the person who decides on and gives the reward holds is "expectation". Approaches to raise or lower that person's expectations are, of course, effective. But if you do not yet have enough competence to influence that, it is best to start by grasping that person's expectations in detail.

Question 9: If it's decided by luck, my motivation doesn't go up

That is truly the case, and honestly, it is disheartening to see people who have obtained the upper limit of luck. Because there is a wall towering before you that you cannot overcome even with effort. However, as I answered in 7, there is one way to control luck: to fail a mountain of times. Looking at the income distribution and standard of living distribution in Japan, it seems that over 90% of people have average luck from the start, so if the luck at the starting point is almost equal, then it's a matter of failing a lot or increasing the amount of actual effort. It might be good to find your own balance between failure and actual effort.

Question 10: Is there a priority order for improving competence, such as "Reproducibility → Effort Amount → Environment → Purpose → Potential"? Does it differ by person?

The factors you are weak at or have room for growth in differ from person to person. Therefore, the order in which you should tackle them also differs. Simply put, if you just want to increase rewards, you should focus on increasing "results" or "alignment with social expectations" rather than working hard to increase competence, and if you want to increase the amount of actual effort, the first thing you should review is "purpose alignment." Because it is difficult to increase actual effort if you are forced to do something you have no motivation for. In that sense, I hope this formula is useful as a tool for finding your own bottlenecks.

That is all.

ChatGPT plays the role of a quite earnest newcomer, so it was worth answering. If you have questions not listed above, please leave a comment and I will add the answers.

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