In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.
Collaborative governance needs to be more than calling on the advice and competence of others to make up for our episcopal shortcomings. Rather, governance involves seeking how God is revealing his work through others in the community.
Training programs shouldn't be designed to deliver competence; they must be dedicated to producing excellence. Serious organizations don't aspire to be comfortably above average.
Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and belief. A water diviner is a professional. A traditional midwife is a professional. A traditional bone setter is a professional. These are professionals all over the world. You find them in any inaccessible village around the world.
They are very brave when they talk about other countries where they have no competencies, but where are they when we citizens need them? Is Europe's solution to Catalans to turn its back?
People may not know what tier of government has competence over which policy area but they do draw a distinction between the local and the national.
The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.
You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to.
Every defendant knows, if endowed with the mental competence for criminal responsibility, that the life he will take by his homicidal behavior is that of a unique person, like himself, and that the person to be killed probably has close associates, 'survivors,' who will suffer harms and deprivations from the victim's death.
One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity.
