It pays to be Ignorant

Intelligence is a conscious form of common sense. – Werner van Tonder

Incompetence is capacious!  They appear on the radio, on the TV and we might even see them in our daily lives. I am referring to the ceo’s, directors and managers of today. In fear of stereotyping let me narrow the target group down.

Upon an interview on the radio, a certain CEO of a large corporation struggled to string two sentences together without either saying “ehhh” or stumbling over his own words while trying to think of the next word to place in the sentence. Another manager might always be on a permanent holiday not knowing what is happening in his department. While the staff works hard keeping the machine well oiled.

I always get amazed at how some people get to the top by selling their mouths. I know a lot of people that can do the job allot better than their superiors but yet somehow they always end up being the work horse. There is a logical selfish explanation for this. The people in most cases that are more capable of performing the tasks are kept at a grassroots or mid level because they do the actual work. Without them, the top will surely come crashing down?

I get irritated when I see a fat cat earning a big salary, and his I.Q. is smaller than his shoe size, and it makes me wonder just how hard you have to work to get there when the ignorant did it without breaking a sweat. I call these people the unobservant ignorant because they are actually unaware of their incompetent state.

Let me give you this example without sounding prejudice. A person gets the post of MD or Directorship because the company need to become compliant to the affirmative action laws in place. The only qualification needed is skin colour. How can this be an informed and intelligent decision in a business world? Or the person gets transferred from a division that was closed but because of the salary he/she earned, they have to place her as a manager in another totally different division, even though that person does not have any skills in that field. All the deadwood drifting on the top is what I call career killers. They stunt the growth potential of an organisation by demoralising the actual intellectual workers by not rewarding the right people for hard work.

Unfortunately this epidemic is a global threat to all companies and it is difficult to rid the organisations of this disease. I inspire to not let this get to me. I used to be the victim of a career killer and it affected me both at work and at home. It created a sense of being not worthy and not good enough. I was even told by my superiors at one stage that because of my lack of tertiary education, I will never earn a decent salary without working for peanuts at least for 10 years. I have proved them wrong because its not where or what you studied but your determination to learn and grow.

Money can’t buy you intelligence but intelligence can earn you money! – Werner van Tonder

No matter who you are, do not let anyone ever push you down and keep you from where you want to be. If you work hard enough and do it with passion, then you can achieve it.

The set rules of dictated by population is certainly not the recipe for success. Only by doing the extraordinary will you get to extraordinary heights.