I'm observing quite a few diverse levels of 'competence' in personal and work settings. When those levels of competence are not up to the task at hand, it's easy to blame the individuals involved, but that's usually quite unfair. The people's level of commitment, desire to deliver, and work ethic is usually very good.

It seems like instead, things can be broken down into several elements:

• attitude, i.e., how is the person feeling at a particular point about a situation
• beliefs, i.e., what are the person's mental models about how to behave?
• capabilities, i.e. what does the person know in a blooms taxonomy sense
• context, i.e. what is the setting in which the individual finds themselves?

From these, behaviors are derived. Of course, each of these has their own problems - attitudes and beliefs are driven by perceptions of the past, which all too frequently are skewed and inaccurate. Capabilities are based upon what opportunities people have had in the past, and the support and mentoring they had in those situations.