Strategic Incompetence: How to Defend Against It

Strategic incompetence as an expression may not be familiar to many – but pretty much everyone has encountered it more often in life. Or is himself someone who practices them diligently. Because people use strategic incompetence in all the tasks that they are reluctant to do themselves. Countless posts on the subject are collected not only on TikTok – from funny dance videos with a wink to bitterly serious stories from people who suffer from the subject.

Sentences like “Can’t you take care of the child? You’re much better at it” or “Would you like to build up the shelves? I’m just not as talented as you are” say one thing, but mostly mean: “I want that don’t do it, so I’m blaming it on you.” This works fine until the person who keeps doing extra tasks because the others are “just not doing it that well” feels completely burnt out and used up. In this article we have summarized how you can recognize strategic incompetence – and defend yourself against it.

Strategic incompetence – a failure that always succeeds

The Wall Street Journal established the term “strategic incompetence” back in 2007. According to the author, this is not, as the name might suggest, a strategy that fails, but rather “a failure that always succeeds.”

In essence, it is about shifting an unpleasant task onto another person – for different reasons and not necessarily out of malicious intent. Psychologist and behavior therapist Nadine Rheindorf speaks of an automated action in an interview with “Zeit”. “Often it’s just learned behavior that you don’t necessarily reflect on,” says the psychologist.

Strategic incompetence is passive-aggressive behavior

The problem here is rather the passive-aggressive component: It is not communicated that one does not want to do a certain thing – for example washing the dishes – because one simply does not feel like it or is even unsure about it. A vicious circle. “If I’ve never done something before, there’s a high risk that I’ll make mistakes or even fail the first time. To protect yourself from being criticized, it helps not to even try,” said Rheindorf in an interview .

When strategic incompetence becomes a problem

Strategic incompetence – which has a second name in English with “weaponized incompetence” (in German about “targeted incompetence”), can develop into a real relationship problem for both parties.

Nobody believes in Tom anymore, not even himself

The one side that uses this strategy builds up a greater and greater tolerance for its own shortcomings in its environment. “Oh, that’s Tom, he’s just not talented at all with his hands” is no longer a criticism in such an example. Rather, one can speak here of “expectation management”, as used by companies and which “The Guardian” describes as follows: “If you want to have satisfied customers, it is advisable to act in such a way that you satisfy them. It is but just as wise to pay attention to (and at best influence) their criteria for happiness.”

Means: Anyone who consistently applies strategic incompetence will simply no longer be asked by people for certain things. The apartment is incredibly dirty? Shit, Tom is really bad at cleaning, you have to go over it at the end anyway, so I’d rather do it myself. Someone has to look after the kid? The last time Tom was in charge, the kid only ate chips and the apartment was a mess. I prefer to do it myself! And Tom can be happy because nobody expects anything from Tom. But sooner or later this means that Tom no longer expects anything from himself, let alone trusts himself to do anything.

The others just do it themselves – until they can’t do it anymore

The other person doesn’t fare well with this strategy either: they either have a choice of insisting that the avoidant go about the task. But then she has to reckon with the fact that this task will be carried out very sloppily (“Oh, you wanted to have the laundry hung up too?”) or so badly that she has to do it again herself (“What, you wanted me to do every single one tile in the bathroom?”).

Apparently it’s easier to do the task yourself from the start – this saves you discussions and you don’t have to be the “bad guy”: the perfectionist who likes everything the way he likes it and every other kind and way can not accept. Or – to use the gender cliché – the “moaning mother” who does everything better and who nobody can please. It becomes problematic at the latest when you no longer have the strength to do it “quickly yourself”, namely when nothing else is being done than doing your own everyday tasks and those of other people as well.

How to defend yourself against strategic incompetence

It is only logical that in a relationship of any kind the tasks are divided according to strengths and weaknesses. But strategic incompetence isn’t about that—it’s about taking advantage of another person, whether intentional or not. In the worst case, this imbalance can have a negative and irreparable effect on the relationship. Before that, here are a few tips on how to deal with strategic incompetence:

Sources used: wsj.com, zeit.de, theguardian.com, tiktok.com, theeverymom.com

Bridget