The Competence Hierarchy
The author competently finds the white room at CMH Revelstoke Guides Training, 2008. Photo by Angela Hawse, IFGMA Guide and President of the American Mountain Guides Association.
Primates who live in groups create hierarchies. These hierarchies form the structure of our societies and are genetically embedded in our behavior as a species. Historically, human hierarchies have used physical, emotional, or ancestral means to exert dominance over their peers. Only recently have we witnessed the emergence of hierarchies based on competence.
Mountain Guiding is an excellent example of a modern competence hierarchy. Among alpinists, IFMGA Guides represent the pinnacle of success. No amount of political, financial or religious influence can earn someone an international certification. Instead, certified Mountain Guides must demonstrate competence in skiing, rock climbing and mountaineering through years of rigorous training and testing by their credentialed peers.
While an upbringing in a mountainous region and an abundance of local mentors can be helpful to a Guide early in her career, ancestry alone cannot create a successful Mountain Guide. Likewise, every Guide I know has experienced their fair share of near misses, any one of which could have ended their career or their life. But luck and timing can’t make you a Guide. Even those with the physical skills to be great skiers and climbers will never earn a Pin without the education, experience and desire to be an IFMGA Guide – they must achieve competence to stand atop this hierarchy.
To thrive and endure, successful competence hierarchies embrace diversity and inclusion. It’s not a moral imperative but a practical one: competence hierarchies must find and support the largest pool of candidates possible to ensure that the very best individuals rise to become their leaders.
Among member countries of the IFGMA, the AMGA has done an excellent job of cultivating and expanding its pool of candidate guides. Of the 138 internationally certified AMGA guides so far in the US, 11 are women, a larger percentage than any other Guides organization in the world.
My friend Angela Hawse, the AMGA’s President, is a world-class Mountain Guide who exemplifies the spirit and skills of this competence hierarchy. Angela has led the AMGA’s efforts to expand its candidate pool through an increased emphasis on diversity and inclusion, and all of us in the AMGA are proud of this continuing effort and its results.
Venture Capital is also a competence hierarchy, although a less perfect example than mountain guiding because the stakes are so low. In guiding, incompetence can cost you or your clients their lives; the worst thing that happens in venture capital is that you lose someone else’s money.
Most VCs were born on third base, and many have achieved success through family connections or luck rather than competence. While real investment talent wins over a long period of time, the venture capital industry so far has been successful without a set of transparent standards or metrics that select for competence among its members.
As a result, the VC business has been slow to broaden its candidate pool. However, there’s been a welcome change over the last few years as more brand-name funds have put real resources behind inclusion and diversity among their aspirant venture capitalists. That’s a good thing if we hope for the venture capital industry to persist as a competence hierarchy. Otherwise, VC investors will be automated out of existence in the future by an AI that can make better investment decisions.
Mountain Guides are in no such danger.