Stop Confusing Compliance With Competence

#2 Psychological Safety for Technical Teams Series

Want to know the fastest way to kill innovation? Reward compliance over competence. It’s like judging a chef’s talent by how well they follow a recipe instead of their ability to create something extraordinary. Sure, they’ll churn out reliable meals – but they’ll never craft the signature dish that puts your restaurant on the map.

This exact mistake is why many technical projects miss breakthrough opportunities.

The Cost of Prioritising "Cultural Fit" Over Talent

Three months ago, I watched a brilliant yet “difficult” engineer lose a promotion to a senior technical lead deemed a “better cultural fit.” Translation: less likely to challenge the status quo. That engineer – now a coaching client – didn’t just lose the promotion. They left, taking their game-changing ideas straight to a competitor.

This isn’t a one-off story. It reminds me of Intel's infamous "Culture of Yes" in the late 2000s. Under Paul Otellini's leadership, Intel rewarded compliance with their desktop computing strategy over competence. Engineers who flagged the mobile opportunity were ignored or managed out. The result? Intel passed on making chips for the iPhone, missing the entire mobile revolution. This preference for compliance cost them billions in lost opportunities and market value.

Every time you reward compliance over competence, you don’t just kill innovation – you teach your entire organisation that mediocrity is the safest career strategy.

Let’s cut to the core. If your team isn’t challenging assumptions, it’s not because they lack ideas – it’s because they don’t feel safe. Margaret Heffernan’s Willful Blindness captures it perfectly: “The more we want to belong to a group, the more we are willing to submit to its rules, even when they contravene our own judgement.”

Google’s Project Aristotle proved it: psychological safety – the belief that it’s safe to take risks and speak up – is the single most important factor in team performance. Teams with this foundation outperform others by 67%, because they’re not afraid to say, “This isn’t working. Let’s try something better.”

Yet, how often do we reward the agreeable over the capable? Silence over substance? High performers are reduced to well-behaved prisoners, and your “team players” become masters of survival – not innovation.

The Leadership Fix: Reward the Right Behaviours

1. Reframe risk. Stop seeing challenges as threats to your authority and start seeing them as opportunities to improve.
2. Reward courage. Publicly acknowledge and celebrate team members who ask tough questions or propose bold solutions – even when it’s inconvenient.
3. Set the tone. Admit when you’re wrong. Ask for feedback. Show your team it’s safe to take risks by taking them yourself.

Take a hard look at your team. Who are you really promoting? The ones who ask tough questions and propose bold solutions – or the ones who keep their heads down? While you’re busy building an army of yes-people, your competition is hiring your best talent and nurturing the next breakthrough.

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