about competence: 1 + 1 = 3

1 + 1 = 3

And there is another strange thing about the value of competence: it gets bigger in a team. We know the ultimate money is in the value of what gets DONE. Usually, the things that need to get done that are most valuable, require a whole set of competencies, and a lot of them. Bigger and more complex projects have a premium value over simple and short activities. At work the services you perform for a customer and the projects you do, cannot be handled by only yourself, by only one competent person. A whole team of competent people is needed, with the right mix of competences, and the ability to work together in an optimal way. The value comes not from individual competences, but from the right mix of them, working together.

Especially in the more individualistic west, there is a tendency to claim value of competencies at the individual level and only there. That is a false assumption. The value of what you CAN do (competence) comes from what you are actually going to DO, in the larger TEAM. If we look back at the two hurdles you need to take to transform your competence into money, it doesn't look so good for the individual.
First of all, the individual lacks the ownership of the proper context to thrive in and to ideally translate his competence into performance and value. Secondly, an individual will need superb competences to defend it's share of value capturing at the negotiation table. An individual is not best placed to have an oversight of potential work he could do well in, to tender to get those projects, to assure quality and quantity needed, to pay low transaction costs, to negotiate its individual fee, etc. That alone would eat up a lot of time you could otherwise be doing what you are best at. This is described as the coordination problem. Usually we have firms to group and coordinate people. Internet technologies have shaken the traditional firm model a bit, and some authors have claimed the end of the corporation model in favor of the free agent model. In the free agent model, every knowledge worker is an independent agent rather than an employee linked to a single firm by an (exclusive) labor contract. That model did not materialize and the firm model where a group of people acts as one legal and liable entity (inc.) is still the dominant one. It is also easier for someone to buy a service from a firm, than to coordinate themselves all individuals needed to perform. Bottom line: your competences are easier put to value within a firm than on your own. It is the firm that will gather the project contexts where your competencies can be put into value. It is the firm that will coordinate the team of competent people to fulfill the service at hand. It is the firm that has the negotiation strength to claim as much value from the team effort, and has a fair mechanism to spread that value over all team members. If you cut yourself out of the firm's context, the value of your individual competencies drops because you have cut yourself from the optimal environment to translate them into valuable performance and capture your share of the team created value.

I'm not saying the firm model will always be the dominant one. There are other models, like the free agent model. Artists and cartoonists get their value through the coordination of agencies and syndicates. Doctors and lawyers group themselves in practices led by a 'primus inter pares'. However the coordination works the point is still that the value of our individual competencies grows in a coordinated group.

Key point: there is a social aspect in the value of competencies: they are worth more in team