The Three Enemies of Positive Outcomes
Things fail for a reason. It's usually one of these.
If your team, project, or relationship is off-track, start here.
Most things don’t fail for complicated reasons. It’s usually one of these three.
The enemies of positive outcomes are evil, apathy, and incompetence. That’s the whole list.
Evil is the easiest to spot.
Malicious intent corrodes trust, poisons collaboration, and prioritizes short-term wins over long-term good. But evil is rare.
Most people aren’t trying to cause harm. They’re just checked out or in over their heads.
Apathy is quieter.
It doesn’t announce itself. It shows up as a shrug.
It’s the coworker who doesn’t follow up, the friend who disappears, the teammate who lets others carry the load. Apathy kills outcomes by starving them of attention.
You can’t build good work, strong relationships, or real progress if nobody cares.
Incompetence, on the other hand, is about capability.
You can care a lot and still cause damage if you don’t have the skills, judgment, or self-awareness to do the job. That’s the catch: everyone starts out unqualified.
The problem isn’t being new. It’s refusing to get better.
In any system, your job, your friend group, your family, positive outcomes depend on three things: good intentions, consistent effort, and enough skill to match the stakes.
When one of those fails, things start to wobble. When all three are missing, the whole thing tends to collapse.
This is a simple framework, but it’s useful.
When something’s going wrong, don’t overthink it.
Start by asking: is it malice, apathy, or incompetence?
And what would it take to fix that?