Why ARE we Irish so hopeless at tackling people who simply aren’t up to the task?

Des Cahill is wonderful, says our writer, but for all his media skills, he cannot dance. So...

YES, I like Des Cahill. I’ll go even further than that. I really like Des Cahill, and I always have. Years ago, when I was working for the Sunday Tribune, I recall we did a fashion shoot with him (and his children, if I remember correctly). He couldn’t have been more pleasant or accommodating. He was, in essence, a joy to work with. Everyone involved in the project said the same.

Meanwhile, when it comes to his day job, his position as a high-profile sports broadcaster for RTÉ, he is excellent at what he does. I am always disappointed, for example, if, during the 7.40am sports slot on Morning Ireland, it is someone other than Des Cahill reporting on any given morning.

And when you think of last summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, I would challenge anyone to nominate any journalist who worked harder for those weeks. He was reporting at all hours of the day and night, his coverage also crossing into what was, for him, unfamiliar news territory once the Pat Hickey story broke. And Des did a terrific job.

He is always informed, always has some interesting ‘take’ on a story. He’s also self-deprecating, and has a great sense of humour. He is, frankly, a really likeable man.

But he can’t dance. At all.

Painful

I haven’t been glued every single week to Dancing With The Stars. Rather, I have been dipping in and out – until the last couple of weeks when I have watched it from start to finish.

I’d heard, of course, that Des Cahill’s dancing skills left a lot to be desired. So, like lots of other people, since it is a dancing competition after all, I expected that he would be eliminated relatively early. But he wasn’t.

I first caught him in action about three weeks ago. I turned on the television and there he was. I had to sit down.

Des wasn’t dancing. He was walking around the floor with his arms extended, like a waiter in a restaurant unaware he’s not actually carrying any plates.

Then last Sunday I witnessed the whole sorry sight. Des Cahill, in the programme’s Icon Week, ‘dancing’ to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl. It was painful to watch.

So I fully expected him to be in the dance-off and to be eliminated. As he should have been. But he wasn’t. He lives to fight another day and has now made it to week ten of the show, one of only five competitors left standing. I know that DWTS is merely a reality entertainment show, but it is, after all, supposed to be about exhibiting how well you can dance. That’s why the judges are such genuine experts in the art of ballroom dancing. They are there to judge on dancing prowess. And when it comes to those skills, Des Cahill simply doesn’t have them.

But the public vote is keeping him in play, week after week. That the talented Dayl Cronin should have faced a danceoff last Sunday while Des was pronounced safe for another week was patently ridiculous.

But Des Cahill is a nice man. People like him. So what’s the issue then, if he can’t dance, if he’s not doing the ‘job’ he was tasked with?

Well, likeability is a wonderful thing. We all want to be liked. And we also like to like other people. It’s something to do with how we view ourselves. And there’s nothing wrong with that – up to a point.

But likeability isn’t enough. And often, it’s actually counter-productive.

Ability

You can be the nicest person on the planet and still be lacking when it comes to your job. And in all walks of life, it is the ability to do the job that should be paramount, whether you are a teacher, a garda, a secretary, a consultant surgeon, a shop worker or a government minister.

A friend once told me that someone she knew was having treatment for cancer. She had just had her first meeting with her oncologist and suffice to say that she wasn’t very impressed by his demeanour.

‘He wasn’t very pleasant,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t interested in me. All he was interested in was my tumour.’

But that, my friend told her, was brilliant. ‘You don’t want to be his best friend,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to like him. You simply have to trust his judgment and his expertise. He doesn’t have to be a nice man. All that matters is that he is good at his job. He should only be interested in your tumour. Your life depends on that, not his ability to talk to you about your children or his favourite restaurants.’

She was right, of course. And yet, what her friend was most concerned about was that her oncologist wasn’t a particularly likeable human being.

It’s a little snapshot of how we are, and how we think.

The problem, however, is that when someone does tick the likeability box, we are reluctant to question their ability or authority, or to hold them to account when something goes wrong. Instead, when the job isn’t done properly, when they fall down in their duty, we make excuses for them.

And so bad systems continue to operate, problems are left unsolved, and, at the worst end of the spectrum, people’s lives are endangered, damaged or destroyed.

Tragedy

Take ‘Grace’, for example. That a young, already disadvantaged woman would be left in a place of danger for a further 13 years after alarm bells started to ring about what was going on in her foster home is patently outrageous – and a genuine tragedy for ‘Grace’.

For what additional damage was done in those years? What agonies was ‘Grace’ put through because someone, somewhere, didn’t do their job?

It is highly likely that those responsible for this dereliction of duty were genuinely nice people. Everybody liked them. Nobody wanted to see them upset, questioned, or disciplined over such a lapse.

But the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter how likeable they were. They didn’t do their job. And a vulnerable young woman suffered a huge ongoing trauma as a result.

Indeed, how many times have we heard of people making gross errors of judgment in the workplace, only to be moved ‘sideways’, but still paid a full salary with a handsome pension plan left in place, simply because people don’t want to confront the uncomfortable truth?

Whether Des Cahill gets voted off this Sunday, or makes it through to the final dance off in a few weeks’ time, is irrelevant. It’s only take-it-or-leave-it Sunday night viewing.

But Des Cahill’s unwarranted success in Dancing With The Stars is indicative of a wider societal malaise.

Whether the amiable RTÉ man knows the difference between a foxtrot and a quickstep really doesn’t matter.

But when that likeability factor, that ‘sure, he’s a great fella’ syndrome keeps people in jobs where their negligence could be catastrophic, then clearly it does.