Competencies

As discussed in yesterday'’s post, best practices are the characteristics of superior performing organizations. Our context for best practices @AKL is growth so our research into best practices focused only on those organizations that were industry leaders for sustainable growth.

Within that context, "what does a best practice look like when practiced by individuals?" is the question we are addressing today. The following items represent common definitions and a random search of goggle news on the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence
Four stages of competence
In psychology, the four stages of competence relate to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill:
1. Unconscious incompetence: the individual neither understands or knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit or has a desire to address it.
2. Conscious incompetence: though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, without yet addressing it.
3. Conscious competence: the individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires a great deal of consciousness or concentration.
4. Unconscious competence: the individual has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). He or she can also teach it to others.

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as7scans.htm
Skills and Competencies Needed to Succeed in Today's Workplace
Because the world of work is changing, the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education formed the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to study the kinds of competencies and skills that workers must have to succeed in today's workplace. The results of the study were published in a document entitled What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report for America 2000. A summary of the findings are provided in the tables below

http://www.cs.state.ny.us/successionplanning/workgroups/competencies/
competencies1intro.html
Definition of a Competency
A competency is a characteristic of an employee that contributes to successful job performance and the achievement of organizational results. These include knowledge, skills, and abilities plus other characteristics such as values, motivation, initiative, and self-control.

Why Competencies?
Competencies are a critical tool in workforce and succession planning. At a minimum, they are a means to:
* Identify capabilities, attitudes, and attributes needed to meet current and future staffing needs as organizational priorities and strategies shift, and
* Focus employee development efforts to eliminate the gap between capabilities needed and those available.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/04/15/derek-bok-university
_cx_db_06slate_0418bok.html
The New 'U'
"…tools are already available that can help campuses assess such important competencies as critical thinking, writing, quantitative reasoning and proficiency in foreign languages...universities have not yet become "learning organizations"--at least not in the sense that the term is used in other well-run institutions...

Although we did not start 25 years ago with the goal of identifying competencies for fast growth, we assessed a wide range of public and private organizations as well as across industries when building competency-based training programs, performance management systems, and compensation packages.

We built many models for the individual contributor (individuals without responsibility for others - just themselves) and the leader. When combining all of these models -– we found three common themes for Leader Model:

• Self-Knowledge: This cluster of competencies looks at the basic values, motives, self-concept, and perceived social role of individuals in an organized environment. At its very core is the conflict between organizationally imposed constraints (job description, performance evaluation, compensation, etc.) and the individual with all their idiosyncrasies.
• Problem Solving: This competency cluster focuses on how a leader searches and processes information, solves problems and makes decisions. Considered the most elusive of the three clusters, it has the strongest relationship to leadership and managerial performance. Although the process is not linear, it can be viewed within a logical sequence.
• Relationships: This competency cluster represents how a leader relates with others in the work environment. Although predominately interpersonal and intragroup, this cluster also takes into account how a leader relates to everyone inside and outside the organization. It is how a leader executes their business strategies through others to build corporate value.
  

Using the same process for Individual Contributors, this model trades Problem Solving (still important but not as critical) for Technical Expertise:

• Self-Knowledge: This cluster of competencies looks at the basic values, motives, self-concept, and perceived social role of individuals in an organized environment. At its very core is the conflict between organizationally imposed constraints (job description, performance evaluation, compensation, etc.) and the individual with all their idiosyncrasies.
• Relationships: This competency represents how the individual relates with customers, team members, other internal personnel, and their managers. Unlike the leader model with the emphasis on Problem Solving, this where the individual performs in broad daylight for everyone to see.
• Technical Expertise: This cluster focuses on the technical side of a job, how well the individual performs the specific functions of a job or role within the organization.

What is the importance of reducing the best practices of your business down to the individual level?

If your objectives are to double sales this year or double margin in the next quarter by reducing costs, there must be a clear picture of what must happen. Just focusing on the best practices becomes a daily management problem, most of those measures take a long time to record. In order to manage growth on a day-to-day basis it must be broken down to the individual performer level. What must this person do today, this week, this month to achieve the goal?

Remember you can only manage what you measure, and day to day is about what people are doing now.

Tomorrow: How do I measure organizational, team, and individual performance.