Competence is what matters

更新时间:2023-05-30 01:59:54 阅读：评论：0

ompetency modeling is a process of defining the skills, knowledge, and attrib-utes that performers need to be successful (Dubois, 2002). During the last 30years many organizations have ud competency modeling as the basis of train-ing, development, and human resource management (Marrelli, 1998; Dubois,

2002). The stated purpo of competency modeling is to define the skills, knowledge, and attributes that make certain people successful, and then to hire other people who have tho qualities or develop people so they do, often replacing or reassigning tho who rate lowest on the defined competencies (Smart, 1999). The rationale is that once everyone is hired, developed, and trained to posss key competencies (or eliminated if they do not),then overall performance and ultimately the bottom line will improve. But how do we know if the competencies correlated with individual success are both necessary and suffi-cient for improving organizational success and the bottom line? What’s missing in this approach is a concrete and verifiable link to what really matters: the individual outputs or accomplishments that lead to achievement of organizational goals.

Competencies may enable people to achieve success, but do not ensure it. Consider the u of tests b

ad on competencies or needed skills and knowledge. Often people who pass such tests are less than successful on the job (Hale, 2000).This discrepancy may be due to the fact that while test scores might reflect attainment of competencies, they do not asss the actual job performance requirements—what people actually have to do

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and produce to be successful on the job (Hale, 2000). Does this mean that competencies are not important? No, athough there is a missing link between competencies and busi-ness goals. We think that missing link is competence.

Thomas Gilbert defined competence as the “function of worthy performance, which is a function of the ratio of valuable accomplishments to costly behavior” (1996, p. 18).Worthy behavior is defined as behavior producing accomplishments that generate more value than they cost the company to produce. In short, we define competence as achievement of results that contribute to business goals . A competence model, there-fore, is an organized framework that identifies the t of accomplishments a performer must produce to achieve his or her job’s mission and the business goals associated with it, plus the critical behavior needed to produce tho accomplishments.

by Tina M. Teodorescu, CPT, and Carl Binder, PhD, CPT

Getting totheBottomLine

Competence IsWhat Matters

杨姓

Success comes from competence. Competence cannot be measured by attainment of skills and knowledge, by a sim-ple test, or by any sort of survey or rating scale. Instead, competence is measured by accomplishment of results that contribute to organizational success. In this article we pre-nt a methodology for developing competence models that help organizations tie individual performance to the bottom line through specific individual and group accomplish-ments; we also provide a foundation for building, support-ing, and maintaining desired competence levels. Problems and Pitfalls of

Traditional Competency Modeling

卫生城市Many performance improvement consultants have identi-fied problems with competency models over the years (Esque and Gilbert, 1995; Marrelli, 1998; Thomas, 2000; Langdon and Marrelli, 2002). Some of the problems include:•Competency models are bad on behaviors, not accom-plishments.Competencies are behaviors or (more often) abstract categories of behavior. But even combinations of skillful behavior that reflect a variety of competencies might occur without generatin

g any valuable accomplish-ments.Salespeople, for example, might be able to exhibit different types of behavior learned in sales training yet fail to produce desired sales outcomes. On the other hand, by specifying business results (e.g., repeat busi-ness) and key accomplishments required to produce them弊绝风清

(e.g., satisfied customers, retained customers), we create a

much clearer path for trainers, managers, and sales repre-ntatives themlves to contribute to the bottom line.

There are literally dozens of behaviors and competencies required for the achievement of key accomplishments that, by themlves, will never lead to the desired busi-ness result of repeat business. By clarifying desired accomplishments, however, it is possible to put together the right combinations of behavior to produce results. •There is often disagreement about the process and the terms ud to define competencies(Marrelli, 1998).

There is huge variation in how com-

petency modelers work to define com-

petencies and link tho competencies to

individual and organizational perfor-

mance. Some developers simply

lect competency names and defini-

tions from lists to create their models,

while others conduct extensive field

rearch to identify behavior that

“illustrates” the competencies. One

model might define a given compe-

tency differently than another, u a

different analysis process, or link dif-

ferent competencies to different suc-

cess factors. In Langdon and Marrelli’s

words, “Identifying job competencies has traditionally ud more art than science” (2002, p. 16). •Competencies are often broadly defined, ambiguous, and subjective. Rarely are they specific or measurable.

Examples of commonly ud competencies include: good communicator, business acumen, action oriented, approachable, pragmatic, creative, and a team player. The resulting problems of analysis and application are numer-ous. One obvious difficulty is that such competencies are open to wide interpretation, which can lead to confusing variability in evaluation and performance. Competency modelers have attempted to solve this problem by adding behavioral indicators to each competency. Behavioral indi-cators do provide more description of what a competency “means,” however, the focus is still on behavior instead of business results or individual accomplishments required.

In addition, behavioral indicators are often written as sub-jective, non-measurable descriptions of desirable behavior instead of objective measurable results required. An exam-ple of a behavioral indicator for the competency entrepre-neurship taken from an actual competency model is:“applies i

喝玫瑰花茶nitiative and drive to find and exploit potential sales opportunities.” Such variability in interpretation lays

a weak and uncertain foundation for managing perfor-

mance, measurement, feedback, and compensation. How can management successfully measure, develop, and pro-vide incentives on something that is an interpretation of behavior, not objective or measurable? And how do per-formers know what they really have to do to be successful?

A Different Approach

How Behavior Generates Business Results

From eating and sleeping to planning, prenting, meeting, deciding, and writing—behavior occurs constantly. Organizations spend significant portions of their financial and human resources developing and supporting the right behav-ior and discouraging the wrong behavior. They do this by

Figure 1.Process of Achieving Business Results.

investing in things that influence behavior. Gilbert’s (1996) obrvation that behavior by itlf is not valuable is an impor-tant consideration to keep in mind. It is only when behavior components link together to generate accomplishments, which link together to create business results, that behavior actually becomes valuable. As Esque and Gilbert (1995) said,“organizations are primarily interested i

n behavior or activi-ties that have value—that are worthy. The only way to tell if activities are worthy is to look at the outputs that result from them”. Figure 1, on page 9, reprents the process of achiev-ing business results that shows the relationship between behavioral influences, tasks, outputs, and business results.

Traditional Approach

In the traditional approach of generating business results through performance improvement, most companies start in the middle by trying to replicate desirable behavior through means such as training, goal tting, performance support systems, slogans, incentives, coaching, etc. This approach assumes that the behavior that they are replicating will lead to the right accomplishments, which will lead to the right business results. In the abnce of careful obrvation and analysis, this assumption is as likely to be faulty as not. Our Approach

白羊座的女明星A better approach is to work backwards—with the end in mind. That is, generate business results through incread competence. We start with business results the organization wants to achieve. We work backward to understand what accomplishments and behavior or tasks lead to the achieve-ment of desired business results. With this information it is straightforward to design the right(most c

ost-effective) behavior influences to create, support, and maintain the behavior that produces the accomplishments necessary to achieve the organization’s desired business results. Components of a Competence Model

Figure 2 shows the process for building a competence model, including inputs, process, outputs, and applications. The descriptions and definitions of the stages in the process are described below.

•Organizational Goals: The financial, customer, internal, and growth aims of an organization—what the organiza-tion wants to accomplish. The strategy is how the man-agement of the organization plans to accomplish its goals.•Mission: The purpo of a particular job or function—the ultimate product or rvice that results from this job and how this product or rvice contributes to the goals of the organization. In defining the mission of the job, one needs to ask and answer the following questions: Why does the job exist within the organization and how does it help management achieve organizational goals—esntially what is its function in the organization? For example, the mission of a computer game developer is to develop as many of the most successful computer games possible.

•Key Accomplishments: Individual performance within a job function, including the work process fo

llowed; the major accomplishments or outcomes that are necessary and sufficient to achieve the job mission; and the related

tasks, behaviors, or competencies that link together to Figure 2.The Components and Process for Building a Competence Model.

build accomplishments. For example, for a computer game developer to achieve its mission, it would most likely follow a process of high-level accomplishments, such as review market rearch to determine market demands and needs, develop a design document, design

a new game (or a revision of a current game), develop the

game according to the design, conduct reviews and revi-sions of the game, conduct a beta evaluation of the game with a test group, make revisions, possibly nd out a copy of the game to lect vendors, make final revisions, and finally mass produce the game. Under each accom-plishment, there might be sub-accomplishments. In addi-tion to the accomplishments, there will be related tasks (behaviors that contribute to the achievement of the accomplishments), skills, and knowledge that are required to meet each accomplishment. •Performance Analysis: An analysis of the environmental and individual factors that enable or prevent compe-tence. According to Thomas Gilbert (1996), there are six factors that are necessary for performance to occur—information, tools and resources, compensation and incentives, skills and knowledge, capacity, and motives.

The six factors compri a system, which creates com-petence or incompetence. This is his Behavior Engineering Model. We u this model to conduct a per-formance analysis, which involves both determining the factors required to build, support, and maintain desired competence levels and uncovering the obstacles that pre-vent desired levels of competence.

窗帘品牌•Synthysis and Validation: Validate the information that you have obtained so far by interviewing and

(ideally) obrving low and average performers and noting the dif-ferences between their performance and that of exem-plary performers, interviewing managers and peers to confirm what people have to do to be successful and what differentiates top performers from average and low performers and by having a few top performers and man-agers review your findings to confirm that what you have is accurate and complete. It is important to note that, as Gilbert (1996) pointed out and we have found, perform-ers usually can’t tell you everything they do, including some of their most important tasks. Thus there is a need to obrve, or at least interview them in their working environment so they can show you as much as they can and be prompted by things in their environment to actu-ally remember tools, process, etc.

•Rollout and Implementation: Obtain the support of exec-utives and nior managers of the company, work with management team to define worthy interventions, apply the competence models to lected people management systems, evaluate the effectiveness of the competence analysis project and related tools, and plan for updating the models on a regular schedule.Applications and Value

Building competence models is an important step that orga-nizations can take toward aligning and linking individual results to organizational goals. The value of this work will be diluted, however, if the

competence models are not linked to the organizational system. An organizational sys-tem is all the functions within an organization that con-tribute to achievement of the organization’s goals and employees’ competence. The include management, human resources, marketing, and training. To fully leverage the value of competence models, organizational systems can be ud to do the following:

•Design hiring profiles and performance asssments to gauge competence levels before hiring. •Communicate in specific, objective, and measurable terms what people have to do to be successful instead of using hiring profiles, job descriptions, etc., which may be ambiguous and subjective.

•Build certification and asssment tests so that the organization and its clients can be assured that people who are certified really can do the job competently, not just that they have the required skills and knowledge to do it.

365天的思念•Provide input into the design of specific tools, resources, and training bad on known gaps in com-petence and opportunities for building competence. •Build tools and resources that support competence rather than hinder it.

•Create incentives for competence instead of behaviors, as the latter may or may not lead to the achi

evement of business goals.

•Map training curricula and other tools and resources to the required accomplishments detailed in the compe-tence model.

•Build asssment, coaching, and development tools so that managers can asss and provide specific feedback regarding strengths, weakness, development oppor-tunities, and direction to specific tools, resources, training, and job assignments bad on competence asssment results and tool-curriculum maps.

The value of defining human competence as originally done by Gilbert (1996), and as embodied in what we call compe-tence models, is that it explicitly links the behavior of indi-viduals—through the accomplishments produced by that behavior—to organizational goals and results. By delineating the entire structure of performance—starting with business results and working backward through accomplishments, sub-accomplishments, and behavior—we take the ambiguity and subjective judgment calls out of performance develop-ment and management. This always yields more focud, cost-effective performance interventions. Even in the abnce of specific interventions, it tells both individual per-formers and their management exactly what is expected. The

cascading effects of this approach as it flows down through

the design of training, performance asssment, coaching, performance support, and other elements in an overall per-formance system are significant and dramatically more cost effective than what can be achieved through so-called com-petency modeling.

While the cost and time required for creating a solid com-petence model might be higher in the beginning, the payoff in the end is substantial and lasting. In general, when we take the time to define clear, consistent expectations, we tend to get more of what we want—more consistently and at lower cost.

Summary

Worthy competence models do the following:

•Begin with the goals of the organization and move backward to define what individual performers have to produce and do to achieve tho goals.

•Ba models on accomplishments that are the results that lead to the achievement of organizational goals—not competencies that can be ambiguous, subjective, and disconnected from organizational

goals.

•Follow up with a performance analysis,which gives a company a blueprint to build, support, and maintain desired competence levels and decrea or eliminate incompetence.

•Link to the environmental supports to build, support, and maintain desired competence levels.Once the work process and accomplishments that are critical and necessary for achievement of organizational goals are defined, it is necessary to link that competence model to the environmental supports that will build, support, and maintain desired competence levels. Note: A special thank you to Doug Kulig (Sales Training Manager at Hewlett-Packard) for his continuous dedica-

tion, support, and willingness to do the right thing for the business down to the individuals, even when it wasn’t the most popular thing to do.

References

Dubois, D.D. (2002). The competency cabook.Amherst, MA, and Silver Spring, MD: HRD Press and International Society for Performance Improvement.

Esque, T.J., & Gilbert, T.F (1995, January). Making compe-tencies pay off. Training.

Gilbert, T. (1996). Human competence (2nd ed.). Silver Spring, MD: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Langdon, D.G., & Marrelli, A.F. (2002). A new model for systematic competency identification. Performance Improvement, 41(4), 16-23.Marrelli, A.F. (1998). An introduction to competency analy-sis and modeling. Performance Improvement, 37(5), 8-17.

Smart, B.D. (1999). Topgrading: How leading companies win by hiring, coaching and keeping the best people. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Press.

Thomas, M.N. (2000). Output-bad job descriptions: Beyond skills and competencies. Performance Improvement, 39(7), 23-27.