Tag Archives: competencies

Shaping your leadership competencies

Developing as a leader, Developing leadership across your organisation, ,

What are the key issues that face organisations when they seek to put together competency models or frameworks in their organisations? This is a question that came up recently on the Training Journal Daily Digest.

I have masses of experience of shaping, implementing and using competency frameworks from the supplier side of the fence – anything from limited budget to £4bn research projects, anything from shaping the competencies based on research to using them to assess candidates for senior leadership roles. I took a moment to think about my top three issues and I thought I’d share them here:

  • The mother of all issues for me is this: if the behaviours described in your competency model do not predict the performance you require then why have one? Having a competency model which is not rooted in robust research could divert energy away from the behaviours that predict performance and even undermine performance;
  • In practice, a key issue for clients is about balancing their investment between shaping robust competency frameworks and implementing them. The best frameworks in the world are only of value when they are implemented effectively and a well-implemented framework is only of value if it predicts the performance you require (see first bullet). It helps to get clear up front about your reasons for creating a competency model or framework and also to think ahead to ways in which it might be used which are not currently on the agenda. This helps clients to shape an approach which best meets their current – and possible future – needs;
  • Practical experience also suggests that a key issue for clients is gaining buy-in. Whatever the size of a client’s investment in preparing a competency framework, it always helps to involve people who will ultimately be the end users in shaping the behaviours described. Buy-in also depends on the trust staff have in the accuracy and relevancy of the behaviours described (yes, back to bullet one) and in the ways they are used in practice (bullet two).

Of course, these bullets all imply the need to choose carefully the partner(s) with whom you work to research, design and implement your competency model or framework.

But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I.

Leadership competency: understanding what drives outstanding performance

Developing as a leader, Developing leadership across your organisation, , ,

I’m just back from a couple of days out of the office and catching up on e-mails.

One e-mail is a request, from a member of the Training Journal Daily Digest, for templates and ideas to support the process of identifying soft skills needed across the organisation as the basis for a Training Needs Analysis. I offer a super-simplified description of the process I would often go through with a client:

– I use either in-depth interviews or focus groups to elicit data about the behaviours shown by effective and outstanding performers. Either way, this involves a process of understanding what effective and outstanding performance look like in a particular job (often leadership or sales) or across a whole organisation;
– This process elicits mountains of data! So I look for themes across this data. (In my case it helps that I have a specific training in conducting this kind of research. Still, if you have the skills to discern themes and if you also have the skills to be alert to the difference between behaviours that lead to effective or outstanding performance and “nice to have” behaviours which don’t affect performance, this is a process that you can go through within your organisation);
– I have a specific process or way of describing behaviours so that they can then be used as the basis for the kind of gap analysis my correspondent describes. I include a definition of the competency: what is it all about? What are the intentions that underpin it? I look for levels of competency – what is the most common manifestation of this competency? Then what additional levels are shown by increasingly successful performers? Some organisations like to include contra-indicators – what do people do who lack mastery of this competency?
– Gathering data allows me to describe competencies in the language of the organisation I am working with, whilst drawing on much wider research. For anyone conducting this research (whether as a third-party consultant or in-house) it helps to validate the competencies and competency descriptions, e.g. by asking your management group for feedback.

I view this as a highly specialist process – and of course I would, because I have that specialist knowledge! So I know that organisations do work in house that I look on with horror – and still it’s a great step forward for their organisation! Maybe the heart of this process – the core question – is to be asking: What behaviours differentiate effective from outstanding performers in our organisation? Unless research is strongly anchored to performance it is unlikely to benefit the organisation.

Of course, there are also a number of books out there to draw on, including:

Goleman: Emotional Intelligence at Work
Mitriani, Dalziel and Fitt: Competency Based Human Resource Management
Spencer and Spencer: Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance

As I write I am only too aware that my description reflects my training and experience as a consultant with the Hay Group. This in turn reflects the Hay Group’s relationship with Professor David McClelland whose pioneering work in this area provided both the basis for the Hay Group’s approach and the underpin of work done by many other organisations and consultancies.

For my part, I am immensely grateful for my long and deep apprenticeship in this methodology. As a consultant I continue to draw on this work, to help organisations to describe the competencies that drive outstanding performance (especially amongst their leaders) and as the basis for assessing candidates for senior leadership posts. As a coach, this understanding also informs my work so that I work with senior executives with the understanding that the patterns of behaviour they adopt will determine the outcomes they achieve. It is so simple – and yet so often overlooked.