Competencies differentiate the average from the superior. In a key sense they are distinguishing. Given endless time and endless means everything under the sun can be called a competency but you need to be realistic and practical. Read this story that I often used to clarify the concept.
There lived a lumberjack near the bank of the river. The river had thick woods with tall trees on one side and the lumberjack would cut trees (the tall variety) and float them across the river to the other side where it would then be transported for further processing.
When he cut the trees the lumberjack had to know how tall the tree was before he began to cut it down. To measure the height he often relied on a squirrel. Each time he wanted to measure the height of the tree he would tie a string to the tail of the squirrel and up it went to the tree top. With the length of the string pulled up he estimated the height of the tree. Every thing was going well and his squirrel had perfected the art of climbing trees and getting the lumberjack the estimate of height.
Soon the lumberjacks demand for trees went up and the squirrel was not able to complete the task for the day.
A friend gifted the lumberjack a turtle and so he struck up an idea. He started training the turtle to climb the trees, and the turtle would climb up few feet and slip down and try again and so on till finally it learnt how to climb the tree. Lo the lumberjack started using both the squirrel and turtle to measure the heights of trees. He managed his business for a few months like this. He assessed his squirrel was the ace performer and the turtle the struggling one.
One summer the river started drying up and many parts got shallow and logs would get stuck if the river bed was too shallow so now he needed to assess the depth of the water before he could fell the log into the water at any spot. He now had to chose between the ace and struggling one to measure the depth of water, he remembered the ace performer.... but alas the choice was obvious.
The squirrel could do nothing but stare at the water lest it drowned. But the turtle went in ... Bingo.... and came back with the depth being measured by the length of the string it pulled down to the bed of the river.
Now the lumber jack understood each one's worth. The squirrel was best when it came to climbing trees, the turtle was best in the water. No amount of training would make the squirrel faster at measuring the depth of the water.
So the lesson we learn is that there is a right person for the right job. This is what competency is all about. You can spend hours and hours and finally the turtle will be able to accomplish what the squirrel did or vice versa, but the cost and effort of doing it would be different. The question is how do you do it best, most optimally both effectively as well as efficiently. That is what we call as distinguishing.
The squirrel's competency is in climbing and the turtles competency is in swimming. Both can do each others' job but swimming cannot be a competency for the squirrel nor can climbing trees be the competency for a turtle.
So next time you think of competency remember first principle, get the right person for the job. That's the starting point. Competencies are defined in context.... what may be a competency in one context is not so in another..... There are many other facets of a competency that we'll explore in the months to come.
There lived a lumberjack near the bank of the river. The river had thick woods with tall trees on one side and the lumberjack would cut trees (the tall variety) and float them across the river to the other side where it would then be transported for further processing.
When he cut the trees the lumberjack had to know how tall the tree was before he began to cut it down. To measure the height he often relied on a squirrel. Each time he wanted to measure the height of the tree he would tie a string to the tail of the squirrel and up it went to the tree top. With the length of the string pulled up he estimated the height of the tree. Every thing was going well and his squirrel had perfected the art of climbing trees and getting the lumberjack the estimate of height.
A friend gifted the lumberjack a turtle and so he struck up an idea. He started training the turtle to climb the trees, and the turtle would climb up few feet and slip down and try again and so on till finally it learnt how to climb the tree. Lo the lumberjack started using both the squirrel and turtle to measure the heights of trees. He managed his business for a few months like this. He assessed his squirrel was the ace performer and the turtle the struggling one.
The squirrel could do nothing but stare at the water lest it drowned. But the turtle went in ... Bingo.... and came back with the depth being measured by the length of the string it pulled down to the bed of the river.
Now the lumber jack understood each one's worth. The squirrel was best when it came to climbing trees, the turtle was best in the water. No amount of training would make the squirrel faster at measuring the depth of the water.
The squirrel's competency is in climbing and the turtles competency is in swimming. Both can do each others' job but swimming cannot be a competency for the squirrel nor can climbing trees be the competency for a turtle.
So next time you think of competency remember first principle, get the right person for the job. That's the starting point. Competencies are defined in context.... what may be a competency in one context is not so in another..... There are many other facets of a competency that we'll explore in the months to come.
