Making Executive Competencies Practical
The concept of competencies as a means of defining desirable elements of a job originated in 1959, and the concept was expanded throughout the 1970‘s. It was intended to provide a foundation and direction for executive development and performance motivation. Lacking any other reference points for job performance, competencies were a step in the right direction.
The practical application of the concept, however, soon revealed its shortcomings. There was no way to objectively and accurately measure an individual’s fit with a particular competency. That assessment depended upon the application of subjective ratings by a manager and/or others. The variables were almost endless.
• The more recent a relevant event, the more value that was placed on it and the greater the impact to the rating.
• The number and frequency of observation varied dramatically.
• Within the opportunities for observation, collecting rating information was rarely a priority.
• Each rater had a slightly different interpretation of each competency.
• Each rater assigned slightly different priorities to the competencies.
• The rather’s evaluations were subconsciously affected by their own traits and abilities and the delta between them and the individual being rated.
• The current business environment at the time of the rating.
• The politics within the enterprise at the time of the rating.
Further complicating the practical application of the competency concept, was the scope of the competencies themselves. What began as an exercise to define the key elements of a particular position, soon became an all-encompassing wish list. Just as a person leaving for a long vacation to multiple destinations with uncertain weather finds themselves with way too much luggage, well meaning professionals diligently added any talents, attitudes and capabilities that might possibly contribute to success in the position. The competency had ceased to be defining. Jobs that were significantly different began to look largely similar when viewed through the thicket of competency factors.
It is also important to separate the concept of competencies with the practical application of that concept. World peace is a concept is that is almost universally embraced. The practical realization of it is where the © BestWork DATA, LLC 2013 All Rights Reserved challenge lies. Teamwork is universally applauded, but the actual collaborative functioning of a team may take many forms, some which fail dramatically even while all members of the team pursue the same goals.
Evaluating candidates against competencies is fraught with judgement errors caused by decision making processes that are common to all people. These processes are called heuristics. In effect, they are shortcuts that the brain uses to simplify decision making. One of these is the representativeness heuristic. This is the tendency to judge the likeliness of a particular candidate being an exemplar of a competency because they possess some characteristic in common with a successful performers of the job. (e.g. Candidates who played varsity sports share the same results orientation as Jim, a successful incumbent employee who also played varsity sports.) The representativeness heuristic causes people to ignore the many other variables that may be more relevant to the job. This tendency is exacerbated by a competency framework of evaluation, as competencies tend to be conceptual rather than being behaviorally defined. (e.g. Initiative, Customer Orientation, Influencing Others, Results Orientation). The lack of specific behavioral definition results in the mental search for a reference point to the concept. This is usually found in a person who displayed that competency. Therefore, the next step is to find some commonality between the exemplar and the job candidate. Unfortunately, the correspondence between the two people and the desired competency is, in reality, quite tenuous.
The good news is that psychometric science and technology have combined to make behavioral and cognitive measures readily accessible. In less than 25 minutes using an online experience, a candidate’s hardwired personality traits and cognitive abilities can be accurately and reliably determined. The measurement of these traits and abilities creates a set of objective DATA (capitalized to indicate these specific measurements). This DATA can be used to describe a candidate’s job behaviors in any role within a company. This supersedes the use of competencies, as the job behaviors themselves are the essence of what the competency models were trying to capture.
The ability of DATA to identify specific job capabilities enable talent acquisition processes to use a far more efficient and more effective decision tree. Traditionally, the question asked was, “How well can this person perform the job?” or “How closely does this person resemble the top performers?” These are not bad questions. They are acceptable in a world without DATA. However, DATA can answer a much more immediately relevant question, “Can this person perform this job successfully?” A pragmatic illustration of this is seen in Figure A, in which the oval represents the population of candidates for a particular job.
The practical application of the concept, however, soon revealed its shortcomings. There was no way to objectively and accurately measure an individual’s fit with a particular competency. That assessment depended upon the application of subjective ratings by a manager and/or others. The variables were almost endless.
• The more recent a relevant event, the more value that was placed on it and the greater the impact to the rating.
• The number and frequency of observation varied dramatically.
• Within the opportunities for observation, collecting rating information was rarely a priority.
• Each rater had a slightly different interpretation of each competency.
• Each rater assigned slightly different priorities to the competencies.
• The rather’s evaluations were subconsciously affected by their own traits and abilities and the delta between them and the individual being rated.
• The current business environment at the time of the rating.
• The politics within the enterprise at the time of the rating.
Further complicating the practical application of the competency concept, was the scope of the competencies themselves. What began as an exercise to define the key elements of a particular position, soon became an all-encompassing wish list. Just as a person leaving for a long vacation to multiple destinations with uncertain weather finds themselves with way too much luggage, well meaning professionals diligently added any talents, attitudes and capabilities that might possibly contribute to success in the position. The competency had ceased to be defining. Jobs that were significantly different began to look largely similar when viewed through the thicket of competency factors.
It is also important to separate the concept of competencies with the practical application of that concept. World peace is a concept is that is almost universally embraced. The practical realization of it is where the © BestWork DATA, LLC 2013 All Rights Reserved challenge lies. Teamwork is universally applauded, but the actual collaborative functioning of a team may take many forms, some which fail dramatically even while all members of the team pursue the same goals.
Evaluating candidates against competencies is fraught with judgement errors caused by decision making processes that are common to all people. These processes are called heuristics. In effect, they are shortcuts that the brain uses to simplify decision making. One of these is the representativeness heuristic. This is the tendency to judge the likeliness of a particular candidate being an exemplar of a competency because they possess some characteristic in common with a successful performers of the job. (e.g. Candidates who played varsity sports share the same results orientation as Jim, a successful incumbent employee who also played varsity sports.) The representativeness heuristic causes people to ignore the many other variables that may be more relevant to the job. This tendency is exacerbated by a competency framework of evaluation, as competencies tend to be conceptual rather than being behaviorally defined. (e.g. Initiative, Customer Orientation, Influencing Others, Results Orientation). The lack of specific behavioral definition results in the mental search for a reference point to the concept. This is usually found in a person who displayed that competency. Therefore, the next step is to find some commonality between the exemplar and the job candidate. Unfortunately, the correspondence between the two people and the desired competency is, in reality, quite tenuous.
The good news is that psychometric science and technology have combined to make behavioral and cognitive measures readily accessible. In less than 25 minutes using an online experience, a candidate’s hardwired personality traits and cognitive abilities can be accurately and reliably determined. The measurement of these traits and abilities creates a set of objective DATA (capitalized to indicate these specific measurements). This DATA can be used to describe a candidate’s job behaviors in any role within a company. This supersedes the use of competencies, as the job behaviors themselves are the essence of what the competency models were trying to capture.
The ability of DATA to identify specific job capabilities enable talent acquisition processes to use a far more efficient and more effective decision tree. Traditionally, the question asked was, “How well can this person perform the job?” or “How closely does this person resemble the top performers?” These are not bad questions. They are acceptable in a world without DATA. However, DATA can answer a much more immediately relevant question, “Can this person perform this job successfully?” A pragmatic illustration of this is seen in Figure A, in which the oval represents the population of candidates for a particular job.
© BestWork DATA, LLC 2017 All Rights Reserved
Job candidates fall into one of three categories:
STARS Outstanding performers
OK’s Adequate performers
OOPS Why were they hired?
While most companies would say they want Stars, their real problems come from hiring Oops. OK’s get the job done. Stars perform beyond that. Oops consume training time, demand more management time, perform poorly and have a negative impact on the business, even when they leave. The first priority in optimizing talent acquisition is to avoid hiring any Oops. To hire the right people, first screen out the wrong people. DATA has the accuracy and specificity to do that. DATA can screen out:
• Sales candidates who cannot close sales
• Project managers who miss details
• Financial position candidates who make exceptions to compliance issues
• Candidates for complex knowledge roles who cannot learn fast enough for that job
• Customer-facing people who are not warm and friendly to customers
• Managers who cannot manage the actions of others
• And any job behavior that depends on thinking, learning or doing.
STARS Outstanding performers
OK’s Adequate performers
OOPS Why were they hired?
While most companies would say they want Stars, their real problems come from hiring Oops. OK’s get the job done. Stars perform beyond that. Oops consume training time, demand more management time, perform poorly and have a negative impact on the business, even when they leave. The first priority in optimizing talent acquisition is to avoid hiring any Oops. To hire the right people, first screen out the wrong people. DATA has the accuracy and specificity to do that. DATA can screen out:
• Sales candidates who cannot close sales
• Project managers who miss details
• Financial position candidates who make exceptions to compliance issues
• Candidates for complex knowledge roles who cannot learn fast enough for that job
• Customer-facing people who are not warm and friendly to customers
• Managers who cannot manage the actions of others
• And any job behavior that depends on thinking, learning or doing.
© BestWork DATA, LLC 2017 All Rights Reserved
Once the Oops or bad hires are screened out, the next step is to select the best candidate for the job from the pool of Stars and OK’s. Having answered the Can Do part of each competency, now the intangible elements, such as attitude, values and motivation, can be explored through the interview process. The same is true for assessing the level of skills, knowledge and experience of the candidates. The DATA is then can be reviewed for the capabilities driven by traits and abilities that are important but not critical to job performance. When each of these components of a competencies model are evaluated properly, companies inevitably make better hires.
About the author Chuck Russell is a leading authority on the business applications of assessment technology. He has reviewed the assessment industry for twenty years. His first book, Right Person - Right Job, Guess or Know, introduced new paradigms for hiring, management and training. Chuck has pioneered many innovations in the assessment industry, all with the goal of unlocking the strengths within each person. His company, BestWork DATA, develops advanced talent acquisition and talent management systems that are disruptive innovations in the assessment world, displacing the old profiling methodologies with newer generations of psychometric applications that are effectively operating systems for human resources.
About the author Chuck Russell is a leading authority on the business applications of assessment technology. He has reviewed the assessment industry for twenty years. His first book, Right Person - Right Job, Guess or Know, introduced new paradigms for hiring, management and training. Chuck has pioneered many innovations in the assessment industry, all with the goal of unlocking the strengths within each person. His company, BestWork DATA, develops advanced talent acquisition and talent management systems that are disruptive innovations in the assessment world, displacing the old profiling methodologies with newer generations of psychometric applications that are effectively operating systems for human resources.
