Competencies – are they dead? Or are we ignoring the true 3 core competencies?

Competencies – are they dead? Are competencies and how HR (and managers/ professional bodies) often relate to them irrelevant in today’s business world? Do we actively ignore true core competencies?

I was at a training workshop recently, and the trainer was talking about competencies. He was talking about the fact that the core competencies had changed in that profession. That new course materials were being developed all the time to ensure. We see this is every profession and industry. Marketing, HR, Sales, IT. It always changes, or so people say.

Managers want “competent” people. They want high performance and productivity and they do not have time to train people. They want their new hires to “hit the ground running”.

Is this realistic? Do we really want FULLY competent people from day 1, or do we need people that can ‘do enough’ but grow with us? Where is the motivation if there is no learning in a new job?

Where is the motivation if there is no learning in a new job?

Do a search on the internet and you will find 100s of “core competencies”. But are they really CORE? Over the years I have often spoken about these competencies – https://rapidbi.com/goodbye-change-management-hello-navigating-flux/

Competencies – are they dead?

Let’s look at one such list of competencies.

On the site https://www.wikijob.co.uk/content/interview-advice/competencies/core-competencies they list 35 CORE competencies.

1. Training and Development
2. Managing Performance
3. Coaching and Mentoring
4. Team Building
5. Commitment to Excellence
6. Mind Mapping and Structured Thinking
7. Career Progression
8. Strategic Management
9. Future Planning
10. Persuading and Influencing Staff
11. Change Management
12. Commitment to Customer Excellence
13. Collaborative Working
14. Customer Relationship Management
15. Social and Emotional Learning
16. Persuasive Techniques
17. Writing Skills
18. Speaking and Listening Skills
19. Making Decisions
20. Methodical Approach
21. Identifying Patterns or Connections
22. Research
23. Problem Solving
24. Resourcefulness
25. Trustworthiness
26. Stress Reduction
27. Moral Principles and Ethical Standards
28. Planning and Organisation
29. Business Acumen
30. Creative thinking
31. Technical Capabilities
32. Computer Literacy
33. Data Management
34. Equipment and Program Knowledge
35. Policies and Planning

This is just a sample list.  Now your organization may have these, or different ones. In addition, some organisations define these to different ‘levels‘. But are they really CORE competencies?

What is CORE today is irrelevant tomorrow

During the discussions, we were talking about the use of ‘social media’ being core to people in marketing. There is no doubt that being able to communicate is critical. The discussion explores the importance of having certain skills or competencies to do a job well. In this case, it was Social media, but it could so easily have been collaboration tools, IT or a million and one other things.

Let us look at marketing. many firms say they want people competent in twitter, facebook etc. But what about the new platform just around the corner? Who taught their existing employees to use the existing platforms? no-one, they learnt on the job. They applied generic skills and learnt the new techniques from peers. peers outside the organisation, but in the sector. they collaborated!

The same could be said for IT, for Learning and Development, HR, and many others. data analytics, where was that 5 years ago? Now it’s core to many organisations.

I challenged this thinking, asking how long the skill has been essential? How did they do this before ‘competent’ people were appointed? I then asked how long would this be a core competence for? That confused the individual. I asked, what will the job requirements be in 3 or 5 years that they do not need now? He could not answer me. Competencies – are they dead or do they just need to change?

Why recruit irrelevant skills?

I clarified, that 5 years ago we did not realise how important or core some things would become and that what is core today may be irrelevant tomorrow. Therefore why recruit with irrelevant skills? Do we go out and hire people that know the maps of cities, or do we hire people that can use digital maps? Do we hire people with a specific software, when tomorrow that software will be defunct?

We need to hire truly core skills. Are traditional Competency frameworks dead?

The three core competencies (sustainable over time)

My hypothesis is that the core skills for most white-collar professionals are:

1. The ability to thrive in flux (change)
2. The ability (and willingness) to learn fast
3. The ability to build and maintain relationships – through all vehicles

That is IT! The point is that if something is a CORE competence, it should be just as valid today as it is tomorrow. Most of what people think of “core competencies2 are actually transitional skills. Useful today, irrelevant tomorrow.

The rest are behavioural or values based, which will vary with each employer. The rest we learn on the job as we go. EVERYTHING can be learnt.

Look at the list of 35 above, and show me a “right” way to do any of them. There are lots of ways to do each. So they are not competencies at all, but sets of behaviours and skills applied in a way consistent with the CULTURE of the employing organisation. Just because one company thinks you are competent at a “skill” does not mean others will too.

This was brought home to me by this simple test:

Could you be a Facebook moderator – https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/ignore-or-delete-could-you-be-a-facebook-moderator-quiz The competency is understanding when something should or should not be allowed. This will vary with each client and culture, and as the ‘guidelines’ change. It is not a competency, but a set of learnt behaviours. Try it yourself!

Do we get hung up on the wrong things?

HR departments LOVE to have frameworks on which to measure people. It reduces the risk, It also reduces the organisations’ ability to change. We put so much weight into these competencies that we shut ourselves off from what the business needs today. For many of the competencies, by the time they are written, they are out of date, but we use them anyway.

I feel that often we confuse skills matrixes with competencies. We seem to have an increasing reluctance to train people, so we rely on the competencies to reduce our need to develop people. When our people stop developing, out business ceases to be effective. Often we stop realising this – and the business becomes less and less profitable, or at least less sustainable

A focus on my 3 competencies:

It is all very well me throwing these things out there, but what do I mean?

• The ability to thrive in flux (change)

this means resilience, dealing with ambiguity

• The ability (and willingness) to learn fast

In order to learn, we must be in a good place. This means having a level of influence over our state. Mindfulness is a part of this competence. If you cannot control what is happening in your brain, how can you learn?

• The ability to build and maintain relationships – through all vehicles

It is all about people. No person is an island. We have to achieve both with and through people. Not in isolation. If interpersonal skills, esp when relationship building is lacking, we cannot perform with others.

Competencies – are they dead? Or are we ignoring the true 3 core competencies?

In the main, I do not think that having competency frameworks are dead. But the way we use them is way past their sell-by date. Every sector and profession seem to think that they are unique. that they are the custodians of standards. to some extent they are correct.

But what many in HR and OD seem to ignore is the fact that the world of work is in flux. It is changing much faster than it is reasonable to maintain a large competency framework. And the competencies that were essential yesterday are largely irrelevant tomorrow!

Over to you

What do you think? Are these the true CORE competencies? Should we all be competent in them? Are their others I have missed? Am I wrong?