The GAINMORE Advantage framework is a practical development model that considers the hieracrchical nature of people's behaviours within teams and within organizations.
But just what is it that we are developing? Is it character, attributes, traits, competence or competency? The lack of agreement in the academic world on the terminology and whether some aspects are genetic. Leading us to the recurring question, "are leaders born or made?". Here, I want to address one part of the debate: the disticntion of what is competence and what is competency.
The concept of competence remains one of the most diffuse terms in
the organisational and occupational literature (Nordhaug and Gronhaug,
1994). Exactly what does an author mean when using any of the terms of
competence?
The concept of individual competence is widely used in human resource management (Boyatzis, 1982, Schroder, 1989, Burgoyne, 1993). This refers to a set of skills
that an individual must possess in order to be capable of
satisfactorily performing a specified job. Although the concept is well
developed, there is continuing debate about its precise meaning.
Others take a job-based competence view that according to Robotham and Jubb (1996) can be applied to any type of business
where the competence-based system is based on identifying a list of key
activities (McAuley, 1994) and behaviours identified through observing
managers in the course of doing their job.
A useful view is to look at competence to mean a skill and the standard of performance, whilst competency refers to behaviour by which it is achieved (Rowe, 1995). That is, competence describes what people do and competency describes how people do it.
Rowe (1995, p16) further distinguishes the attributes an individual
exhibits as “morally based” behaviours – these are important drivers of
behaviours but especially difficult to measure – and “intellectually
based” behaviours as capabilities or competencies. Capabilities are
distinguished as these refer to development behaviours – i.e. are
graded to note development areas to improve behaviours in how people
undertake particular tasks.
Young (2002) develops on a similar theme and builds on Sarawano’s
(1993) model, linking competency and competence to performance and
identifies competency as a personal characteristic (motives, traits,
image/role and knowledge)
and how the individual behaves (skill). Competence is what a manager is
required to do – the job activities (functions, tasks). These in turn
lead to performance of the individual [manager].
Jacobs (1989) considers a distinction between hard and soft
competences. Soft competences refer to such items as creativity and
sensitivity, and comprise more of the personal qualities that lie
behind behaviour. These items are viewed as being conceptually
different from hard competences, such as the ability to be well
organised. Jacob’s distinction fits neatly into Young’s model with hard
competences referring to identifiable behaviours, and soft competences
as the personal characteristics of the individual.
Further distinctions relate to the usefulness of measuring
competenc[i]es. Cockerill et al. (1995) define threshold and
high-performance competences. Threshold competences are units of
behaviour which are used by job holders, but which are not considered
to be associated with superior performance. They can be thought of as
defining the minimum requirements of a job. High performance
competences, in contrast, are behaviours that are associated with
individuals who perform their jobs at a superior level.
In the UK, the Constable and McCormick Report (1987) suggested that
the skill base within UK organisations could no longer keep pace with
the then developing business climate. In response, the Management
Charter Initiative sought to create a standard model where competence
is recognised in the form of job-specific outcomes. Thus, competence is
judged on performance of an individual in a specific job role. The
competences required in each job role are defined through means of a
functional analysis – a top-down process resulting in four levels of
description:
- Key purpose
- Key role
- Units of competence
- Elements of competence
Elements are broken down into performance criteria, which describe
the characteristics of competent performance, and range statements,
which specify the range of situations or contexts in which the
competence should be displayed.
The MCI model now includes personal competence, missing in the
original, addressing some of the criticisms levelled at the MCI
standards. Though the model tends to ignore personal behaviours which
may underpin some performance characteristics, particularly in the area
of management, where recent work has indicated the importance of behavioural characteristics such as self-confidence, sensitivity, proactivity and stamina.
The US
approach to management competence, on the other hand, has focused
heavily on behaviours. Boyatzis (1982) identifies a number of
behaviours useful for specifying behavioural competence. Schroder
(1989) also offers insights into the personal competencies which
contribute to effective professional performance.
Personal competencies and their identifying behaviours form the
backbone of many company-specific competency frameworks and are used
extensively in assessment centres for selection purposes. This is
because behavioural (or personal) competence may be a better predictor
of capability – i.e. the potential to perform in future posts – than
functional competence – which attests to competence in current post.
The main weakness of the personal competence approach, according to
Cheetham and Chivers (1996), is that it doesn’t define or assure
effective performance within the job role in terms of the outcomes
achieved.
In his seminal work “The Reflective Practitioner”, Schon (1983)
attempts to define the nature of professional practice. He challenges
the orthodoxy of technical rationality – the belief that professionals
solve problems by simply applying specialist or scientific knowledge. Instead, Schon offers a new epistemology of professional practice of ‘knowing-in-action’ – a form of acquired tacit knowledge
– and ‘reflection’ – the ability to learn through and within practice.
Schon argues that reflection (both reflection in action and reflection
about action) is vital to the process professionals go through in
reframing and resolving day-to-day problems that are not answered by
the simple application of scientific or technical principles.
Schon (1983) does not offer a comprehensive model of professional
competence, rather he argues that the primary competence of any
professional is the ability to reflect – this being key to acquiring
all other competencies in the cycle of continuous improvement.
There are criticisms of competency-based approaches to management
and these tend to argue that managerial tasks are very special in
nature, making it impossible to capture and define the required
competences or competencies (Wille, 1989). Other writers argue that management skills
and competences are too complex and varied to define (Hirsh, 1989,
Canning, 1990) and it is an exercise in futility to try and capture
them in a mechanistic, reductionist way (Collin, 1989). Burgoyne (1988)
suggests that the competence-based approach places too much emphasis on
the individual and neglects the importance of organisational development
in making management development effective. It has also been argued
that generic lists of managerial competences cannot be applied across
the diversity of organisations (Burgoyne, 1989b, Canning, 1990).
Linking competency models to organisation outcomes
Some writers have identified competencies that are considered to be
generic and overarching across all occupations. Reynolds and Snell
(1988) identify ‘meta-qualities’ – creativity, mental agility and
balanced learning skill – that they believe reinforces other qualities.
Hall (1986) uses the term ‘meta-skills’ – as skills in acquiring other
skills. Linstead (1991) and Nordhaug and Gronhaug (1994) use the term
‘meta-competencies’ to describe similar characteristics. The concept of
meta-competence falls short of providing a holistic, workable model,
but it does suggest that there are certain key competencies that
overarch a whole range of others.
There is however, some doubt about the practicability of breaking
down the entity of management into its constituent behaviours
(Burgoyne, 1989a). This suggests that the practice of management is
almost an activity that should be considered only from a holistic
viewpoint.
Baker et al. (1997) link the various types of competence by first
establishing a hierarchy of congruence as a backbone to the model. In
broad terms, they describe the congruence of an entity to be the degree
of match or fit between some external driver to the entity and the
response of that entity to the driver. This method enables them to take
into consideration the idea that management, as an entity, and the
individuals who perform the function do so within a particular
environment. Measurement of congruence or goodness of fit, has been
attempted in studies of operations (Cleveland et al., 1989, Vickery,
1991). Baker et al.’s hierarchy is shown in Figure below, with four
levels of congruence: 1) Organisation level, 2) Core business process
level, 3) Sub-process within core process level, and 4) Individuals
level.
At the organisation level, there is congruence when a firm adopts a
strategy that is consistent with the competitive priorities derived
from the firm’s business environment. The strategy, in turn, determines
the operational priorities of the firm, following Platts and Gregory
(1990), Baker et al. (1997) using their own terminology, consider these
operational priorities to drive the core processes of the firm. These,
in turn, can be broken down into a number of sub-processes – and
congruence is needed between the sub-processes and the core processes.
At the individual level, the skills and knowledge should also match the
priorities driven by the sub-processes.
This hierarchical model follows a traditional approach that
structure follows strategy (Vickery, 1991, Cleveland et al., 1989, Kim
and Arnold, 1992). Others view that competences are a part of the
structure of the firm and should influence strategy making,
Bhattacharaya and Gibbons (1996) point out that Prahalad and Hamal
(1990) and Stalk et al. (1992) take this approach.
The hierarchical model has been tested analysing case studies of
seventeen manufacturing plants that won Best Factory Awards during the
period 1993-95 in the UK
(Cranfield) and established benchmarks. Baker et al. (1997) found some
direct cause-effect links between enabling competences at the
sub-process level and competitive performance (at the core process
level). However, they also found many ‘best practices’ such as employee
empowerment and team working which were harder to link to specific
competitive competences.
This model provides an insightful way to break down the complex
issue of how individual performance influences the competitive
competences of the firm. Baker et al.’s research is limited within the
manufacturing sector where core processes are often easier to identify
and define with a clear delineation of individual effort, technology
and product. It is also established on the basis that structure follows
strategy – whereas, most firms will already have structure and will be
adapting their strategies continuously as the external environment
changes.
Figure 1. Hierarchical model of competence (Baker et al., 1997)
Cheetham and Chivers (1996) describe a model of competence that
draws together the apparently disparate views of competence - the
‘outcomes’ approach and the ‘reflective practitioner’ (Schon, 1983,
Schon, 1987) approach.
Their focus was to determine how professionals maintain and develop
their professionalism. In drawing together their model, they consider
the key influences of different approaches and writers. The core
components of the model are: Knowledge/cognitive competence, Functional
competence, Personal or behavioural competence and Values/ethical
competence with overarching meta-competencies include communication,
self-development, creativity, analysis and problem-solving. Reflection
in and about action (Schon, 1983) surround the model, thereby bringing
the outcomes and reflective practitioner approaches together in one
model shown in Figure below.
Cheetham and Chivers model of professional competence is useful in
bringing the concept of individual competence to bear on the competence
of the organisation in a non-manufacturing context, but it still falls
short of providing a useful model to link an individuals behaviour with
the business results of an organisation across industries – a generic
model if you will.
Figure 2. Model of professional competence (Cheetham and Chivers, 1996)
Young (2002) creates a generic model neatly, by developing his
individual model further to the organisational perspective adopting the
concept of core competence, as articulated by Prahalad and Hamal (1990)
and further developed by Stalk et al. (1992) and Tampoe (1994),
suggesting that the collection of individual competences within the
organisation create the organisational core competence.
This model provides a way to understand how developing competency
(personal characteristics and behaviours) at the individual level
enables an individual to demonstrate competence (the functions and
tasks of the job) which in turn cascades through a hierarchy of the
organisation (core competence and other activities supporting the
organisation) to deliver business results.
Figure3. Individual variables of competency, competence and
performance and organisation core competence (adapted from Young, 2002)
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