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Mapping Competencies for Success |
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Now a days all
management schools and definitely those specializing in HR train the
students in competency mapping. Any masters in management or social
sciences or an employee with equivalent training and experience can
develop these competencies. Conceptual knowledge and training of business
is important. Familiarity with Business, Organizations, Management and
Behavioral Sciences is useful. HR Managers, Management Graduates, Applied
Psychologists are quite qualified to do this. Then, what is competency
mapping?
It is about identifying preferred behaviors and personal skills that
distinguish excellent and outstanding performance from the average.
Competency is something that describes how a job might be done,
excellently; a competence only describes what has to be done, not how. So,
the competences might describe the duties of sales manager for example,
such as manage the sales office and its staff, prepare quotations and
sales order processing, manage key accounts and supervise and motivate the
field sales force. The competencies which might determine excellence in
this role could include problem solving and judgement; drive and
determination; commercial awareness; interpersonal skills etc all of which
might be described further by behavioral indicators relating specifically
to that post in that organization. The broad concept might be based on the
frequently quoted adage: people get hired for what they know but fired for
how they behave!
A lot is going on in recent times on the issue of competency mapping. A
lot of resources and consultants invited to do competency mapping.
Increased manpower costs, need for ensuring that competent people man
critical positions and need to be competitive and recognition of the
strategic advantages of having good human resources have compelled firms
to be more competency driven. In organizations, competency mapping exists
already. Traditionally, HR directors and their top management have always
paid attention to the competencies and incorporated them mostly in their
appraisal systems. For example, when L&T, LIC, or HLL revised their
performance appraisal systems they focused on the assessment of
competencies. Role analysis was done and role directions prepared by the
Indian oil corporation in mid eighties. Thus, competency mapping can be
used for great benefit in exploring where knowledge resides and how it is
shared within an organization.
An individual employee's competency him/her aid in the following ways:
Claudette Nowell-Philipp, organizational career
consultant, offers strong philosophical argument for the importance of an
individual knowing and mapping his/her competencies as part of ongoing
career planning inside an organization. Nowell-Philipp says that in
today's organizations, especially those going through fundamental change,
it is essential to be able to "articulate your value-add and who you
are, as a person and as a professional, in language that is common and
accepted in the organization" (Nowell-Philipp, 2002). That
prerogative implies the importance of competency-based self-presentation:
in one's resume, in interviews, and in public functions where
introductions and credibility are important.
However, before proceeding to use this one should be aware of the
potential dangers that limit the use of competency mapping.
Pitfall no.1: believing the map is the ultimate goal
Mapping is the easiest part of the process. The difficult parts are the
audit (input) and analysis (output). Mapping may seem to be the output of
the system. In truth the map is the middle part of the process and serves
only as the beginning for analysis. It is the pitfall to view map as a
desired end result. The map is nothing but a colossal waste of time and
money without proper analysis.
Pitfall no.2: no purposeful question:
Proper analysis is not possible without asking proper
questions at the outset. An organization should not merely map merely for
the sake of saying we now have an organizational map. The map is not good
in and of itself. It is only good in so far as it can bring about positive
change in the organization.
Pitfall no.3: not knowing where you are going
The mission must be to create and sustain a knowledge flow
that is more profitable to the organization then the map becomes a measure
of how close to the ideal to benchmark for future measures of how much
have been able to effect. If the organization is already rich beyond
wildest dreams then the mission should be to measure against the current
"ideal" knowledge flow. Then in the future when the organization
is not rosy, it would be preferable to measure against the benchmark to
see where the problems are occurring and use this to try to recreate the
ideal.
Pitfall no.4: not ensuring both reliability and
validity
Reliability and validity are indicators of how usable a particular
measuring tool really is. Reliability tells us how consistently we are
measuring whatever we are measuring. Validity is concerned with whether we
are measuring what we say we are measuring. First reliability means the
results are consistent both internally and across the time. To be reliable
the results also must be consistent over time that is not that people's
answers may not change but that the question consistently measures the
same concept no matter when the questionnaire is delivered.
Validity then kicks in as a measure of what we are really trying to do.
If we are trying to accurately measure weight of a person for example then
the results matter. A consistently wrong answers means we are not
measuring the weight and if it is our intention the tool is not good one.
Pitfall no.5: not assessing the results accurately
Now let us assume that we have found and tested on a
sample audience and found them to be valid and reliable and they actually
reflect the mission. Further more, let us assume the system has accurately
produced the data in some visible form, such as a map of connections. So
far if any process has been flawed, the minimum harm done is the waste of
time and effort. But if the data is not assessed in a proper manner there
is a chance of misinterpreting the results there by causing a big damage
to the concern. Perhaps B does not need to know what A has to tell him. In that case
neither is at fault and in fact there is no problem. Perhaps B needs to
know but will not listen to A. Now the fault is Person B.
Go boldly, but with knowledge
Knowing about the pitfalls will help in charting mapping
activities with confidence. Snap judgments based upon first assessment of
the map often prove wrong. In-depth analysis is required first to
determine whether "problems" revealed are real and then to
develop effective "cures".
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