A SIMPLIFIED MODEL OF COMPETENCE FOR IDENTIFYING AND DEVELOPING TALENT

Our own experience of competence development mirrors recent research findings that, with regard to behavioural competencies, most models reflect the same three to five core clusters.

For example: In Competence at Work, Spencer says that such competency clusters as achievement orientation, influence, and personal effectiveness account for 80 to 98 percent of competency models.

In Skillscope, Kaplan, building on Mintzberg, points to skills with such labels as informational, decisional, and interpersonal.

In Managerial Lives in Transition, Howard and Bray describe two motivational factors: advancement motivation and work involvement. They also point to administrative, interpersonal, and intellectual skills as the most predictive of promotions over a 20-year period.

Our own experience has led us to develop a model based on three core clusters which reflect the conclusions of these and other researchers and authors.

Intellectual Power - often described as cognitive and thinking competencies
Interpersonal Impact - often described as social and relationship competencies
Emotional Strength - often referred to as feeling, personal effectiveness or affective competencies and also reflects definitions of emotional intelligence.

In addition we have incorporated the notion of complexity into the cluster model. This reflects both the demands that roles at different levels in an organisation might make on each of the clusters and the "amount" of complexity that an individual has the potential to handle. Complexity includes such factors as:

Why is this useful?
Our experience has been that many competencies models, although technically sound, lack flexibility and are not as effective in use as was originally intended. There are a number of reasons for this but to summarise:

	They are overly complex consisting of many clusters and levels
	They often reflect wish lists of Senior Managers
	They reflect current and past requirements rather than future needs
	They confuse and muddle task, behaviour, skills, knowledge, attitudes and values
	They do not facilitate the identification of potential
	They do not reflect customer requirements (because they are not asked)
	They do not focus on superior performance
	They are prescriptive, allowing little freedom for individual interpretation and therefore are not congruent with organisations wishing to encourage empowerment, flexibility and entrepreneurial behaviour.
	Their complexity does not support the integration of HR processes such as selection, succession, development and performance management.
	When used for development they do not facilitate the individual understanding why they are not competent in an area. For example, I might know how to plan projects; the question is why do I prefer just to dive in!
	Their very complexity leads to processes such as appraisal and development centres becoming very complex.
	They treat competencies as linear and mutually exclusive failing to recognise how they combine to produce unique individuals and performance.

The model presented here addresses many of these issues:

	It can be used to simplify complex models
	It is based on and reflects successful and superior performance
	Roles can be defined in terms of the demands they make on each of the clusters
	It facilitates the identification of potential; i.e. by using assessment processes to identify the level of complexity which an individual might be capable of working at
	Its simplicity can aid the integration of HR initiatives by providing a consistent framework
	It recognises that performance needs to be considered holistically and that it is more than the sum of the individual competencies.
	It allow individuals to decide within a common framework what is most important for their own performance in their role
	It helps to reduce the complexity required of diagnostic processes such as development centres
	It is robust enough to be used across different roles and levels yet flexible enough to provide a framework for adapting to future needs.
	It can reflect the values of the business within which it is set.

Essentially it gets to the heart or the core of effective performance and the identification and development of talent.