Perfman HR: The Definition Of Competency Of A Person
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The term competency sometimes seems to be simply a modern version of what may otherwise be referred to as dimensions, criteria, traits or even themes of behavior. Its current usage can be attributed to Boyatzis(1982), who defined it as ‘a capacity that exists in a person that leads to behavior that meets the job demands within the parameters of the organizational environment and that, in turn, brings about desired results’. A similar definition from Evarts (1987) will be explored further here. It runs as follows: ‘A competency is an underlying characteristic of a person which is causally related to effective or superior performance in a job or role.’
The various aspects of the definition are all of importance. Thus by referring to an underlying characteristic we mean something that is likely to be sustained, repeated and reliable over time. It is not, however, necessarily implied that this should be something absolutely fundamental to the person. Indeed, debates about the various contributions of nature and nurture do not need to be entered into when considering competencies. The term underlying and its implication of behavior that is repeated is meant to remove one from the arena of superficial judgements. For example, the person who appears with a button missing from her jacket at an interview may be habitually scruffy and pay insufficient attention to her personal presentation, or she may have been unfortunate enough to have caught her clothing on a nail while entering the interviewer’s office. A prime example of the latter case would be the memorable scene from from the Hollywood film ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ in which Will Smith a struggling out-of-work and small-time entrepreneur who is not finding much success is dying to start working in an investment bank and after much persistence succeeds in landing the much vaunted interview at the offices of the bank. But on the day before the interview, he is painting his house and due to unexpected circumstances finds himself in the lockup through the night and in his scruffy paint-splattered vest and pants attends the interview in front of the senior executives of the company. Though the initial impression is unfavorable, he manages to win over the executives with his passion and his sense of humor. The character that Will Smith portrays is always immaculately dressed for work but on that particular day finds himself locked in an unenviable state thus by no means points to a laid back and unprofessional attitude towards work.
In such cases, more information would be needed to determine whether he / she did in fact possess the competency of appropriate personal presentation. (This is akin to a distinction made by Wernimont and Campbell in 1968 between signs and samples.)
The causal part of the competency definition is to distinguish between those many characteristics that may be studied and measured about a person and those aspects that actually do provide a link to relevant behavior. Thus having acquired a particular academic qualification may or may not be correlated with the capacity to perform a particular job. The qualification is scarcely likely – talisman-like – to cause the capacity for performance. However, a tendency to grasp complexity and to learn new facts and figures may well be part of the causal chain, and the competency would be expressed in these terms, not in terms of the possibly related qualification. A moment’s consideration may show that in building models of success one is far more concerned with what the successful actually do than with what the unsuccessful fail to do. In seeking to understand competencies required for piano playing one would learn little by watching and listening to an incompetent player striking the wrong notes! By contrast a period of study with an accomplished exponent of the instrument would be likely to expose the relevant characteristics of behavior far better.
One may be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing very new in competencies and, rather like Moliere Monsieur Jourdain in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, who discovered he had been speaking prose for more than 40 years, the discovery of competencies as an idea is not particularly earth shattering. On the other hand by referring any explicit or implicit model of behavior to a definition, albeit as simple as that given, one may begin to sort the wheat from the chaff in deciding what range of behaviors and predispositions to behavior are relevant. This can help avoid the trap of focusing on totally irrelevant or prejudicial aspects or seeking a very broad and over-comprehensive model, covering lots of behavioral possibilities almost on a ‘just in case’ basis, but with limited usefulness.
About the Author
Sonal Aurora is director and co-founder of Top Recruitment Company India. Perfman HR is a premier HR Consulting & Recruitment Company Founded in Mumbai, India. We are an inventive and dynamic Human Resource Company specializing in Executive Search, Performance Management, Assessments, Recruitments, Training, Learning & HR Solutions.
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