B E C O M E ‘ E M P LOYA B L E ’ T H A N B E I N G ‘ E M P LOY E D ’ - PA R T I I
corrected when I was told that, Mr
Developing competencies
BY CHANDRA MOWLY
J
ohn: Sir, here I am. I have decided
to quickly focus on learning com-
petencies. Please show me a way,
a crash course or a quick method of de-
velopment.
Guru: Dear John, remember this.
Every human being is in different
stage and state of growth and maturity
level in physical, intellectual, emotion-
al and spiritual domains, the four core
personality elements.
Each one must start learning new
competencies from his current level
and state of being, picking up the
thread from where he left it. Unfortu-
nately there is no short cut to learn
competencies. First, you must remove
the obstacles, which come in the way of
learning.
Personal image, power conscious-
ness and social mirror some times re-
strict our learning capability. Learn-
ing process is a straight forward activi-
ty and not an imitation of appearing to
be learning. Learning is a value like
honesty that is clear as against trick-
ery and duplicity which are disvalues.
When you are ready to learn with deep-
er urge to develop, the causal flow will
take care of the rest.
John: Can you please elaborate on
Causal Flow?
Guru: Causal Flow model is repre-
sented in a simple equation. Behaviour
+ Actions = Results. Behaviour encap-
sulates our motive. Motive is our intent
or will to achieve something. It drives
1. One must take responsibility for per-
us to act. Action takes in our function-
al knowledge, skill and we execute
tasks. This combination produces re-
sults. Causal Flow links your capabili-
ty and results. Your capability is
known by analysing your abilities to-
day and to which level or where you
would like to move up by developing
competencies that are necessary for
goal achievement.
The difference between where you
are today and to where you would like
to reach in the future is the competen-
cy gap, which should be addressed by a
development plan.
Some times people like John may
not be fortunate to have a caring boss
who will coach and guide employees to
keep them 'employable' by continuous
process of development.
An organisation with reasonably
good system of employee development
practices will ensure to help employees
to develop a minimum of one or two
competencies every year. However, an
individual must own this responsibili-
ty without much of dependence.
Development and dependence
The bosses are also evaluated based
on their involvement in employee de-
velopment. When an employee rates
his boss, in an emerging system bor-
rowed from the west, there are survey
results to show that employees in gen-
eral had positive views of their super-
visors.
The highest grades were in the ar-
eas of being trustworthy and accessi-
ble, while the poorest grades were for
mentoring, handling disciplinary is-
sues well and making work fun. This
proves that it is the responsibility of an
individual to develop new competen-
cies that are required to face future
challenges than depending on his boss
or blaming an organisation for it did
not provide developmental opportuni-
ties. On the other part, organisations
are also struggling to discover a solu-
tion for their problems of management
metamorphosis.
In today's context we can identify
two streams of 'coping up with chal-
lenges' emerging from the combination
of traditional and global business
styles. One: If we look at a traditional
organisation, it aspires to become glob-
al. But its core people are just 'em-
ployed' but may not be 'employable'. In
such a situation, an organisation tries
to get new blood with an objective of
uplifting itself from traditionalism to
global standards.
Management metamorphosis
A conflict emerges among the two
employee streams and they will face
some difficulties. A company, at that
time may try to protect its core people
by placing high value for their loyalty
than on their capability. In the process
the new stream may not see any light at
the end of the tunnel.
This may bring out some discon-
nects. Two: In an other instance of new
start-ups with top management team
already being globally focused and exe-
cuting team comprises of employees
with traditional mindset, will give rise
to situations of lack of initiative, ab-
sences of accountability, risk-aversion
and a floating tendency to remain com-
placent.
The bell curve
To combat with these two chal-
lenges there must be an effort to
achieve a flow of unique linkage to
global business current. Competent
talents not only hired but to be re-
tained for long.
Clear stretch and aligned goals
must be set with a robust performance
management system. They must base
their compensation philosophy firmly
on attributes to think of new and bet-
Manohar has a structured plan behind
his learning as he would never like to
sit idle after his retirement.
This is what I call as becoming ‘em-
ployable’. It is important to realise the
sonal and professional growth through
lifelong learning opportunities.
2. Apply learned competencies in the
workplace.
3. Recognise the importance of one's
ter ways of doing things and most im- truth of need to change and do things work and employability in a global con-
portantly allow a clear space for em- differently. Doing the same thing over text and
ployees to set their own goals for devel- and over again and expecting different 4. Adapt to change.
opment. The refinement of perform- results is what Albert Einstein defined
ance evaluation and reward manage- as ‘Insanity’.
ment is coming closer to the concept of To learn new competencies and con- The writer is Competency Architect cur-
Bell Curve followed in the west. tinue to stay employable, one needs to rently working with Karle Group of Com-
Today, we know that Bell Curve ap- focus on atleast these four. panies. E-mail: cmowly@hotmail.com
proach is used to decide perform-
ance ratings and rewards. In the Bell
Curve, employees are ranked from
top to bottom.
The system believes that even the
best performers can still be ranked
so that the top 10 employees of out-
standing performance can also be
ranked from 1 to 10, with the best of
10 is presupposed to be the best of
the best.
Normal distribution in terms of
20-70-10 or 10-80-20 is force fitting em-
ployees on the bell curve approach.
While the top 10 who go on right side
of the curve gets the maximum
share of the salary budget cake, the
fate of the poor performers who are
on left side the curve depends on the
company policy of managing them
in by PIP (Performance Improve-
ment Plan) or to manage them out.
Performance management
What goes up must come down.
Performance management systems
must not forget the basic lessons of
gravity. While the average perform-
ers are expected to move up and im-
prove, the top performers may follow
the bell curve route and cross down
from the highest point of the curve.
Continuous improvement of sharp-
ening the saw is a must to remain on
the top, sustaining the power of em-
ployability.
Perform or perish is the mantra
that drives the happenings around
us - be it airlines, business or cricket.
How prepared we are? How young is
our zeal to learn new things?
This reminds me of a recent inci-
dent. The other day we visited Ms
Shobha's house and during a chat I
was pleasantly surprised to know
that her husband Mr Mahohar is
putting his best efforts to learn
Japanese language.
I thought it could be a hobby of
becoming multi-lingual but I was