Hamilton-Chase Consulting
www.hamiltonchaseconsulting.com
Build A Successful Firm
Using A Competency Model Larry Gard, Ph.D.
Why Make Guesses About Key Personnel?
Select, Develop, And Promote Top Talent
Using The Same Advanced Process Employed By
Major Corporations Worldwide.
Hamilton-Chase Consulting
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Build a Successful Firm Using a Competency Model Larry Gard, Ph.D.
Wish you had a signpost to help you make good decisions about who to hire and who to
promote?
In every business the choices you make about who you
hire, how you develop them, and who moves up in
your organization are among the most important
decisions you’ll ever face. This e-book presents a brief
guide to using Competency Models, an essential tool
for making these decisions measurably more accurate.
Inside you’ll learn how to add depth and precision to
hiring, promotion, and employee development.
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Think about the people you’ve hired or promoted for
management and leadership positions. Chances are,
it was a tough call. Few candidates are perfectly
suited to a position. You’re forced to make complex,
high-impact decisions about individuals and their
futures. Who gets placed in what job? Where should
you invest training dollars? How can you make sure
that key employees will behave in ways that are in
sync with your company’s strategic objectives? Will
your decisions about people translate into improved
organizational performance?
Our view at Hamilton-Chase Consulting
is that having a competency model is the
best way to make these vital decisions
measurably more reliable and valid.
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Profitability is about performance, and performance is about people . . . At the end of the day no matter how outstanding your
produce or service, and no matter how skillfully you
market your business, your profits are only as good as
your people. If you don’t have a well-conceived
Competency Model that specifies exactly what high
performance looks like, how can your firm select,
develop, and promote the most talented people?
More importantly, if you haven’t clearly
identified what separates outstanding
performers from ordinary ones, how can your
firm grow and differentiate itself in the
marketplace?
Your profits are only as good as your people. Do you know how to differentiate
outstanding performers from ordinary ones?
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What is a Competency Model?
A Competency Model defines skills, knowledge,
personal characteristics and abilities needed to
perform in a role and help achieve your company’s
goals. From this perspective, many would argue that
developing a sound competency model is a mission-
critical endeavor for virtually any business that wants
to protect and extend its competitive advantage.
Companies can design and use multiple
competency models if they have jobs or roles that are unique
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What is a Competency?
A competency develops over time as a blend of innate
qualities and learned experiences. It arises from a
combination of who we are and what we’ve been
exposed to in life. The model below provides a useful
way for thinking about competencies:
model developed by Bigby-Havis/Assess Systems
In this model, effective job performance depends on
many elements working together. Over time, innate
factors (such as natural ability and personality
characteristics) combine with learned factors (like
skills) to form competencies. People with a particular
set of competencies will be able to do the right things
(behaviors) to produce the desired results (effective
outcomes).
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Examples of Competencies:
This chart shows some examples from a much broader
library of competencies. Note that they fall into three
categories: how an individual thinks, works, and
relates to others.
Thinking Working Relating
Decisive
Judgment
Delivering Results
Teamwork & Collaboration
In-Depth Problem Solving & Analysis
Planning & Organization
Influencing & Persuading
In order to be useful in a model, competencies need to
be clearly defined in behavioral terms. For example,
people who display Decisive Judgment . . .
“make sound decisions with conviction and
in a timely manner. After they have
considered alternatives and possible
consequences, they can decide upon a
course of action and assume responsibility
for their decisions.”
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Measuring Learned and Innate Factors
How can you predict whether a job candidate will be
able to demonstrate a particular competency? As
mentioned above (see diagram on p. 6) competencies
develop from innate and learned factors. If you can
measure those factors, then you’ll know whether the
candidate has what it takes to display the competencies
you’re looking for. Measuring the learned factors that
contribute to a competency is relatively easy and
straightforward. There are many tools and methods at
your disposal, including specific skill assessments,
structured interviews, and 360-degree feedback.
Unfortunately it’s a little more complicated to reliably
measure the innate factors that contribute to a
competency. Tests that measure personality differ
greatly in terms of how sophisticated and useful they
are. You won’t get very far using a simple test that
classifies people into “types” (e.g. introvert vs.
extrovert). After all, a personality characteristic can be
an asset in relation to one competency, and a liability in
relation to a different competency. Consider the
personality trait of Self-reliance. Self-reliance can be
a good thing when it comes to a competency like
delivering results, but it can hamper teamwork and
collaboration.
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You can’t tell if a candidate will be a good fit with your competency model unless you measure personality the right way . . . You need an approach that goes beyond specifying
how much of a given personality trait you have; you
also have to take into account that for some
competencies you want a lot of a trait, for some you
want a little, and for some you don’t want any. The
link between the personality traits and competencies
is critical because without it, you’ll be measuring
innate characteristics but you won’t be able to draw
meaningful conclusions about real-life behavior. For
example, you might score at the 40th percentile on a
measure of assertiveness, but it’s meaningless unless
we know how that particular score impacts your
ability to display different competencies.
At Hamilton-Chase Consulting, we use and
recommend test instruments from ASSESS
Systems because they do an excellent job of
evaluating how personality impacts on-the-job
competencies. Call Dr. Gard at 312-787-9620
or send us an email (drlgard@hamiltonchase
consulting.com) if you would like to receive a
complimentary sample test report.
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Summary of the major benefits your company can gain by using a Competency Model:
A competency model establishes a definition of high
performance by identifying the critical success factors
(i.e. behaviors, abilities, and attitudes) that differentiate
high performers from ordinary ones. A competency
model also helps a company specify the competencies
(as professionals and more simply, as people) that set
them apart from the competition.
The benefit of establishing and validating a competency
model is that a company no longer has to make an
educated guess about selecting, evaluating, developing,
and promoting key people.
It’s a roadmap for answering questions such as:
Who should be hired?
How should they be developed?
Who is best suited to move up in the organization?
By what criteria do we measure their performance?
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You wouldn’t make decisions about your
company’s future by throwing darts, so why make educated guesses about key personnel?
A well-crafted competency model will help you hit your target.
To learn more about competency models and how
your firm can select and develop top talent, please call
Dr. Larry Gard at (312) 787-9620 or send an email to
[email protected]. Your inquiry
is most welcome.
© 2010 Hamilton-Chase Consulting