Difference between revisions of "Workshop 8 - Competency, Part 1"

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Competency: n. The ability to do something successfully or efficiently.

Competency is at the core of any business, and because of the importance of competency in sustainable business, it’s important to get a framework around it, form a common language around it. We don’t always know what we mean by competency, or if we do, we aren’t good at communicating it to others.

3 foundations of competency:

1. Skill: knowing how to do something
2. Knowledge: keeping up to date; knowing what’s going on in the field in which you work
3. Experience: being able to say that you have done work in your skill area.

Competency = Photosynthesis: Competency is to sustainable business what photosynthesis is to a plant’s biology: photosynthesis changes energy from the sun into plant growth. Competency takes in energy in the forms of effort, ideas, money, and love, for example, and creates value in business: profit, nurturing the planet, up-lifting the community. If you don’t have competency in something, you can put time, energy and money into a business without getting anything out. Competency is vital, especially to get to the triple bottom line of a sustainable business.

Depth of competency:

1. Understanding: You have a basic understanding of the skill; understand the terminology.
2. Novice: You are in the process of learning and developing a deeper understanding of the skill.
3. Proficient: You have enough competency in that skill area to be able to perform the task at a market-based rate.
4. Expert: You are highly proficient in the skill; expert level might be enough for the majority of the skills you need for your business.
5. World Class: You don't need to be world class at all that you do, but it's great if you can achieve that level in one or two areas of your business.

Be willing to learn: You don’t have to be an expert or at a world class level to start a business, but you do have to be ready, able and willing to learn. The learning process is what is most important. Almost everyone has been a novice in their career, but you have to have a clear understanding of where you need go and how to get there.

Your organization should have a learning culture - work with people who are in the learning process as well.

Capacity: For a service oriented business, achieving the expert level is a measure of your capacity. Capacity is related to competency and number of people available to do the work.

Standards are always shifting: What once was an expert is now a novice - you have to be continually learning, updating, changing. Rule at Accenture: "Every 7 years, everything you know is wrong."

Specialization:

This chart demonstrates the breadth of competency, or specialization, that someone might need to have in a particular field. If you were looking for an attorney, for example, what areas of specialization might be required for your business? If you, yourself, are not 3 tiers deep in your understanding of this skill, then you aren’t near where you need to be. So you need a navigator, someone to help you navigate this space who can help you find the right person with the correct specialized skills that your business requires.

Core Competencies and Business Competencies:

Using a bicycle repair business as an example, this chart shows the core competencies and business competencies that might be required to run the business.

Core competencies are the skills you need to have in order to produce the product or service you are selling.

For each of the skills listed you need to have a good understanding of how proficient you are; are you a novice? proficient? an expert? world class? Perhaps there will be some jobs that you will have to outsource to partner. You may be very competent at things like wheel truing or fixing/replacing tires, but will have to outsource jobs like painting and frame straightening.

Business competencies are the skills that will be needed in order to run the business end, such as accounting, marketing, human resources management, taxes and web development. As with core competencies, some of these jobs can be handled inside the business while others might have to be outsourced depending on your areas of knowledge and competency.

Many entrepreneurs are initially unaware of how much time they will need to invest in running their business over and above the time they spend actually doing the work of producing the product or providing the service. So be aware that if, for example, you want to be a professional painter with your own business, you will probably spend more time running your business than you will painting.

Core competencies are necessary but not sufficient to run a business. If all you have are core competencies, then you would do best working for someone else. If you want to run your own business, you will have to have or develop business competencies in areas like accounting, taxes, employee hiring/development, marketing, etc. Some of this work you may retain in-house while other jobs might be outsourced to a partner, but you must still have at least a basic understanding of these areas of business management.