Tag Archives: competence

The Accountability Chart

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
For the past few years, I considered my company as a level V company. Your posts the past couple of weeks have made me question that position? I think I have organized the company, at least on paper as level V, but in reality, I may be wrong?

Response:
Most CEOs suffer from optimism. Optimism is required to forge a company against the odds, most startups fail in the first five years. And, those rose colored glasses cover the sins of organizational structure. We like to think our organizations are perfect renditions, we find the best in our people, sometimes ignoring deficiencies, both in structure and people.

An effective organization requires competence in leadership and management. Competence is a combination of Elliott’s four absolutes

  • Capability
  • Skill
  • Interest, passion
  • Required behaviors

Any element on the list can be a dealbreaker. We understand skills, interest and passion, we even understand required behaviors. It’s capability that often eludes us. I can train skills, I cannot train capability. Capability is born and revealed, naturally matures and is relatively predictable.

Your Organization on Paper
Elliott defined three versions of the org chart for his description of a Management Accountability Hierarchy (MAH), an accountability chart.

  • Manifest – the way we draw the org chart
  • Extant – the way the org chart really works
  • Requisite – the way the org chart should look using timespan and requisite principles

The org/accountability chart is an easy way to step through your optimistic thinking, to ground it in reality. An effective organization takes both a requisite structure, appropriately defined roles and competence in each role. Simple, right?

It is only the requisite accountability chart that considers the level of work required in each organizational function. With the level of work accurately identified, the managerial layers fall into place. And, that’s the structure part.

But, even a requisite structure will fail if not fielded with competent players in the right roles. A level V structure will fail lead by a CEO with capability at level III.

Something HR Cannot Do

“As you describe training vs coaching, I get this sinking feeling,” Marie shook her head. “Coaching is time consuming, tedious. I have important things that I have to get done. I simply don’t have the time. Isn’t this something HR could handle?”

I waited. Marie knew the answer to her last question.

“Marie, you are a manager,” my turn to nod. “What more important task, project, responsibility do you have than to build the infrastructure of your team. The reason you have all of these other important things to do, is because you did a lousy job of coaching, building your team in the first place. You do this job well, your life, as a manager will be wonderful. You do this job (coaching) poorly, your life as a manager, will be miserable, and for a very long time.”

Moving From a Level of Competence

“If James sees the world in a whole new way, not as a set of unbending rules, but rules in the context of reality, how competent is James at this new approach?” I asked.

Marie was quick to answer, “He’s terrible at it. He appears unsure, he questions, so the people around him question. I agree that it is a better idea to check the project status before we show up, but now what? His crew becomes disorganized, they don’t know what to do.”

“Do you think, with more experience, that James will get better at anticipating project delays and get better at deploying his crew in a different direction?”

“Of course,” Marie replied. “It’s just, that it’s a mess now.”

“When James showed up on schedule without regard for the project status, how far did he have to think in the future?” I asked.

“Not very far,” Marie observed. “It was easy, plan for the project schedule, whatever the schedule says, is what he planned for. He didn’t have to think that far into the future.”

“And, now that James checks project status before he shows up, how far does he have to think into the future?”

“It’s much different,” Marie replied. “He has to think ahead and create contingency plans so his team knows what to do in the event of a schedule change.”

“So, he is getting better at detecting a schedule change, AND, he is in learning mode in creating contingency plans. You’re his coach, you now have some direction on where he needs your help. What questions can you ask James, where he focuses a few more days in the future and confidently directs his team in a different direction? What you are observing in James is a maturation in timespan. Maturation doesn’t move from one level of competence to another level of competence. It moves from a level of competence (always abiding by the rules) to a level of awareness (the rules don’t always fit reality) that creates confusion and a bit of struggle. Help James through that struggle, he will become more competent, in due time.”

People Are More Complicated

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
We are working hard to recruit and retain the best people. We have read that we should only look at A and B players, get rid of the C players. But, some of the people we might assess as C players for some roles, turn out to be A players in other roles.

Response:
I have always chuckled at simplistic recommendations that lump all people together without regard for complicated variables. A, B and C players in relationship to what?

Every role comes with a certain level of work (level of decision making, level of problem solving). The answer to the question, A, B or C is in relationship to the work. Some problems are simple enough that most people can solve them. But, as the level of complexity increases, some of those people will struggle. It does not mean they are bad people, or even that they are C players. It means that if we can match their level of capability with the level of work in the role, there is a foundation for an A player. But, wait, there’s more.

Capability is only one of four distinct variables required for success (perhaps your definition of an A player). Skill, meaning some body of technical knowledge, applied to some level of performance requiring practice. Without the skill, you, as a manager, may never see my capability.

The third variable is interest or passion for the work. We have interest in work on which we place a high value. High value translates into interest or passion. Without passion, there is less enthusiasm for practice, an essential part of skill development. Without interest, there is little reason to stick to the discipline that may be required to solve a problem, the tenacity to doggedly pursue an objective.

Lastly, there are required behaviors, either contracted by agreement (showing up for work on time), a contributory habit or a behavior required by the culture of the organization.

A, B and C may sound nice and easy to understand, but people are more complicated than that.

What is Competence?

To be effective requires competence. But, what is competence? Lee Thayer said, “The best measure of performance is performance.” It sounds like a circular reference (illegal on an Excel spreadsheet), but his intent was focused. When measuring performance, do not be mislead by surrounding statistics, the best measure of performance is performance.

But, what of competence. Here, the circular reference breaks down. One of the gifts that Elliott gave us was the Four Absolutes Required for Success (in any role, no matter the discipline).

  • Capability.
  • Skill, broken into technical knowledge and practiced performance.
  • Interest, passion (value for the work).
  • Required behaviors

Competence is a combination of Capability and Skill. If I do not have the capability for the work, no amount of developmental training will be helpful. And, I don’t have the skill, you will never see my capability. Competence is a combination of both.

Interest, or passion for the work will influence the amount of time for practice. The more interested I am, the more time I will spend in practice. And if I don’t practice a skill, the skill goes away, competence diminishes.

There is also a set of required behaviors. Practice arrives with many qualities, frequency of practice, duration of practice, depth of practice, accuracy of practice. Accuracy of practice relates to required behaviors. Practice doesn’t make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect.

While the best measure of performance is performance, we can understand competence with a bit more detail.

Under the Rug

“I had such high hopes for her,” Mark explained. “We watched her, promoted her to our executive management team, encouraged her. And, she is failing. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to dampen her spirits if there is anything we can do to save her.”

“Have you talked to her directly, about her underperformance?” I asked.

“Well, we have been kind of waiting until the end of the first quarter, keeping our fingers crossed.”

“Have you tried to bring her underperformance out into the open?”

Mark shook his head. “No, in fact, I asked everyone NOT talk about it in our weekly management meeting. I don’t want to discourage her. Do you know how difficult it is to find someone of her caliber?”

“Just to be clear,” I replied. “Now, that you have moved from a state of denial, you are still willing to hide the problem, not discuss it or actively look the other way?”

Mark tried to speak, but he knew how any response would sound.

Practiced, Grooved Behavior

“But, I thought my team was competent. They have worked under this kind of pressure, solved these kinds of problems before,” Marion reported.

“So, what do you think is the problem?” I asked.

“I know we spent a lot of time working from home over the past couple of months. And, now we are back in the office most of the time. Things are different. People stick to their cubicles, practice social distance. It’s like Men-in-Black erased the memories of how well they used to work together.”

“What’s missing now, that was there before?”

“They seem out of practice. It’s not like they are screwing everything up, but they used to be tight. Now, every hiccup creates a little team stumble.”

“Marion, you say they are out of practice. What have they been practicing?”

She chuckled. “They have practiced being apart, practiced being disconnected, working alone, not talking to each other.”

“We are always in practice,” I said. “Just sometimes we practice stuff that’s counter-productive to where we want to go. We get good at what we practice. If we practice being lazy, we get good at being lazy. If we practice enough, it becomes a habit. Don’t practice things you don’t want to get good at.”

New Behaviors and Habits

Muriel took a measured breath. “I have an uneasy feeling, and I don’t know why,” she explained. “Things are going okay, but, as we ramp back up, I think things are going to change. And I am not sure I am prepared to adapt quick enough.”

“Things are going well, now?” I asked.

“Going okay, not great, but okay, kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“When did things start to go okay?”

Muriel laughed. “You are right, it’s been a tough few weeks. I don’t know if I just got used to it, or if I got better.”

“So, things got easier. New unknown problems became familiar, you knew what to do and how to do it.” I said.

Muriel nodded affirmative.

“And, we know things will change, again, because they always do. Change in your company, on your team and with yourself. And when things change, you are faced with your own incompetence.”

Muriel winced. Close to home, perhaps. I continued. “But you do adapt and you do change. But tell me, when you successfully perform something new, for the first time, does that make you competent?”

“No,” she responded. “Competence requires practice, doing it well over and over, until it becomes a habit.”

“So competence is not simply acquiring an occasional new skill, but acquiring a new habit.”

Clumsy at First

Last week, I published the following excerpt –

Those permanent adaptations will seem clumsy at first, just not the same, but permanent nonetheless. And the clumsiness will become practiced, and those among us who practice will become competent at a new way. And the new way will improve on par with the old way. And, we will wonder what took us so long to get over our resistance.

Now, a list of questions, from which I would like to get your response.

  • In your business, what have you learned over the past month, that you did not know before?
  • In your business, what changes have you made out of necessity?
  • In the changes that you have made, what might become permanent?
  • How are you practicing those new things, to become competent in those new things?
  • In your business, what is likely never to return?

Post your comments, I am curious. -Tom

Four Factors of Competence

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You talk about competence as a primary driver of performance. If the underperformance is a matter of competence, what do I look for? It is too easy to say, “Oh, that person is just incompetent.”

Response:
Competence is made up of four things –

  • Capability
  • Skill
  • Interest or passion for the work
  • Required behaviors

These four factors can be used to trouble-shoot any underperformance, even mis-behavior.

Capability
Capability is an elusive concept to articulate, but we understand it intuitively through analogies. Some call it horsepower, mental acuity, light bulbs in the box, a few cards light in the deck. Most would agree that some problems are simple, some more complex. And, that some people can solve simple problems, but struggle when the level of problem solving becomes more complex. This is not just grasping all the facts to make a decision, but making a decision in the absence of facts, where there is ambiguity and uncertainty.

Skill
Where capability is more difficult to articulate, skill is easy. Competence related to skill is observable. There is evidence of output. A skill is anything that can be learned, anything that can be taught. Two pieces to every skill, one is technical knowledge, the other is practiced performance.

Interest or passion for the work
Without interest or passion, it is unlikely the person will put in the time to practice the skill. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, talks about 10,000 hours of practice required to master (become competent) a skill. A person who has no interest will not put in the time.

Required behaviors
There are three strings connected to required behaviors, contracted behaviors, habits and culture. There are some behaviors we simply contract for, like showing up on time for work. Competence can also be observed in habits. We are competent in those behaviors that are repeated (practiced), routine, grooved. As an organization (or team, or group) we enforce some required behaviors through culture.

So when I look for competence in performance, these are the four things I look for.