Capability? Nah, I'll take Competency
Joe Dunlap
"The lens through which you look at a problem is probably the same lens through which you solve the problem." The question is, how many other lenses did you neglect in your solution?
A colleague brought to my attention the other day a webinar regarding a capability academy which got me thinking, "why would you want to build a capability academy, wouldn't you rather build a competency academy?"
Historically capabilities described something that has the capacity of being realized, but that has not yet been realized. Hence, using the term capabilities is good in instances where someone may be considered for a new role. They have the capability to function in that role, but still need to obtain the necessary competencies to be fully effective.
The other part of this webinar that gave me pause was the assertion that capability academies are newer to the L&D universe. I'm sorry to say that's not the case. Back in the early 2000s I was an ID at a company and we were ranked in Training Magazine's top 125 for our Sales Capability Academy. The naming was intentional, the participants who completed the academy were capable, but no one knew if they would become good sales people; we had a Sales Academy for those who did succeed. Here's a few others to read about:
But this is not just a matter of who got there first and the "coining" of a term, it's in the creative definition of capability. We, and I'm including myself, in L&D have a bad habit of taking business terms, practices, etc., and changing them to fit our scope of work. The problem with this is, "we are the only ones who are working from that mindset." Were not doing ourselves any favors if our organizational leaders and colleagues don't understand what we are doing/saying if our definition/practice doesn't match theirs. For example...
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In my organization when we say capability it means that Operator X has the capability of working on another machine. X is not there yet, X could get there, but only time will tell if X can get to competency on the other machine. So imagine if I went to my CEO with the idea of building a Capability Academy? Or better yet attending a session to learn to build one? My CEO doesn't want what could be, my CEO wants a Competency and Performance Academy.
Let's look at another recent trend. Learning in the Flow of Work. This practice has been around 70 plus years and is called Training Within Industry. Guy W Wallace , Bob Mosher , Conrad Gottfredson and Gary Wise have taken this to a new level and if workflow learning is on your radar, do yourself a favor and connect with these expert practitioners
So again my fellow L&Ders, do yourself a favor when you see this articles, webinars, workshops; Research its history, its practice and if the presenter/author has ever implemented it. You'd be surprised how many of them learned what other organizations did, repackaged it, and sell it with some never having done the work. Ask if your organization, your leaders want it. It may sound great but if there's no interest at home you are wasting money.
As P.T. Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute." Please don't be one. Thanks for reading, until next time...
Writer of Things - Author - Coach
2 年Not to be a contrarian but this smacks of chicken versus egg…or is it egg versus chicken. I’ve always been of the mind that competencies define what are necessary chops to accomplish specific work…while capability is proven in the choppin’.
Head People & Organizational Capabilities I Learning & Talent Catalyst I Organizational Psychologist | Executive Coach
2 年here is a different spin to the currrent 'is it a capability, skill, competency, mindset, behavior or all together change we are striving for (or is it capacity, our sourcing, sorry resourcing model, our motivation/great resignation, lack of why/purpose or the change, pardon transformation saturation..). We used C.I. BPM influenced thinking to develop capability models in the business as part of larger transformation efforts (literally rethink how we work). A capability then entails process, roles, governance, infrastructure.. basically the entire set up of a new. - well, capability - e.g. data analytics & insights or customer centric business models - and thus, it's scope goes beyond competencies (which in german are also called 'key qualfications' = transferable skills, which include knowledge, skills, attitude, behavior) or the modern notion of 'skills' (which I am sure you will point out, is not a modern notion at all ;-) - and in our case was used to describe the holistic system built to enable the capability. Within the capability, there are aspects of knowledge, know how, skills, mindset/ways of thinking/doing we were working on to enable individuals and teams to work with the system that enables the business capability.
Well said, Joe! Competency is king. I understand why capability awareness is necessary for organisational forward planning but this continued delivery of training that delivers no genuine end value slays me to my core.