about competences - are you competent?

Let's now talk about competences. What kind of animals are those? We are not really looking for a definition written in stone (we like our definitions blurry, remember?), but we are very interested in the characteristics of competences. Once we crack that nut, we are on our way to discovering how to manage and grow our competences.

The million dollar question: are you competent?

When I first started with this book project, I did some interviews with friends. The first question was always 'are you competent?'. So I'd like to pose that same question to you reader: are you competent? Take a moment to think about it, then read on...

Are you competent? Your answer : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Most of my friends replied with 'competent in what?' which I consider the good answer. I must admit, I have a few die-hard MBA boys in my circle of friends, and one or two are prone to answer that question with a confident 'yes!'. But all in all, you cannot be competent full stop. You can only be competent in something. That's what we call the competence DOMAIN. So let's rephrase the trick question above to a more accurate one:

Reader, what are you competent in? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

What did you write down? (Probably nothing, right? Books are very passive media.) You could be competent in raising kids, leading teams of people, speaking in public, avoiding taxes, sailing a few of the seven seas, listening to people, flying a plane, setting business strategies, etc etc. Competence domains are usually broad, but they have specific detailed characteristics. Some people make a living out of specifying the details of leadership competencies. Truth of the matter is: you can only be competent in something. And that something you need to be able to name. So that's the caveat with the whole competences, talent management, skills development or related fields: you need to be able to identify what you need to be good at. Personally, I think that is a safe assumption. You can name competence domains if you don't go too detailed. As we'll argue later when we talk about the times we live in, the details change fast. What makes a good leader in a planned and stable manufacturing environment does not necessarily make a good leader in a shifting, unpredictable services environment. But you still need competent leaders. I'm in favor of defining competencies in broad areas like competent in leading, competent in presenting, competent in analyzing financial data, competent in marketing, competent in selling, competent in growing crops, competent in curing people, etc. Those broad areas are not impacted by the speed and volatility of the times we live in, but the underlying characteristics might.

Key point: you cannot be competent full stop. You are competent in something (a domain).