At some point in your career, you most likely have been asked to participate in a competency assessment of some sort. Competency assessments are used by organizations to identify skill gaps and foster the development of training and professional development plans. Additionally, competency assessments can be used to align employees with work of the appropriate complexity for their competency level and to select from potential candidates for employment. Typical formats for competency assessments include, but are not limited to, multiple choice tests, self-rating inventories, performance observations, and computer simulations.
Okay then, with that said, what do competency assessments really measure? They measure, at best, what I call Potential Capability—what you think you can do, or a knowledge/skill level. If that is the goal of your assessment, then read no further. However, with the exception of performance observations, the problem with competency assessments is that most assessments evaluate a person’s knowledge, skills, and abilities in a vacuum. Our Applied Capability research indicates that this one-dimensional, isolated approach provides limited value and does not really predict performance outcomes.
I will illustrate what I mean using the following scenario. Consider an Olympic marathon runner. When asked to complete a running skills competency assessment, the runner would most likely rate him or herself at an expert competency level for all running skills (one-dimensional, in isolation). In ideal conditions, the runner will exhibit an expert competency level and perform at his or her best.
However, will the runner still exhibit an expert competency level and run as efficiently as he or she thinks (potential capability) if the runner is wearing ill-fitting shoes and running uphill in a driving rain and wind storm (applied capability)? Most likely, the runner will be unable to execute at peak performance given the current environmental conditions. We would expect the expert runner to perform better in these conditions than a novice runner would. But, by how much will the expert runner’s performance decrease? And how would you predict it? The answer is, by using Applied Capability. Applied Capability measures and accounts for key organizational influences that enhance or detract from a person’s performance.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you in your workplace? In your current organization, given your knowledge and experience, do you feel like you should be able to perform like an expert runner at all times? However, do you feel you are always running against a headwind with ineffective tools, having to overcome never-ending obstacles? Have you ever wondered how much your own competency and effectiveness have decreased because of conditions in your organizational environment? If you answered, “Yes” to any of these questions, understanding Applied Capability will help you improve your performance.
Our research has shown that conditions in the organizational environment enhance or detract from an employee’s competence and reduce expected performance outcomes. We found that even highly skilled and experienced employees achieved lower performance outcomes than they had expected. When gaps exist between an employee's potential capability and applied capability, the employee’s work performance may not always meet the expectations of management, coworkers, and customers.
Remember, standard competency assessments do not account for the potential impacts of organizational conditions on your performance. Therefore, competency assessments may provide inflated results—If we all think we are highly competent, then why are so many organizations still struggling to improve business outcomes? Because they are not measuring and using Applied Capability to guide the development and implementation of balanced performance improvement solutions.
