You have big annual goals that align with your strategic plan. Everyone must play a role in helping to achieve them. A few on your team will overachieve. Also, more than a few won’t carry their own weight. Why is this and how can you intentionally develop them as leaders?
There are many reasons for this reality, including how engaged everyone is in what the goals are and whether or not they understand their own roles in achieving them. However, at the most basic level, the question that must be asked is how many on the team have the COMPETENCIES needed to reach the goals in the first place?
In our organizations, we often talk more about skills than competencies. Most of the time skills (hard skills, at least) are described in job descriptions and listed as a requirement. A competency, however, is a set of skills and is also attached to values and behaviors. As an illustration, the table below shows examples of skills that may help make up a competency.
| Definition | Examples | |
| Skills | Specific learned abilities required to perform a task or job in a specific way | Expert use of a particular CRM for donor management; knowing and executing on the best practice steps of engaging a donor; active listening skills; clear verbal communication |
| Competencies | A combination of knowledge, learned abilities, values and behaviors that allow an individual to perform key functions or goals successfully, often setting them apart from others. | Relationship development; ability to influence others |
Among the key positions that are needed to achieve your big goals this year, or even across the whole organization, what is the one competency that is essential to reach this goal? This may be the most important question you answer in the new year. How do you determine what competency matters most to your organization? Two things might help:
- One way is to think of competencies as the things that would make a job candidate stand out. If you called for a reference about a certain candidate, what praise would most lead you to hire that person? For example: “Natalia is someone you always want on your team because she follows protocols and inspires and motivates others while doing so.” Or, “Taylor stands out for me because not only does he know the steps of engaging a donor, but he is intuitively good with relationships, can read people, and really cares about them; all of these things together make him able to engage and retain more donors for our organization than ever before.” Then, ask yourself, what competency does this represent?
- Sometimes the easiest way to determine what competency is needed most, is to look at who is excelling on your team and determine what his or her competency is that is leading to such success. What competency (remember a set of skills plus behaviors) makes his or her success possible?
Of course, after the first question are three more to consider:
- What are the skills, behaviors and values that make up this competency?
- Which of these can be taught/learned?
- Who on the team has which ones and how can the organization help to develop individuals where they are lacking?
- What does this knowledge tell me about hiring and recruiting for our team?
Below is a list of different competencies to get you started. This is adapted from the University of Washington’s Guide to Workplace Competencies, which they adapted from the book, FYI: For Your Improvement, b Michael M. Lombardo and Robert W. Einchinger (2009).
| INDIVIDUAL EXCELLENCE | INTERPERSONAL EXCELLENCE | OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE | LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE | ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE |
| How you manage yourself and your approach to work? | How effectively you communicate with others, work on a team, and manage conflict or difference? | How efficiently and successfully you execute your job and achieve your objectives? | How well you hire, develop, and manage individuals and your team as a whole? | How well you contribute to the mission and objectives of your team and the organization at large? |
| COMPETENCIES Accountability and IntegrityInnovation and CreativityProblem Solving and Decision MakingSelf-Awareness | COMPETENCIES Collaboration and Teamwork Conflict Management Interpersonal Savvy Speaking and Presenting Written Communications | COMPETENCIES Planning and Prioritization Process and Project Management Information and Technology Understanding and use of Policies and Systems | COMPETENCIES Building Effective Teams Hiring and Staffing Developing Employees Managing and Measuring Work | COMPETENCIES Change and ResilienceCustomer FocusOrganizational AcumenRace, Equity, and DiversityStrategic Ability |