Strengths and Weaknesses of Competency Models

[Image: Excerpt from OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual, 1944 Link to PDF seems broken, happy to email]

Leadership profiling tools are "fundamentally flawed" says new research

"According to the research, up to 45 per cent of the statements used in competency models to assess and develop managers fail to identify the most important behaviours and frequently overlook important factors."

It's easy to be cynical. But much more difficult to work out which part of the above to be most skeptical about - the leadership profiling tools themselves or the research (from an HR consultancy) saying they're fundamentally flawed.

My evidence is better than your evidence
Firstly, I'm suspicious of this kind of evidence - the kind that gets included in a press release.

This is the kind of data that will be used to end discussions not start them. Somebody who's job it is to do this kind of meta-job will end a discussion with somebody who's job it is to do a job by saying, "Yes, but where's the evidence base?"

The people producing this evidence are clearly not liars. But the way the information is produced has a lot in common with lying. Dubious precision and, importantly, the ability to convince yourself as much as the audience are the key factors in being able to lie to somebody effectively.

Lex parsimoniae
These reports and press releases aren't lies. But they are misleading.

The principle of Occam's Razor (or the 'Law of Parsimony') is:

"When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."

The simplest explanation for the weaknesses of the competency models is not that they're 'fundamentally flawed' and you'll therefore 'need to run regular health checks'.

But that they're fundamentally flawed and that you should build this fact into working with them.

Just because it's a cliche doesn't make it less true...
This stuff is hard. The world of work and organisations is complex and changing faster than our ability to stick it into a framework. Putting people into competency frameworks is slightly inhumane and, therefore, will always present problems.

Here's my version of the above statement from the press release:

"From many conversations I've had with leaders and managers, I've learned that virtually all of the statements used in competency models to assess and develop managers have the potential to obscure as much as they reveal and they almost always overlook important factors.

This means that until we train managers themselves to use and contribute to the models - and perhaps including a dynamic element to the models by combining them with environment scanning/sensemaking/effective Knowledge Management techniques - they should come with a health warning. They're useful as a guide, but leaders need to beware of the HR tail wagging the dog."