Competency Matrix

Competency and Skill Building for Success

http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/competency-matrix/6txz9nck6g3/4

You Will Learn to Manage Your Personal, Family and Professional

Life

In these pages, I am going to pen down a few very important things for you. If you learn
and practice them, you are sure to become very effective. With that enhanced
effectiveness, you will be able to manage your entire life very successfully. You will
manage all aspects of your life: personal, professional, family and social.

More than 100,000 people from all walks of life have attended my talks, presentations,
seminars and workshops (around 35000 hours of speaking engagements). A large
numbers of them tell me that they are benefited.

Effectiveness: All about Desire, Knowledge and Skill

Personal and professional effectiveness means that you can perform a particular task or
activity in a superior manner, better than the best benchmark currently available for that
task/activity or at least, you should be able to match up with it. It may not be possible to
reach that excellence level from the level where you are at present, all of a sudden.
However, you can improve upon your effectiveness gradually from your current status to
the newly defined status.

You will have to follow a standard operating procedure (SOP or a process) for that.

First, you should have a desire to improve in that particular task/activity. You can take a
horse to water but can not make it drink water unless the horse has desire to drink water.
Same with human beings too.

Secondly, you should learn the relevant knowledge pertaining to that task. There is lot of
knowledge for every task. Some one has written a 200 pages book titled "how to do a
great handshake".

And, then you should practice that task again and again. Practice makes a man (and
woman) perfect. There is no short cut to practice. There is no short cut to knowledge and
desire also. If you wish to excel in shaking hands with people, first learn from that 200
pages book (make sure that the stuff is authentic) and keep on shaking hands with every
one you meet.
Ultimately, you will score 10 on 10 in shaking hands and it will become your habit. You
will internalize that skill. It will happen to you, automatically, in the superior most
manner, effortlessly.

Excellence in Any Skill is All About "Practice"

In the earlier paragraphs, I mentioned that "practice" makes a man (and a woman)
perfect. Its true.

Why do you think that the soldiers and their officers in the armed forces walk smartly (as
compared to large numbers of civilians)? Simply because they are given the knowledge
on how to walk smartly, they learn the standard operating procedure (SOP, the process)
on walking smartly. And, then, they walk every day for hours together in their daily
parades/drills. They rehearse and rehearse and try to make it perfect.

So, when you have a desire to pick up any skill and become the best in it, get the required
knowledge to perform that skill correctly and then, practice, practice and practice.

You do need skills of all sorts to become successful in your personal, professional, family
and social life and you got to be damn good in them if you wish to excel. And who
doesn't?

So, choose a skill and perfect it.

Excellence in Competencies/Skills

You will be able to achieve the excellence in any skill or competency only if you rehearse
or practice the learned skill a large number of times. Knowledge alone is no guarantee for
achieving great levels in skills or competencies.

Implementation of knowledge is the name of the game.

Great Knowledge + Zero Implementation = No effectiveness, No results, No success

Some Knowledge + Some implementation = Some Effectiveness, Some Results, Some
Success
Great Knowledge + Great Implementation = Great Effectiveness, Great Results, Great
Success

There are 4 levels of competencies or skills:

1. Unconsciously incompetent: Ignorance (example: you are not even aware that there are
some proper styles of swimming)

2. Consciously incompetent: Acceptance of incompetence and creating a desire to learn

(example: you accept that you do not swim properly and you will like to learn the correct
styles of swimming)

3. Consciously competent: Gaining the knowledge about the skill to be mastered and
begin practicing the knowledge gained (example: gaining knowledge on how to swim
using proper styles of swimming and start swimming using the right styles of swimming)

4. Unconsciously competent: Keep practicing the knowledge gained till you gain mastery
in the skill (example: you have now become an expert swimmer since you have been
swimming using the proper styles of swimming over number of hours and you can now
give yourself 9 on 10 or even 10 on 10)

For greater success in life, you should try to reach the unconsciously competent level in
the skills required by you for your professional, personal, family and social
activities/tasks/projects.

Doing Every Verb of a Dictionary Needs Skill

To sit (properly and decently) needs skill of sitting properly and decently. You have to
learn the right way of sitting and then keep doing it that way every time you sit.

To walk (smartly) needs the skill of walking smartly. You have to learn as to how to walk
smartly and then practice walking using that knowledge.

To dance (artistically) needs the skill of dancing artistically. (The professional dancers
rehearse hours and hours before they are ready to perform in front of an audience or a
camera).

To make love (in satisfying manner) does not happen the very first time. You got to learn
its theory and then practice it and every time improve upon the way you do it in order to
gain the right kind of expertise in it.

So choose the skill you need to and so, wish to develop and learn about its theory and
practice it.

Good luck.

Soft Skills and Hard Skills

You will need to sharpen your soft skills as well as your hard skills in order to become
effective, efficient and successful in your life and your professions.

Hard skills are to do with the technical skills and soft skills are the behavioral skills. Both
types of skills are required for carrying our your professional activities effectively and
efficiently. They are also required to be successful in your personal, family and social
life.

You should first identify as to which soft skills and hard skills you need to develop. Each
person may have his or her unique requirements. Once having identified them, you will
need to feel motivated about developing those skills. I have emphasized earlier that there
is no short-cut to master the skills. You will have to acquire the right kind of knowledge
about those skills and then keep on practicing.

Then, you are there to win the world.

Soft Skills and Hard Skills: More About Them

Hard skills are technical skills. Like writing programs for computers, preparing a balance
sheet, working on a particular machine for a particular process in a manufacturing
workshop, acting in a television serial or a cinema film, carrying out a surgery etc. You
must have proficiency in these skills in order to become a good professional in your
chosen fields and to earn decent living.

You can do a still better job of your chosen professions if you also acquire proficiency in
those soft skills which are required to perform your jobs better. These soft skills are
behavioral in nature. For example, how do you communicate with the people, how good
are you in making business presentations, how empathetic you are with the people you
come across, can you work as a team member, do you manage your time well and so on.
These skills make all the difference.

Mere technical skills allow you certain degree of success. You can achieve higher degree
of success if you equip yourself with soft skills too.

Technical skills are obvious and people learning them find it easy to understand and
follow the processes of acquiring these skills. However, one wonders as to what is there
to learn in soft skills; you are already doing them. Say, communication. You have been
speaking and listening from the very young age and so, one may think as to what is there
to learn more and how to learn. But if you look around, you may find that some people
are more effective in speaking than others. Here is the answer. The people who speak
more effectively have learnt and practiced to speak effectively. They have followed and
implemented certain processes and guidelines for speaking more effectively. It did hot
happen to them accidentally or automatically.

Soft skills make a difference in the external and internal personalities. People who
acquire soft skills of high order are more sophisticated, more cultured, more reformed
and are found to be more successful in every walk of life.

Therefore, in addition to perfecting your hard skills, also try to perfect your soft skills.
Competency Matrix, Competency Mapping, Gap Analysis and
Competency Building

The model to build up your hard and soft skills/competencies and gain excellence in
them, in a focused manner, is a four stage model:

1. Developing your competency matrix: By your self analysis and taking help of others
(your friends, spouse, parents, brothers and sisters, professional associates, bosses etc),
find out the hard and soft skills/competencies you should possess in order to be
successful in your professional and family roles. Write them down.

2. Map your own competencies against the competency matrix requirements: Check out
if you have those required skills/competencies and are they at the desired level of
proficiencies.

3. Analyse the competency gaps: By doing steps 1 & 2, you will come to know your
skill/competency gaps. Which are the skills/competencies that are totally absent in you
and you should pick them up fast because they are critical to your success. You will also
know the skills/competencies which you already have but not at the desired levels of
proficiency. Pull up there. Do not worry about other skills/competencies outside of your
competency matrix (step 1). Write down these gaps.

4. Bridge the competency gaps: Now is the time to act on the identified gaps (step 3) in
skills/competencies. For each skill/competency that you need to improve, you should
work out a clear cut time line based action plan. Look out for the sources and resources
and also, ways and means to pick up and pull up your skills/competencies found as gaps.
Try to reach the desired levels of proficiency in a well defined time span. Implementation
and practice are the essential aspects of building skills/competencies as emphasized
earlier.

So, go ahead, follow the above-mentioned SOP (model) and become the highly
skilled/competent person in your chosen roles and become successful in life-
professional, personal, family and social.

Do not bother to look at those skills/competencies which are not appearing in your
competency matrix (step 1) though they may look good or your friends may be good at
them. Don't waste your energy and time in picking them up or improving them. If you
work on them, you will reach only to a mediocre level from your existing poor level.
However, if you concentrate on your competency matrix (step 1), you will go from
strength to strength and in the same period of time, you will reach to excellence level. So,
don't attempt to become mediocre in the skills/competencies not required by you for your
success but become excellent in all the skills/competencies required by you for your
success.

You will have to work on this model quite frequently, say once or twice every year of
your life. There will be changes in profile of jobs, techology, social activities, business
practices and many other things and that will impact on your competency matrix.

Re-skilling, Upscaling the Skills and Multi-skilling

In today fast changing world where almost everything is changing at a mind boggling
pace, you can not rest after achieving high levels of proficiency in the skills required for
your personal, professional, family and social activities. If you stop practicing at those
skills, you will deteriorate in those skills, therefore keep re-skilling yourself in all those
skills required for your effectiveness and success. Keep practicing those. Its like
sharpening the saw every now and then.

You will soon realize that the existing job profiles are constantly changing. Some jobs
become extinct or may become less lucrative or less paying or you may lose interest in
your existing activities etc. Therefore, you have to be alert and look out for more
potential opportunities. For example, a coder or a computer programmer may like to up-
scale his skills to work as a system analyst or a business analyst or a
programming/project manager. So, upscaling in the associated field is the key for long
term staying power with lots of career satisfaction and so, the family happiness.

You may like to work in two types of jobs or pursue career in two or more professions. In
that case, you have to be skilled in more than one sets of skills. We call it multi-skilling.
You may like to be a multi skilled person.

So use re-skilling, upscaling the skills and multi-skilling to your advantage.

Soft Skills

Earlier, I have emphasized the importance of acquiring and mastering the soft skills. Hard
skills are important and you should never undermine them. They are your bread and
butter skills. For example, a tourist guide has to know the technical aspects of his job like
showing his tourists the right places in a proper sequence with authentic commentary on
them, the legalities of his job, the safety aspect of his tourists etc, yet, he will be more in
demand and earn more if he also has the necessary soft skills for the job like manners and
etiquette, interpersonal relations with tourists, humor, creativity etc.

Hard skills are more rational types and soft skills improve your emotional intelligence.
Soft skills make you more cultured, empathic, understanding, caring and also, more
sophisticated and reformed.

You must try to find out what soft skills you should choose to acquire and develop for
success in your personal, professional, family and social life.

I am giving below a fairly comprehensive list of soft skills for your guidance.
1. Observation
2. Know yourself (introspection)
3. Openness and flexibility (paradigm shifting)
4. Internal motivation and passion
5. Action orientation, drive and self initiation
6. Self development
7. Self confidence
8. Assertiveness
9. Integrity
10. Trustworthiness
11. Composure and self presentation (appearance, manners and etiquette)
12. Intellectual horsepower and learning
13. Creativity and innovation
14. Conviction
15. Moral courage
16. Dependability and reliability
17. Dealing with ambiguity
18. Time management
19. Goal setting and result orientation
20. Decision making
21. Problem solving and process orientation
22. Organizing
23. Coordinating
24. Delegation
25. Communication (speaking, listening, empathy, body language, writing)
26. Interpersonal skills
27. Negotiation
28. Conflict management
29. Presentation
30. Convincing
31. Coaching and developing people
32. Counseling
33. Mentoring
34. Team work
35. Team building
36. Consensus building
37. Conducting meetings
38. Leading
39. Big picture thinking and strategic thinking
40. Motivating others
41. Controlling
42. Safety
43. Stress management
Go through the above list very carefully and tick out the soft skills where you need to pull
up yourself. Then, you have to go through the cycle of gaining authentic knowledge of
that skill, understanding the process (the SOP) of building that skill, practicing that skill
following the process (SOP), practicing it, practicing it and practicing it till you get the
mastery over that skill, till that skills gets internalized in you- it becomes your habit (I
wrote about this model of skill building in detail, in earlier paragraphs).