Career Development
Competencies: The New Compass for Organizations and Individual Careers

In a world in which careers shift and organizations change quickly, certain competencies endure. Organizations still need managers with skills in critical thinking, building relationships, and leading teams. For organizations, these competencies can be leveraged across a wide range of business activities and new initiatives. For individuals, these competencies can be leveraged across diverse jobs and companies, becoming the building blocks for career progress.

The recent explicit focus on competencies may reflect the decline in career continuity. For a manager spending 30 or 40 years at the same organization, competencies could be developed more implicitly. "When people stayed at an organization for life, mentors in the company often naturally focused on these competencies. Now this has been made more explicit," said Deb Giffen, a director at Wharton who has worked with companies and individuals in identifying competencies and designing programs to build them.

Many companies have created their own competency models. Researchers who have looked at these models have identified a broad set of meta-competencies across various organizations. For example, Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger developed one of the prominent sets of competencies, the more than 60 "Lominger" management competencies. In Wharton's own work with many leading companies, it also has identified its own set of broader competencies across organizations that are reflected in its programs and the educational capabilities it has developed. (For example, as leadership skills have become increasingly important, Wharton has expanded its leadership offerings.)

The focus on competencies changes the way organizations look at executive education and the way individuals look at their own development. Instead of asking what educational program an individual needs, the first question is: What competencies need to be developed? Then, educational programs and development experiences can be identified or designed to build those competencies.

Company Competencies

Organizations might choose as few as a half dozen or as many as two dozen or more competencies that they consider essential to their future success. These competencies are then translated into executive compensation schemes and concrete behavioral objectives for managers. For example, if a company wants to encourage competencies in innovation, it might set a behavioral goal for the number of new ideas that the manager contributes. These can then be measured and factored into compensation.

Competencies also affect the choice of educational and development programs. The company that wants to promote innovation, for example, might develop a program specifically designed to cultivate this competency, or it might send managers to existing executive education programs. At Wharton, for example, these programs range from those that are broadly focused on innovation, such as Full-Spectrum Innovation: Driving Organic Growth, to programs that emphasize creativity in specific areas, such as Strategic R&D Management. Other programs encourage more creative approaches to how managers think about their decisions and strategy, such as Strategic Thinking and Management for Competitive Advantage and Critical Thinking: Real-World, Real-Time Decisions. Senior management programs such as the Advanced Management Program also promote innovation by drawing in fresh perspectives from diverse fields and experts.

In fact, by taking managers out of their natural habitats, just about any open-enrollment program will encourage creative thinking by exposing managers to peers from diverse industries and new thinking from professors. "One of the reasons companies send people to executive education programs is to get them out of their silos," said Giffen. "Just hearing other people's perspectives and new ideas can create that spark to think in new ways about what they are doing."

Individual Competencies

Even as companies are identifying the competencies they need to develop, individuals are looking at the competencies they need to advance their own careers. These often are based on feedback from personal development plans. For example, a manager at an entrepreneurial company that had grown from four employees to 150 recognized that he now needed to work on his people and management skills. He came to Wharton for the Leading and Managing People program and then began designing a longer-term Certificate of Professional Development program to build the competencies he would need over the next few years. He considered following up with the Building Relationships That Work program to extend his interpersonal skills. Given 360-degree feedback that showed he needed to focus on peer relationships, he also explored the new program Strategic Persuasion: The Art and Science of Selling Ideas and the Executive Negotiation Workshop: Bargaining for Advantage®.

Since he didn't have an MBA, he looked at core management skills such as the Essentials of Management program to build his business acumen. By identifying the competencies he needed to succeed, he could identify the best executive education programs to cultivate those competencies.
The expression of competencies changes as managers move up through the organization. "A competency in 'managing diversity' looks different for someone who is a senior vice president versus a mid-level manager," Giffen said. "A senior vice president might focus on hiring practices or doing a cultural audit across the organization. The mid-level manager might focus on facilitating meetings that allow for sharing differences of opinion."

Changing Competencies

While competencies such as leadership skills will very likely be critical to organizations in the future, some competencies needed by organizations change and shift over time. For example, a study of the pharmaceuticals industry by Wharton's Monica McGrath and colleague John Joseph indicated shifts in the competencies needed for success in the industry. The study, sponsored by Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change Management and Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., found that the most valuable current competencies were delivering results, action orientation, developing subordinates, and integrity and trust. The ones considered most important for the future, however, included perspective, functional or technical skills, business acumen, and managing vision and purpose.

A focus on competencies can help identify and shape the conversation about these changing needs and their implications for individual professional development. Above all, the ability to learn is a vital management competency that can help develop the new competencies needed —no matter what the future brings.

Related Links

Wharton Certificate of Professional Development

To discuss the competencies you need to develop and how Wharton programs can help, contact Katrina Clark or one of our other program consultants at:

1.800.255.3932 (U.S. or Canada)
+1.215.898.1776 (worldwide)
execed@wharton.upenn.edu

   

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