Organizations don’t simply run from a strategic plan prescription. Projected cash flows don’t deliver themselves. Business units don’t run in a vacuum. Individual technical ability is not more important than the collaborative knowledge, ability, and skills of people and teams.
If you recruit people with evaluation efforts that focus on industry experience, work history, and academic education, evidence shows these human resource tools do not show positive correlation to predict someone’s success within a firm or that a collection of technical wizards would impact a firm’s future success.
Technical skill has little to do mitigating operational risk within your organization.
Evaluations that include work product, reports, stories, and conversations are qualitative views with only limited insight into someone’s technical ability.
Further, these qualitative types of human capital assessments remain highly subjective and are neither quantifiable nor comparative.
Only quantitative approaches provide comparative analysis.
Important predictive human capital tools are quantitative results include measures such as IQ. But studies estimate IQ accounts for as little as 4% to 10% to someone’s professional success.
Sum of the Squares
Research in over 200 organizations worldwide suggested the difference between top performers and average performers finds only 33% of the performance is attributable to cognitive (IQ) and technical ability and the remaining 66%* due to human capital competency**.
An IQ score does not accurately project job success or mitigate human capital risk so it is not the predictive tool we hope for.
There are measurable human capital, competency-based assessments that quantify how people manage themselves and others and how teams collaborate. Getting a quantifiable handle on competencies that people use to manage themselves and teams are critical human capital performance indicators. Globally, you can find that these competencies differentiate outstanding performers from average performers and include:
- Cognitive competencies, such as systems thinking and pattern recognition
- Emotional intelligence competencies, including self-awareness and self-management competencies, such as emotional self-awareness and emotional self-control; and
- Social competencies, including social awareness and relationship management competencies, such as empathy and teamwork
A competency is defined as a capability or ability. It is a set of related, but different, sets of behavior, organized around an underlying construct called the “intent”. The behaviors are alternate manifestations of the intent, as appropriate in various situations or times (Boyatzis, 1982, 2008; McClelland, 1973, 1985).
Alternatively, competencies can be described as the sum of practical, social, and analytical skills. Behavioral competencies are those that are seen or can be witnessed.
Competencies, or a behavioral approach to cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence studies on complex jobs reveal a top performer [someone rating highly in emotional and social competency] is almost 127% more productive than an average performer. 127% more productivity is the difference between a product launch or product failure.
Competencies, as part of the evaluation, provide a great insight into fit and projected success. Competency assessments when paired with cultural alignment tools, such as the Competing Values Framework, provide an opportunity to assess how someone manages them self, how they manage others, and the culture most likely to provide their success: hierarchy, startup, etc…
For a deeper view try these posts on Emotional Intelligence and the Competing Values Framework and an article by Richard Boyatzis on Competencies in the 21st Century.
*”Working with Emotional Intelligence”; Goleman, 1998; page. 19 and page 320
**Boyatzis, 1982, 2008; McClelland, 1973, 1985