Differences Between Skills & Competencies | eHow.com

To meet the demand from business leadership to clearly estimate of value expended on training both in terms of spend and time, strategic hr management's reaction has been to identify specific competencies and skills in 'tangible' terms that can be observed and measured in terms of transfer to the workplace and impact on the business.

Enter the competency brigade...these days everything HR does is competency driven.In designing learning programs (and indeed, all people related issues), there is the drive to be competency based.

I have been asked about the difference between skills and competencies. Simply put, skills are subsets or inputs to competency. I found an article on eHow that gives a fairish definition of what the difference is. Read it up below.


Differences Between Skills & Competencies | eHow.com

Competencies for Leadership Development: What’s Hot and What’s Not

Reviewing your Leadership Development and Training plans? You'll find this article useful. Its a precis of research conducted by William A. Gentry, PHD of the Center for Creative Leadership. His survey which was conducted in 30 industries identifies 10 key competencies for leadership. As always, comments and feedback are welcome.

Read the full article here:

Competencies for Leadership Development: What’s Hot and What’s Not

Developing an innovative mindset

Innovation and creativity have long been practically synonyms in my mind. I got to thinking about the concept of innovation during a discussion with a prospect who was exploring ways to engender an innovative mindset in her team. After our chat I set out to explore the subject and came across the article below. The writer certainly improved my understanding of both terms. I think a clearer understanding of both concepts is important if the objective is to find effective ways to get our teams to adopt a more innovative mindset. Reactions to ideas shared in the article are welcome.

Innovate or Create ?

Copyright © 2011 Julie Austin

After spending the day speaking to several different groups about creativity and innovation I realized how hard it was to convince people that they are both important. Even though creativity and innovation are two different things, they also go hand in hand.

To be innovative you have to be creative. It you want to come up with ideas, you have to think outside of your own head. (a better way of saying 'think outside the box'). You are going to have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to come up with an idea that no one has ever thought of before. Sometimes you have to go way out of that comfort zone, and that's scary for many people. Even the most creative people tend to get stuck in a rut. Even the most creative people fall into patterns that work for them. Most humans will follow the path of least resistance. Sometimes it works if you're trying to figure out the fastest way to get to work. The process of creativity will require you to go down roads you have never been on before. And that can mean it might just take longer to get where you're going. People tend to want instant results and creativity takes its time.

Adults, unlike children, are afraid of failing. The process of creativity is all about failing. It's trial and error. In order to get a good idea you will sometimes have to make a total fool out of yourself.It was harder than I thought to get a room full of businessmen to jump up on stage and make fools of themselves. You can't learn about creativity without actually doing it yourself. It can't be learned from reading a book. Just like you can't learn to be an actor, comedian, or public speaker from reading a book. You have to just do it. But that was easier said than done. In corporations we tend to avoid being silly and saying something stupid in front of our peers, and even more important, our boss. This is where great leadership comes in. A good leader will allow their employees to go into creativity and innovation brainstorming sessions without having sensors on.
Most people teach innovation without also teaching the techniques of creativity. You have to learn both if you want to truly innovate and come up with something that has never been done before.

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Julie Austin is a multiple business owner and inventor. Her product, swiggies, wrist water bottles, were a NASDAQ product of the year semi finalist and are sold all over the world. Her book "The Money Garden: How to Plant the Seeds for a Lifetime of Income" is about creating multiple business streams of income. http://www.createforcash.com/

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com/

Jacqueline Novogratz: Inspiring a life of immersion | Video on TED.com

Jacqueline Novogratz: Inspiring a life of immersion Video on TED.com

I came across this video and found the message profound and topical. In response to all the uncertainty and chaos around us, we yearn for ways to make a difference - live a better life, leave the world a better place. Even people who have the courage to step out pay some really high prices. These prices keep many of us from taking personal action to change the way things are. you will find this talk inspiring.

How do these views translate into the Nigerian situation? We are certainly not short of poor and marginalized people as well as seemingly intractable socio economic problems. I find it fascinating that people from other parts of the world come here to Africa giving up their time and resources, going through discomfort and hardship to help our own people whilst we run after bigger jobs, houses, focusing on our personal needs.

1. Is the courage and the greatness of the human spirit being demonstrated by us for our society and people?
2. Can we do more as individuals?
3. Who better than us to change our society and our future for good?
4. Are you willing to step up and give your life - time, resources, energy to change our spheres of influence for the greater good?
5. Can we encourage the choice to take the higher ground as human beings in for our lives and for others?

Comments and responses welcome.

Enjoy the video!

Demonstrating the value of Training

One of the things I  try do continually is to assess what various organization's training needs and challenges facing them are. Over time, one of the favorite woes of training/hr managers is 'management approval'. Sometimes the user department and HR  are convinced of the necessity for certain types and levels training but get shot down at approval level. Responses most often heard are - "no budget", "it’s the wrong time", “not enough value to the business", "we can’t afford to let people off work at this time" amongst other well worn answers.

Some managers are stumped for a response when faced with these answers and the training goes on hold. Many business leaders appreciate the concept of training the workforce but are unable to make the commitment in resources required to make it happen. Here are a few tips for the manager who needs to train thier team for better performance in the face of stiff competition for organizational resources.

1.      Find a way to clearly define and communicate the value of your training initiative to the organization. This may seem easy on paper. In practice we in HR and training are challenged by our limited ability to analyze data and express ourselves in numbers, especially in financial terms. We must learn to speak the language of our business. This is the only way to engage attention at the executive level.

One way to do this is to measure performance trends and their drivers both at an organizational (what are we doing?) and competitive level (what are our competitors doing?).  If w are able to make a case for value in terms of financials - increasing profits, retaining customers, decreasing costs, minimizing waste, driving innovation, increasing employer engagement or competitive advantage, to mention a few;  we will have the needed  attention at executive level to make things happen.

It is important to know where our business is (in performance and the underlying competencies required) compared to where the business needs to be. We must know how our organization did in the past, what we are doing now and future business directions - these trends need to be firmly in view as we make our case to management. Our requests for approval should be based on thorough research, clear analyses and where possible related to the bottom line  in Naira and kobo terms.

2.      Adopt a multifaceted approach to training.  From the viewpoints of transferring skills, managing costs, and enabling learning across the organization, a heterogeneous or blended approach is useful. It is possible to reduce the investment required in more expensive types of training (e.g. classroom training provided by third parties) by including/ increasing other types of learning - online learning, mentoring/coaching programs.

Training gets more effective as the combination of different approaches ensures (a) learning re-enforcement (b) encourages internalization (c) reduces monotony (d) can be a viable tool for improving synergy and collaboration across the organization.

Another good alternative is to train a few internal 'expert' to train others within the organization. This reduces the number of people attending external training, and builds organizational competency in the area of knowledge retention and distribution. For this to work however, there must be a conscious effort to harness the newly created training talent through regularly scheduled knowledge sharing sessions.

3.      Document, measure and record post training impact. Quite often, business leadership sees HR spending a lot on training with minimal evidence of transfer of this investment to the workplace. This problem can be tackled in 2 ways – (a) Select training that is action oriented. There are many learning alternatives available on the market today and 3rd party trainers with varying levels of competence. In making your selection of training provider and articulating your training requirements, it is critical to emphasize the need to integrate a practical approach that focuses on making the skills taught relevant to your specific situation and desirable for use in real life. Learners do best when they are able to practice what they are being taught and can make the connection between the learning and solutions to everyday work issues. (b) Measure and report performance impact back to management. Don’t let the last thing they see of the training be the approval request. In making the request, try to create specific achievable and measurable outcomes (as best as you can).

Once you have approval, measure on several levels – learners, assessment of the training attended, impact made from the supervisor’s perspective, as well as achievement of the outcomes previously set. This should be done both short term (0- 3months) and long term (12 months or more) and insights shared with the organization. You will find that as a training function, measuring the impact of learning also gives you the insight needed to make better training decisions and provide strategic direction.

See 2 other view points on making the most of training from the individual www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-ways-to-get-maximum-value-from-a-professional-development-class/411  and organizational www.trainingmag.com/article/maximizing-business-value-training perspective .

A very popular approach for measuring training effectiveness is the Kirkpatrick model. Research it online and/or email me : info@psnlbusinesssolutions.com  to request a free toolkit for using the Kirkpatrick model to measure training impact for your organization.