Management: A Competency-Based Approach

 

 

Competency Based Management

Managing - A Competence-based Approach

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Management - A Competency-based Approach

 

Rationale

The Occupational Competence movement was initiated by David McClelland in the 1960s with a view to moving away from traditional attempts to describe competence in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes and to focus instead on generic, high-level, competencies or “motivational predispositions”. He argued (McClelland, 1974) that these competencies could neither be identified nor assessed using traditional procedures. The fundamental problem is that high level competencies such as initiative and the ability to understand and intervene in organizational processes are difficult and demanding activities that no one will engage in unless they very much care about the activity in which they are engaged.

Such qualities will, therefore, only be developed and displayed while people are undertaking activities they care about. Furthermore success in undertaking them depends on bringing to bear a range of cognitive, affective, and conative components of competence, such as thinking about what is to be achieved and how it is to be achieved, turning one’s emotions into the task, and persisting over a long period of time. Note, again, that these components of competence cannot be assessed except in relation to activities people care about, i.e. they cannot be assessed through the processes favored by traditional psychometricians. Hence their neglect in conventional studies of occupational competence based upon traditional tests – and especially tests of “academic” knowledge - knowledge of content. As it happens, McClelland and his colleagues had developed an alternative framework for thinking about and assessing high level competencies but, unfortunately, presented it as a way of thinking about motivation. And, because it is at loggerheads with conventional thinking in psychometrics, it has been widely misunderstood.

Over time, it became clear that the high level competencies differentiating effective from ineffective performance in occupational roles could be identified using Behavioral Event Interviewing. These studies revealed the importance of a wide range of previously neglected competencies. By the time Lyle and Signe Spencer sought to bring them together in their book “Competence at Work” there were about 800 such studies. Unfortunately, the Spencers’ attempt to develop an “atomic theory of competence” to systematize them seems to have lost sight of McClelland’s insights. Still more unfortunately, as can be seen from the previous entry under this heading, the multi-billion dollar international competence based education and training movement which followed largely corrupted the orientation of the program back into the very framework that McClelland had tried so hard to replace. Nevertheless, as can be seen from Raven and Stephenson (2001), there have been important developments in research relating to the nature, development, and assessment of high-level competencies in homes, schools, and workplaces.
Management Competencies

 

References

McClelland, D. C. (1973). Testing for competence rather than for "intelligence". American Psychologist, 28, 1-14.

Raven, J., & Stephenson, J. (Eds.). (2001). Competence in the Learning Society. New York: Peter Lang.

Spencer, L. M., & Spencer, S. M. (1993). Competence at Work. New York: Wiley.

 

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AN OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT

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The term "Management" characterizes the process of and/or the personnel leading and directing all or part of an organization (often a business) through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). The word "manage" comes from the Italian maneggiare, which in turn derives from the Latin manus, hand.

 

 

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Systems for the management of information in a university context: an investigation of user need

 

 

MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT

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In management, the ultimate measure of management's performance is the metric of Management Effectiveness which includes:

execution, or how well management's plans were carried out by members of the organization

leadership, or how effectively management communicated and translated the vision and strategy of the organization to the members

delegation, or how well management gave assignments and communicated instructions to members of the organization

return on investment, or how well management utilized the resources (financial, physical, and human) of the organization to bring an acceptable return to shareholders

conflict management, or how well management is able to utilitze confrontation and collaboration skills. Management's ability to be flexible and appeal to common interests.

motivation, how management attempts to understand the needs of others and inspires them to perform. Focuses on rewarding performance rather than punishing failure.

consideration, an effective manager is open to critics. Seeks to understand others' values and does not merely view them as a means to an end.

 Pyramid of Management Development

 

Management Development is best described as the process from which managers learn and improve their skills not only to benefit themselves but also their employing organisations.[1]

 

Management Development Programme

 

In organisational development (OD), the effectiveness of management is recognised as one of the determinant's of organisational success. Therefore, investment in management development can have a direct economic benefit to the organisation.

Managers are exposed to learning opportunities whilst doing their jobs, if this informal learning is used as a formal process then it is regarded as management development.

In 2004 the spend per annum per manager on management and leadership development was £1,035, an average of 6.3 days per manager.[2]

What management development includes:

 

The term 'leadership' is often used almost interchangeably with 'management' Leadership which deals with emotions is an important component of management which is about rational thinking..[3]

The Management Charter Intiative (MCI) originally set out management competencies for management S/NVQ’s, these comptencies are now part of the National Qualification Framework (NQF), it is from these competencies that managers can be assessed and development needs determined.

 

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Stakeholder Engagement Model

 

The role of Stakeholder is a very old concept in law. A stakeholder was originally a person who temporarily holds money or other property while its owner is being determined. This is, for example, the situation when two persons bet on the outcome of a future event and ask a third, disinterested, neutral person to hold the money (or "stake[s]") that they have wagered (or "staked"). After the event occurs, the stakeholder distributes the stakes to one or both of the original (or other) parties according to the outcome of the event and according to the previously decided conditions. Courts sometimes act as stakeholders, holding property while litigation between the possible owners resolves the issue of which one is entitled to the property. Trustees also often act as stakeholders, holding property until beneficiaries come of age, for example. An "escrow agent" is one kind of trustee who is a stakeholder, usually in a situation where part of the purchase price of property is being held until some condition is satisfied. In legal documents, the escrow agent is often referred to as a "mere stakeholder."More recently, a broader - and in some senses, opposite - meaning of the term has come into use. According to this, stakeholders can include the following:

1. People who will be affected by an endeavor and can influence it but who are not directly involved with doing the work. In the private sector, examples include managers who are affected by a project, process owners, people who work with the process under study, internal departments that support the process, the financial department, suppliers, and even customers.

2. People who are (or might be) affected by any action taken by an organization or group. Examples are parents, children, customers, owners, employees, associates, partners, contractors, suppliers, people that are related or located near by. Any group or individual who can affect or who is affected by achievement of a group's objectives.

3. An individual or group with an interest in a group's or an organization's success in delivering intended results and in maintaining the viability of the group or the organization's product and/or service. Stakeholders influence programs, products, and services.

4. Any organization, governmental entity, or individual that has a stake in or may be impacted by a given approach to environmental regulation, pollution prevention, energy conservation, etc.

5. A participant in a community mobilization effort, representing a particular segment of society. School board members, environmental organizations, elected officials, chamber of commerce representatives, neighborhood advisory council members, and religious leaders are all examples of local stakeholders.

Stakeholders, in these senses, are more coherently described as "interest groups", but the new usage of the term "stakeholder" for these senses is now widespread and more or less firmly established. The new use of the term arose together with and due to the spread of the concept and demands of corporate social responsibility, but there are also utilitarian and traditional business goals that are served by the new meaning of the term (see stakeholder concept and below).

 

Stakeholder

Examples of interests
Owners private/shareholders Profit, Performance, Direction
Government Taxation, VAT, Legislation
Senior Management staff Performance, Targets
Non-Managerial staff Rates of pay, Job security
Trade Unions Working conditions, Minimum wage
Customers Value, Quality, Customer Care
Creditors Credit score, new contracts, Liquidity
Local Community Jobs, Involvement, Environmental issues

 

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PLANNING AND CONTROL

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Strategic Planning consists of the process of defining objectives and developing strategies to reach those objectives. By labelling a piece of planning "strategic" we expect it to operate on the grand scale and to take in "the big picture" (in contradistinction to "tactical" planning, which by definition has to focus more on the tactics of individual detailed activities). "Long range" planning typically projects current activities and programs into a revised view of the external world, thereby describing results that will most likely occur. "Strategic" planning tries to "create" more desirable future results by (a) influencing the outside world or (b) adapting current programs and actions so as to have more favorable outcomes in the external environment.

Within business, strategic planning may provide overall direction strategic management to a company or give specific direction in such areas as:

 

We want to do Strategic Planning to:

1. Have the capability to obtain the desired objective

2. Fit well both with the external environment and with an organization's resources and core competencies - it should appear feasible and appropriate

3. Have the capability of providing an organization with a sustainable competitive advantage - ideally through uniqueness and sustainability

4. Prove dynamic, flexible, and able to adapt to changing situations

5. Suffice on its own - specifically providing favorable outcomes without the need for cross-subsidization

 

Tools for Writing and Presenting a Marketing Plan

 

Benefits of Team-based Strategic Planning

 

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ORGANIZING

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Organizational Learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts.

In Organizational Development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. (see adaptive system). OD specialists endeavor to assist their clients to learn from experience and incorporate the learning as feedback into the planning process.

 

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Implementing Business Intelligence Systems: An Organizational Learning Approach

 

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Human Resource Management (HRM) is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce. The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.

HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall.

 

Now Is The Time To Challenge HRM Orthodoxy

 

The field also encompasses the sometimes arcane details of what is traditionally referred to as personnel management. Personnel management as a term describes those activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. In many locales, these activities can require a considerable amount of regulatory knowledge and effort, and many enterprises can benefit from the recruitment and development of personnel with these specific skills.

 

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LEADING

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In psychology, Motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behavior (Geen, 1995). Motivation is a temporal and dynamic state that should not be confused with personality or emotion. Motivation is having the encouragement to do something. A motivated person can be reaching for a long-term goal such as becoming a professional writer or a more short-term goal like learning how to spell a particular word. Personality invariably refers to more or less permanent characteristics of an individual's state of being (e.g., shy, extrovert, conscientious). As opposed to motivation, emotion refers to temporal states that do not immediately link to behavior (e.g., anger, grief, happiness).

 

Employee Motivation in the workplace

 

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The word leadership can refer to:

  1. the process of leading
  2. the concept of leading
  3. those entities that perform one or more acts of leading.

 

The various meanings can lead to some confusion.

 

Leadership Development

 

 

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Recommended Texts

 

Management - Competence Based Approach

Management - A Competency-Based Approach

Don Hellriegel, Susan E. Jackson, John W. Slocum Jr.
Management - A Competency-Based Approach
10th Edition ©2005
ISBN: 0324259948

Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.

 

 

Resources

The Performance & Potential Matrix

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#HR Guide

 

Management Dictionary As a study aid, students may use the glossary terms below as flashcards to test your knowledge. State the definition of a term below, then click on the term to check the correctness of your statement.

Spanish Translations of Management Terms As a study aid, students may listen to a Management term, and hear the word pronounced in English, then in Spanish.

Organizational Index As a guide, students may download the Organizational Index from the textbook.

 

Case Studies

Cohesion Case Videos

This Cohesion Video Case features Horizons Companies, a provider of multimedia, video, Web development, branding, and marketing services, with three locations (Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; and Nashville) and eight divisions, including its own record label. Six different video segments explore different aspects of the company. Watch the video, then answer the discussion questions.

Note:  A Quicktime plugin needs to be present on your computer in order for these video clips to play.
Download it for free from the Apple web site.

    1. Looking at Horizons,
    2. Building Your Horizons
    3. The Man Behind the Values
    4. Managing Your Horizons
    5. People and Tools
    6. Future Horizons

 

Yorkshire Water

Yorkshire Water Services Limited is a water supply and teatment utility company servicing most of Yorkshire in northern England. The company has its origins in the Yorkshire Water Authority, one of ten regional water authorities created by the Water Act 1973, and privatised in 1989. The company has been part of the Kelda Group since 1999.

Area

Yorkshire Water

The company's area includes West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, part of North Lincolnshire, most of North Yorkshire and part of Derbyshire. The area is adjoined on the north by that of Northumbrian Water, on the west by United Utilities, on the south west by Severn Trent Water and on the south by Anglian Water.

Constituents

The authority created in 1973 took over the following public sector water supply utilities:

  • Barnsley Corporation
  • Bradford Corporation
  • Huddersfield Corporation
  • Kingston upon Hull Corporation
  • Leeds Corporation
  • Rotherham Corporation
  • Scarborough Corporation
  • Sheffield Corporation
  • Norton Urban District Council
  • Rawmarsh Urban District Council
  • Calderdale Water Board
  • Claro Water Board
  • Craven Water Board
  • Doncaster and District Joint Water Board
  • East Yorkshire (Wolds Area) Water Board
  • Mid Calder Water Board
  • Northallerton and the Dales Water Board
  • Pontefract, Goole and Selby Water Board
  • Rombalds Water Board
  • Ryedale Joint Water Board
  • Wakefield and District Water Board
  • York Waterworks Company

 

and the

  • Yorkshire River Authority