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The Art and Science of Competency Models September 4, 2009
One of my co-workers and I often joked about creating a television sitcom about a group of twenty-something Industrial-Organizational Psychologists who lived in the big city where they learned about love, friendship, and how to leverage the tools and methodologies of psychology to solve organizational problems. This book by Anntoinette Lucia and Richard Lepsinger would figure into one of the episode's B stories in some way, perhaps because the "Chandler" of the show needs to figure out how to identify the critical knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to adequately perform a target job. Look for it soon on NBC's Thursday night lineup.
But enough about that. This book is pretty much what the title suggests: it discusses a hands-on approach to developing competency models --that is, a collection of basic requirements for doing a given job in a work setting. What I like about it is that it's got a very "nuts and bolts" approach that pays some respect to the academic side of the subject but is really pretty squarely aimed at practitioners. It goes into some basic definitions and reviews of relevant legal material, but then jumps right in to how to create a competency model and then how to use that model to build various Human Resources functions like selection systems, training/development, performance appraisal, and succession planning. There are little vignettes along the way that describe how real companies are doing all this stuff.
So it's good that the book doesn't get bogged down in minutia, but at the same time I would have appreciated a little more in terms of tools, worksheets, surveys, handouts, and examples. The authors talk about what you should be doing and even how to do it, but I would have liked to see more concrete examples. It's almost as if they seem afraid to take anything but a generalist approach, since any examples would be specific to a given organization and job. But I don't mind that, since I'm smart enough to figure out how to take what's presented and adapt it to my own circumstances; at least give me a chance to do that. Still, as a primer, it's not bad if you need an overview or starting point for more research on the topic.
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