by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“Ensuring a player is compatible with their position, you should take care that their competence (or know-how) synergizes with their capabilities (or innate talents). The combination of the two can be called compabilities.”

  Football is with us again. It’s that time of year. We will be mesmerized by some of the talent on the field, where the most talented players can turn a game one way or another. Probably some of the best coaches and talent scouts spotted them several years ago. They noted that not only were these players real pros, but they lived for the game, too. Even so, it’s highly likely at least 50% of coaches and scouts whistle-in-the-wind, because they don’t give sufficient thought as to what makes a great player. It’s here that compability modeling can be of great help.

Again, compability is a combination of competence – knowledge of role and skills – and capability – innate talent for this particular role – within any particular player. Let’s take the crucial role of quarterback and consider some of the most likely compabilities of that particular position:

NOTE: There may be other important competences and capabilities for the quarterback position, but those listed above are certainly among them.

And so, by aligning a person’s competences and capabilities with their particular job or position, you will now give them the greatest opportunity to succeed. While you can always teach job holders their required competences, if you have the time and the individual has the aptitude, it’s virtually impossible to teach them the required capabilities. The latter are innate and can only be fine-tuned through effective coaching and experience.

When a person’s natural compabilities are not aligned with their defined position, then they feel vulnerable by not feeling in concert with its requirements. In such instances the individual will either leave or just coast along as best they can. There are likely more than 50% of employed people in the latter grouping, as you read this article. At the same time, they are probably uncomfortable on a daily basis and their executives are uncomfortable, too. Why not encourage them to leave and find a better match?

One other thing that comes into play is your people’s match with your organization’s culture. They may pretty well have most of the compabilities you require, although they don’t feel “at home” with either you or your organization. From this vantage point, it is better for you to clearly lay out your organization’s philosophy and culture, as well as own-up to your own unique style, and then have a “heart-to-heart” with the potential misfit. If there’s mutual agreement on the likely misfit, then be as generous as possible with the person in both time and opportunity to find a new work-home. It’s not entirely their fault for being a misfit, since you were the one who made the hiring decision in the first place.

Which brings us back to the hiring decision itself. You should clearly do your level best to clearly lay-out the required competences and capabilities – at least in terms of the key ones, as per the earlier quarterback example. Once you’ve done that, it can be valuable to rank order them in terms of whether they are Critical, Important or Nice-to-have. It’s now imperative for your candidate to absolutely meet your critical factors. They should also meet more than 50% of your important ones.

You should then “take-the-time” to put together questions – open-ended ones – that will enable you to interview-test all those critical and important factors. If necessary, find a skilled interviewer to help you put together such questions. Nothing is perfect, but you will at least be better prepared than on any other previous interview occasions. As the old saying goes: ‘Effective preparation time can save you a lot of time later on.’ Too many executives wing-it.

So your take-aways for obtaining an optimum performance from the people you hire include:

• Prepare properly for hiring situations by listing the position competences and capabilities.
• Rank order the importance of those compabilities; in terms of Critical, Important and Nice-to-have.
• Develop appropriate, searching questions for at least the critical and important
• Use this same compability listing for orienting, coaching and role contribution sessions. (NOTE: The latter is a positive alternative to performance appraisal; the disaster of management thinking.)

To learn more about workplace people engagement, talk with: