Organizational competence

The dictionary defines competence as the ability to do something well. In business-speak, Bloomberg defines competence as “Sufficient ability or fitness for one’s needs. The necessary abilities to be qualified to achieve a certain goal or complete a project.”

These definitions describe being able to do something. None of them address having the motivation to actually do something. Business progress is measured in accomplishment, not potential. Being able doesn’t mean anything is going to get done.

Struggling to find a term to describe learning that leads to action, I turned to one of my favorite resources on words, the Online Etymology Dictionary. There I discovered that competent descends from Latin competens, which meant to strive together. Interestingly, working together remains the primary means of developing competence.

Competens is a participle of competere, which means compete. Competere once meant “to come together, agree, to be qualified,” later, “strive together,” from com- “together” + petere “to strive, seek”. Somewhere at least 400 years back in time, compete took on its current meaning of “strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others.” Rivalry replaced cooperation.

Synonyms for compete: contend, vie with, vie for, enter into competition, take part, strive, struggle, cope with, be in the running, become a competitor, enter the rolls, enter the lists, run for, participate in, contend for a prize, race, race with, engage in a contest, oppose, wrestle, be rivals, contest, fight, tussle, joust, battle, seek the same prize, bandy with, spar, fence, collide, tilt, bid, face, clash, encounter, match wits with, match strength with, play, grapple, jockey, rival, emulate, keep up with the Joneses, take on, take on all comers, go in for, lock horns with, go out for, throw one’s hat into the ring, give a run for one’s money.

Individuals (plural)

I explored this individual vs. group meme in a column entitled Trios Trump Singletons in the August issue of CLO.

While the individual is the old unit of human production, continued emphasis on the individual instead of the group chokes off today’s opportunities with yesterday’s limitations.

Groups of people, not individuals, are the key to producing value in the knowledge era; yet, corporations hire individuals, performance reviews assess a single person and career paths are solo.

Whenever we catch ourselves thinking of individual workers, let’s take a moment to consider whether we should be thinking of teams instead, as conversation is the wellspring of innovation, and innovation results from the creative friction of people with differing perspectives.

They co-create the concepts that bring them into harmony with their environment. They reinforce one another. That’s “they,” not “he” and not “she.”

Ah ha! My real interest is in organizational competence, and that’s the product of internal competition in the old sense of the word. It’s what happens when people strive together. It’s called collaboration.

My columns for CLO are limited to 750 words. (Form over function?) The August piece ended with a learning example.

In the past, organizations often sent a single individual to an outside meeting, believing that he or she would bring the message home to share. This rarely happens because the individual is the wrong unit of production for taking advantage of learning innovation.

Organizations that send teams are more likely to put things into practice. Colleagues reinforce one another; an individual is but a lone voice. A small team cannot only plant the seeds of innovation but also nurture them, so the optimal unit for an innovation-building session is a trio, not a single person.

I plan to devote more energy in 2009 to exploring social learning. I’m going to substitute organization for one in Bloomberg’s definition of competence. “Sufficient ability or fitness for the organization’s needs. The necessary abilities to be qualified to achieve a certain goal….” If the workers aren’t motivated, the organization is not qualified to achieve its goals.