Organizational Competencies

Client scenario: A multi-national manufacturing company has spent two years developing a set of “leadership competencies,” each with a set of related skills and behaviors, for its organization. The workshop that the company designed to introduce this model, however, received poor reviews.

A review of the feedback forms from the two pilot workshops revealed that while participants seemed to like the idea of a behavior-based model, many reported that they “didn’t get” the distinction between the seven different competencies.

Working closely with the managers who had researched and developed the company’s model, we designed an exercise intended to demonstrate both the concept behind each competency AND the behaviors specified by it.

One of the seven leadership practices, for example, stated that “leaders seek out and communicate trends.” To explore this competency, we structured a race between four break-out groups. Each group was given a 55 gallon drum and a small bag of balloons. The first team to fill the barrel with balloons would be declared the winner. Before a team could place a balloon in its barrel, however, the balloon had to be “approved” by a facilitator. “Approval” was contingent on three tests: the balloon needed to be presented to the facilitator in the participant’s left hand, the balloon could not be the same color as the last balloon approved, and orange balloons were never allowed. Participants, however, were not told what these criteria were – only that they existed.

Because each group had a finite number of balloons, success was contingent on diligently observing each transaction in order to deduce a pattern. The most successful teams, in fact, sent observers to observe other teams’ progress to gather more data points. The least successful teams took a “brute force” approach, presenting as many balloons as they could as quickly as they could.

In discussion afterwards, the company’s own training staff were able to use the exercise as a concrete example of what they meant by seeking out trends, and point to specific tactics that the most successful teams used as behavioral illustrations. Once participants in each workshop agreed that they “got it,” the trainers would then use the business case studies originally designed into the workshop to transfer the concept to the “real world.”

When the decision was made to add an experiential component to the session, an extra day was added to the two day course to accommodate the extra activities. After experimenting, however, the course designers found that “frontloading” each discussion with an activity actually saved them time… and the course was cut back to its original two days.