Page 108 - The extraordinary leader

The Competency Quest • 85

in one company or public organization are not that different from those in
another. People are people wherever they work. What makes for success in
one firm is a carbon copy of what causes success in another.
The authors have long felt that the differences between people within any
one organization are certainly as large or larger than those between organiza-
tions in the same industry, and probably between all organizations. That is, the
differences between the people who work for Ajax Manufacturing in quality
assurance and sales, or those in accounting and marketing, or between the peo-
ple in research and development in contrast with those in maintenance—those
differences are usually large, and every bit as large as the differences between
the people from Ajax Manufacturing and those from its competitor, Behemoth
Manufacturing. And these differences are probably as large as the differences
between Ajax and the Carthage Corporation in the neighboring state.
Another explanation is that the same consulting firms are doing the com-
petency analysis, and their processes ferret out the same things wherever they
go. Much of the research on competencies has been done by a relatively small
group of consulting firms.
Finally, it is probable that there are a handful of factors that will always
account for overall leadership effectiveness. Lyle Spencer writes in his book
Competence at Work “that the competencies of achievement orientation,
influence and personal effectiveness will likely account for 80–98 percent of
all competency models.” 2

Assumption 2. Competencies are unique and distinctive traits or qualities
possessed by an individual.
Fact: One of the most dramatic discoveries of our analysis is the massive link-
age between competencies. The linkage we are talking about does not con-
sist of a handful of competencies that are slightly linked to each other. Instead,
nearly every competency we studied was highly correlated with many others.
Rather than being separate and distinct, each organization’s competencies
were like a three-dimensional spider web, in which any place you touch is
linked to countless other strands in the web.
It appears that the researchers who were driving the competency move-
ment wanted to make competencies appear unique and distinctive. So the
research was done in a way that gave the appearance of separation between
the competencies. Nothing is further from the truth. With such complex,
strong links between competencies, it becomes problematic even to give them
individual labels.