Competency Matrix: Overdoing the Competencies

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Competency Matrix: Overdoing the Competencies

Excess of Everything Is Bad

In our earlier post on "Competency Matrix" (http://competency-matrix.blogspot.in/2009/01/competency-matrix.html), we had included a word of caution. It was about taking care of the pitfall of "overdoing the competencies". 

While developing various kinds of competencies, it is possible to fall into this trap of getting "obsessed" with those competencies. But then as you are aware excess of everything is bad. We had cited a few examples of this and it's negative impact. 

In this present post, we are giving a comprehensive list of indicators of this "obsession" or "overdoing" on a large number of competencies as given below.

Indicators of Overdoing the Competencies: Beware of Overdoing the Competencies

When you get obsessed with any competency or start overdoing it, possibilities of following tendencies exit and efforts should be made to overcome them.

1. Action Orientation: hopelessly workaholic, lopsided personal/family and social life, stressed out, setting unrealistic goals, setting very difficult dead lines, subordination of planning over actions, single track mind and action, inflexible.
2. Composure: uncaring attitude, hiding the emotions all the time, stressed because of bottled up feelings not shared or expressed, boring at times.
3. Communication: only gab and no worthwhile content, too much or too little preparedness before communicating, presentation style and effect more important, excessive salesmanship,  too much of a listener, listening giving impression of agreement or weakness, may err on time management due to over-indulgence in communication by self and others. 
4. Conflict Management: invariably insist on only the win-win solution though not necessary,  getting involved in every conflict resolution situation though not required, seeing every problem from an assumption that some conflict exists. 
5. Conviction: inappropriately sticking to certain ways of thinking, inflexible even where flexibility is necessary, blatant in expressions about self beliefs, too pushy in actions related to matters of  self convictions, perceiving flexibility as a sign of non-conviction, closed to feedback.
6. Creativity: disproportionate expenditure of resources on certain creative ideas of less importance, superficial ideas, only ideas and no implementation, possibility of becoming a loner  and poor team player, contempt for less creative people, being far ahead of people and time  in  terms of creativity to the extent that the ideas get shot down by others.
7. Customer Orientation: Giving in too easily to customers even when not warranted, twisting even well-tested company policies, plans and practices in view of customer demands, inordinate pressure on employees of the organization and overcommitting other resources to accommodate the customers.
8. Decision Making: may becoming overzealous in giving decisions rather than evolving the decisions,  burdening all the decision making situations on own shoulders, giving decision without sound analysis, short term decision overlooking any long term considerations, weakening  the decentralization.  
9. Developing People: lopsided expenditure of time and other resources on training and development of people, more of professor than an executive, employees spending more time and efforts in training rather than on the job thus affecting the time lines of the projects. 
10. Integrity: perceiving and making every situation an issue of integrity and ethics, act in a self-righteous manner, getting projected as a stubborn and inflexible person, making too much fuss of transparency and openness.
11. Interpersonal Skills: being goody goody with each and everyone at the cost of effectiveness and efficiency, acceptance and approval addict, tendency for groupthink, avoiding conflicts all the time, cannot handle rough weather, wasting time spend relationship building and networking, compromising and accommodative.
12. Leadership: mistaking leadership for dictatorship or patronage, more words less action, creating a crevice between followers and self leaving people behind, tendency to curb emergence of new leadership, insistence that only his vision be followed, share his vision, envisioning or deciding on only the big or strategic picture with little concern for details, get projected as more theoretical and less practical.
13. Problem Solving: tendency of analysis paralysis, burdening self with all the responsibilities of problem solving, curtailing delegation and the resultant empowerment of others, excessive avoidance of  risks.
14. Self Confidence: danger of turning overconfident, mine is always right posture, bordering on being arrogant, shun feedback and opinions of others, creating a sense of inferiority complex in others.
15. Self Development: obsessive with self-improvement through self-help literature and other self-help resources, self-centered and selfish, may become boring to on-lookers with self-improvement antics.
16. Result Orientation: overemphasis on results and no concern for processes, results by hook or by crook, inclination for short term results as these are immediately seen, inordinately high concern for tasks and results and no or very little concern for people, cannot form teams, meddling with subordinates'/colleagues' work to achieve results.
17. Team Building: excessively participative all the time and in all the situations, may miss the targets and time lines due to overemphasis on consensus building, always evolving decisions taking  people along with and not taking a definitive position i.e. not taking decisions on own when required, disproportionately greater inclination for concern for people as compared to concern for tasks/timely results, insistence on forming teams for every job even when not appropriate to do so.

It will be a good idea to refer the author's book titled "Competencies and Competency Matrix" for more detailed material on the subject. (You can download eBook "Competencies and Competency Matrix" from http://nbuu.co/cm)

Overdoing Competencies Is Bad

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

(You will benefit more if you also read all of my previous write-ups on this site and also read about Shyam Bhatawdekar Effectiveness Model- HSoftware at http://humansoftware.blogspot.com/).

(If you wish to read or listen to the audio of the long article written by me on this subject covering all the posts I published here, please refer URL: Life Management: Competencies
http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/competency-matrix/6txz9nck6g3/4)

Excess Is Bad

We know that excess of anything or excess of everything is bad. It is not any different with competencies or skills. Whether it is a hard skill or a soft skill, too much indulgence in it or overdoing that competency can prove to be harmful to self and others, particularly your associates. Mastery over skills is OK but obsession with it and therefore, overdoing it can mean difficulties.

This point will become more clear if I give a few examples.

An over organized person or a person who is really great in planning things can be a very competent person till he starts overdoing it. The moment he starts overdoing it, he may lose sight of other things. He may become too rigid and structured and less tolerant to continuous and quick changes or unavoidable chaotic situations many times prevalent in real life situations. He may also be pretty divorced with the human element; he may not be comfortable associating with people who are otherwise good and efficient but little less organized in his opinion. With this lopsided weight on planning and organizing he loses his overall balance and becomes overall less competent.

Another example that comes to my mind is that of an over confident person. Such a person when he starts overdoing or overusing his self confidence, starts behaving as if he is a know-all type. In the process, he stops listening others' views or feedback and thus, deprives himself of good ideas, suggestions and recommendations of others around him. In many cases, he may even hurt other people due to his arrogance resulting out of display of his over confidence. These people, then, may not be comfortable associating with him. Overall he is at disadvantage despite being confident.

Persons having mastery over listening skills or interpersonal skills and in turn, overdoing these competencies may have a tendency to be goody goody all the time. They may use more time than really necessary for people's participation in decision making. Too much listening or even avoiding conflicts or unpleasant situations most of the times in order to maintain great interpersonal relationships may seem to make them look too accommodative and at times, even weak. In emergencies, they may find it difficult to take control of the tough aspects of the situations on their own and the things may slip up.

So, with this discussion, it is easy now to realize that while a good grip and mastery over the skills or competencies are a must, too much indulgence in them or obsession with them or overdoing them may disturb the overall balance between various competencies that are required in order to accomplished various tasks.

Here is the word of caution. While it may not be a good idea to overdo a skill or a competency, it is also important not to compromise or lose integrity in practicing a competency or skill. The two are not the same and should not be confused for one another.

(You can download eBook "Competencies and Competency Matrix" from http://nbuu.co/cm)

Read "Management Anecdotes" authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar at: http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

You may also like to read short articles on "Out of Box Ideas" at: http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/