Just how competent are you at your job?

Just how competent are you at your job? Now that's an interesting question. Let's see now, you need skill and knowledge to get that job done. But you may find that among a certain group of professionals "knowing how" to do something is a little different from "knowing about knowing how" to do something. There are lot of people who talk about things they probably never really had the opportunity to practice themselves. Take for instance, some of the professors at your local university. Many of them have studied a lot in their fields, but not all them can really practice the professional aspect of their calling which entails doing the things that they discuss in class.
Competency is described as "an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and/or superior performance on a job"-Boyatris 1992.
The competency test is a quick way of assessing yourself to determine if you are making progress or not.
Check out the following questions:
1. Is my knowledge about my profession purely academic. In other words, do I merely talk about how its done and how it should be done without any hands on experience that shows we can do it?
2. If I have a project relating to my core skills and profession and I am asked to do it myself, what are my chances of success?
3.Could I play the role of teacher/coach in order to enhance the skill of another person's skill or ability?
4. If I am asked to play the professional role which includes my core training and skill would I be able to perform optimally?
The ability to perform the activities within an occupational area to the levels of performance expected in employment is the sum total of competence. So ask yourself again: Just how competent are you at your job? Knowledge and skill should enhance work activity.

Attitude is a component of business success

Human Resource Management professionals are recruiting more for attitude with the intention of training for skill and competency in this century. The crux of the matter is the right attitude and behavior is urgently needed to ensure that employees of an organization would do the job right and focus on meeting goals that are set by the organization. The right behavior is consistently being taught in management school.  HRM understands that bad behavior and attitude can get in the way of skill, if steps are not taken to determine and differentiate good attitude and behavior and distinguish it from bad or unacceptable conduct.

Every employee should take an attitude test, in addition to the aptitude that we so much focus on, and see if indeed his behavior is not serving as a hindrance to his success and growth on the job.  Here are some parameters you ought to consider to determine if your attitude is right or wrong:

1.    The whole is more important than the parts! This philosophy has its Here root in your ability to put the organizational interest before your personal interest. A good manager ought to be able to sustain business, development or success in organizational strategy while being uncomfortable himself if the need arises. Human nature often makes us think of our individual comfort first. But if we can delay gratification, in a good system, rewards are normally greater when they are delayed.

2.    Keep your eye on the goal! Organizational vision and mission statements should be so compelling that they should help the staff or operatives get through business on a bad day. Keeping our minds eye on the vision we have, often helps us go through uncomfortable circumstances and situations undaunted, because we know and believe in where we are going. All of your workforce should be able to stay focused, understand the mission and vision of the organization and relate everyday actions to this mission and vision.

3.    Have a unified direction! In management and productive processes we find that even though the direction of people might be similar, the paths we tread could vary, as long as they ultimately lead us in the same direction. Everyone in an organization should work towards the same goal, no matter how varied our skills, work or jobs are within the same organizational setting. A unified direction would strengthen the processes and outcomes in any organization that it exists.

4.    Reinvest in your skills and productive processes! If you take time out as often as possible to spend a percentage of your resources on honing your skills and improving your productive processes, you are bound to consistently improve on what you are doing for a living. Consistent practice, seeking out cutting edge strategies and improved practices will give you a high appeal at your business. Never be satisfied with how good you are. Seek to get better.

5.    Try New and more efficient ways of making progress! Innovation attracts patronage when it is refreshing and more efficient. Management professionals of all kinds should not be afraid to try out new ways of doing things. Research and development should lead to more efficiency and better ways of achieving results. As long as quality is not compromised newness is attractive.

6.    Staying positive no matter what is going wrong! In management, things are liable to go wrong no matter how well we have planned the processes. We can control certain variables, but there are others that we cannot control. Staying positive in the middle of disappointments is an important psychological attribute that we all need. Those who give up so easily could have a bad influence on the team.

7.    Rewards are important! Rewards are important in management. They serve as a viable source of motivation. But the attitude people have towards rewards is also important. We should not have people on our teams who seek to be achievers merely to claim rewards. A focus on a larger picture is important.

Having all this in mind is one thing, implementing it is another. The best way to find out if your staff has the right attitude is to create scenario and psychometric tests for them which will expose hidden character traits.

7 Business competencies you need to lead!

Leadership: Taking the initiative on your job, making decisions on behalf of the organization and not referring to a boss or a top manager every time you run into a problem is a sign of you developing your leadership skills. You could go higher.

Communication skills: Your oral and verbal communication is important. How often are you understood or misunderstood at the work place? Do you write a memo and get it thrown back at you with the instructions: Make it clearer we don’t understand what you mean. Speaking clearly and being understood by those you address is of utmost importance.

Presentation skills: If you are asked to make a presentation to people at your office what would be your reaction? Do you know that people have been promoted based on their ability to present a strategy, plan or workflow process. What about you?

Workflow Management: Getting the process of production to move faster with greater productivity and maximum quality involved is a great asset. If you can do this, you are bound to be recommended for the next promotion.  Top management is always looking for people who can improve the flow of work.   

Adaptability: How good are your skills, can you adapt to various situations? Does your skills set enable you function in different capacities without strain? Being adaptable could make you a great asset to your organization.

Customer Service: The customer will remain king for as long as we want to be in business. Every worker needs to know that treating the customer right is one of the greatest skills that can be learnt and must be learnt by all people in the work place. As long as you can hold the customer with high esteem you are on your way to being valued by your organization.  

The whole hub of job motivation

When we talk of job related motivation, the first thing that comes to mind is money. But research shows that money is not the only source of motivation. In fact, there is a whole hub of motivational concepts that spur the worker into doing a better job and money is just one of the many things on the list.

Here are some of the things that would enable you to know whether you are truly getting the best out of your job. Look at the following options and see if you can answer in the affirmative to all them.

Do you have:

A job that is worth while and of interest to you?

A boss you can respect?

Enough basic pay?

Some degree of personal challenge?

The opportunity to progress?

The chance of being part of a good team of people?

The chance of being well trained to do the job?

Sufficient resources to carry out the job?

A reasonable

degree of stability and security?

The chance of being involved in deciding how to do the job and organize the work?

You will notice that only one of these options has to do with money. What about the others? 

The certain way to over come limitation.

 "The line of limitation is usually drawn in sand. If we so choose we can erase it and draw our own line. Consistent skill acquisition and continuous practice at our chosen profession can only make us better. That is the certain way to over come limitation." 

Limitations! We all have them. And in our journey to advancement and improvement we all must seek ways and means to over come our limitations.  The dictionary defines limitation in a variety of ways:      A  limiting condition; restrictive weakness; lack of capacity; inability or handicap: something that limits; a limit or bound; restriction; the act of limiting.

Human capacity can either be endured or improved. Most human beings endure their limitations and live their lives with a rather limited and restricted capacity.  Its much like driving down a highway in a environment where speed limits are lax and restricting ourselves to the slow lane when all we have to do is to make up our minds to switch lanes and move a little faster. The main human tool that both limits and facilitates our unlimited development is the human mind which is housed by the thinking department of the brain. We have often heard the expression that captures the little parts of our brain that we use: The 10 percent of the brain myth is a widely perpetuated urban legend that most or all humans only use 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many people. The truth is,we definitely use more than 10 percent of our brains.  

 If we seek to overcome our limitations we can do it by using various approaches. First we need to harness our skills and build them to the level that enables us to operate at the optimum. No matter what our age is, or how much we have learnt already, there is always room for improvement. Our brain is such that it  can contain volumes of information and know how if only it is taken through the processes enough and given room to harness the details. A research in 2011 shows that London Taxi drivers have a very large capacity to memorize places in the city and locate the destination of fares through a series of thought processes. Scientific America also confirms the same for taxi drivers in Manhattan,New York. 

Generally, there are two kinds of limitations: those others set for us and those that we set for ourselves! When we begin to use the phrases and expressions: “I cant; its not possible; this is the best we can do” Then we start the self limitation process with our use of language. Its better to be more positive and say the opposite things, so that we can start the road to progress. Society is so dynamic today that we have no excuse to be limited. Honing our skills is the best way to reduce our professional limitations. Books are available on all topics and professions; media of numerous kinds seek to teach us what can be done to get us from one point to another. Tapes, CDs, movies, and audio sequences can have a viable impact on our skills if we let them.

My own experience teaches that the will to overcome personal limitations can help us improve in certain aspects of our life. Working as a journalist for a major newspaper, I was limited by my inability to use the computer to  write my stories. It was the early 1990s and businesses were incorporating the computer into every day activity. I was determined to master the use of a computer and it all begun by attending a crash course in desk top publishing where I was taught the basics of computer use.

The course only initiated me to the world of computers as I quickly found out that the best way to learn would be to practice. So every Sunday, after service, I would sit a computer in the office and practice typing my stories on the computers. The process was slow and agonizing and I realized that the secret of touch typing was to master the key board. The process opened my eyes to the fact that every sequence that the human being wants to learn and eventually master, requires an understanding of the processes. I slowly mastered the keyboard and rhythmic typing processes and became a master of the keyboard in a couple of months. From desk top publishing, I took a crash course in cinematography and learnt to use the video camera. I was shooting and editing online and eventually ended up co producing a programme for television. I had previously had a short term course in journalism, which had programmes in broadcasting, but I never had the opportunity to learn how to handle a camera. Learning how to frame shots and pan without jerking or shaking took some time, but through commitment and determination I was able to pick up the skill. During my broadcast days voice overs and scripting came naturally. I  later begun to script for radio when an opportunity opened to run a public enlightenment programme about the Human Immuno Deficiency Virus(HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome(AIDS). I am still learning new skills and hope to be able to start an academy soon.

The other source of limitation is the systems around us which seek to discriminate against people who do not follow laid down procedures for self development. If a profession emphasizes the skill over the qualification then it should give access to people who have the ability to do the job rather than people who have testimonials in the shape of certificates that bear witness to their abilities. Certificates are important, but human resource managers have discovered in this century that not everyone that has a certificate can actually do a job. Should any human being be restricted in his bid to be better? Should systems, society or people cast a shadow of discouragement on our progress just because there is a disagreement over our methods? The line of limitation is usually drawn in sand. If we so choose we can erase it and draw our own line. Consistent skill acquisition and continuous practice at our chosen profession can only make us better. If on the other hand you have the ability to hire talent to help your performance, this is viable option. The secret is try hard to hire the best! Do not settle for less. Some business people think hiring cheap talent is the  best option because the best in the market often costs more. But in the final analysis, you find that paying more for the best talent will save you much more money on the long run when the lesser talent begins to commit blunders that costs us money. We need to avoid prejudice and stereotyping when we are hiring. That is the certain way to over come limitation.