Crawl…walk…run!

Not even Usain Bolt started life running.

We all started off moving by crawling. (Well probably even before that, by rolling over and dragging ourselves, but that would just sound odd in our heading!)

And it’s a solid guess that as toddlers most of us fell over many times when trying to speed up before we’d fully mastered walking!

As humans, we develop our abilities by firstly mastering the foundational competencies that contribute to a complex competency, before we are really good at the complex competency. For example, we master left and right coordination from crawling, and balance from walking, before we can do both at pace when running.

The same is true for other competencies.

This is why our competency framework identifies foundational, intermediate and complex levels.

It is easier for people to master complex competencies if they are competent in the foundational and intermediate levels first.

And in some situations, the need for complex competencies can reduce when more people have foundational and intermediate competencies. For example, when people have high emotional intelligence and communication competencies, the need for conflict resolution is often less.

Sometimes a person may struggle with a complex competency, not because it is beyond them, but because they haven’t yet learned the contributing foundational or intermediate competencies. For example, if a person isn’t competent in reading body language, then they may struggle to provide effective feedback irrespective of their feedback skill. This is because they cannot determine how the feedback is being received and therefore, they don’t make the necessary adjustments to their approach.

Our personalised approach helps people develop the competencies they need to succeed in their role, in the way that is most effective for them.