How To Work With Competencies

Summary

Podcast Summary: Manager Tools — "How To Work With Competencies"

Date: June 22, 2026
Hosts: Sarah & Mark
Episode Theme: A critical evaluation of organizational "competencies"—what they are, whether managers should use them, and how to work effectively if your company insists on their use.

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a hard look at the growing use of "competencies" in organizational HR practices—covering hiring, development, and performance reviews. The hosts argue that, while well-intentioned, competency frameworks are often burdensome, unclear, behaviorally vague, and rarely deliver what they promise. The bulk of the discussion covers the major problems with competencies, why they're administratively overwhelming and behaviorally imprecise, and gives specific, actionable guidance for managers working in organizations that use them.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are Competencies? (00:57–03:12)

• Definition:
  Competencies are broadly defined as the skills, characteristics, and traits organizations use to define success in a role (Mark, 01:57).
• Usage:
  Commonly used for hiring, job descriptions, promotion criteria, and performance reviews.
• HR-Led:
  Most organizations that use competencies have HR as the driving force, not line managers.

2. The Fundamental Problems with Competencies

A. Administrative Burden (03:26–05:38)

• Creating unique lists of competencies for every job is "massively hard" and requires input from people (managers) who often lack the context or expertise to do it right.
• HR often borrows frameworks from other companies, but this leads to ill-fitting competencies.

"Creating a list of competencies for every job is just massively hard... managers get almost nothing out of it other than administrative burden."
— Mark, [03:26]

B. Vague & Unmeasurable Concepts (05:38–10:35)

• Competencies seldom offer clear, behavioral definitions. Terms like "trusted advisor," "cultivate," or "navigate" are open to interpretation, leading to inconsistency and bias.
• Inferences about traits or characteristics are unreliable and frequently subjective.

"Everything at work is about behaviors, whether people realize it or not."
— Mark, [05:38]

• Example: The competency "relationship building—cultivates trusted advisor status..." is meaningless without operational definitions agreed upon by managers and their teams.

C. Behavioral vs. Trait-Based Assessment (10:35–13:12)

• Behaviors are observable and rateable. Traits and characteristics are internal and must be inferred, which is risky and inconsistent between managers.
• Attempts to standardize via competencies actually lead to even greater variation.

"The manager is going to have to interpret these vague guidelines in their evaluation of their direct... No, it's not going to happen."
— Mark, [10:35]

D. Incomplete Application & Executive Exclusion (14:28–15:51)

• Ironically, competencies are rarely, if ever, used for senior executive hiring or performance reviews—a "quiet admission" that the framework doesn't really work where it matters most.

"If you're really into this, it should go all the way top to bottom."
— Mark, [15:17]

E. Inflexibility in Dynamic Organizations (17:14–21:25)

• Organizational structures and roles shift continuously (especially post-AI). Keeping competency lists current is logistically impossible given the pace of change—leaving organizations stuck with obsolete frameworks.

"Jobs are always gradually changing... But is that happening at the speed at which the organization is changing? No bloody way, it's not."
— Mark, [18:28]

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What To Do If Your Company Uses Competencies (22:20–31:50)

1. Play Politically Smart

• Do not openly disparage competencies or try to change the system. It’s a "political mistake" (Sarah, [22:25]).
• Don’t send critical show notes to HR; don’t opt out; don’t recommend changes unless explicitly asked for input before implementation, in which case raise concerns diplomatically.

"Don't joust at windmills. Don't fight the dragon. You're not going to do it. Don't fight the organization."
— Mark, [23:36]

2. Know the Competency Framework for Your Team

• Familiarize yourself and your number two with the official competency lists for your roles and your direct reports.
• Store and share them as needed, but delegate as much administrative ownership as possible.

3. Use Behavioral Interviewing & Reviews

• Still use behavioral interviews (Manager Tools usual recommendation).
• If possible, tie behavioral questions to relevant competencies—but always interpret through the lens of observable behaviors, not inferred traits.
• Write performance reviews using competency language where helpful, particularly to signal alignment and teamwork to HR and your boss.

"So you're in a competency nation, so speak the competency nation language... at least in part, while also focusing on behaviors."
— Mark, [27:25]

4. Minimize Time Spent Updating Competencies

• It’s not your job to keep competencies current for every role. Update only when HR requires it and only to the minimum necessary standard.
• When required, delegate to direct reports and review only for completeness, not perfection.

"Getting in trouble with a staff organization won't kill your career. But spending time on competencies and not meeting your primary responsibilities... that will kill your career."
— Sarah, [29:13]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the futility of the competency system:
  "The vast majority of competency based job descriptions, hiring guidance and evaluation criteria are... a mishmash of ideas, unmeasurable ideals and personality traits and characteristics that are unknowable."
  — Mark, [13:40]

• On organizational change:
  "You can't have a 10,000 node network and say it's not changing. It defies logic that you could do it."
  — Mark, [18:28]

• On staff function urgency:
  "There’s a difference in urgency, importance and relevance between line and staff functions... HR, IT, finance, you can probably guess what staff is actually."
  — Mark, [29:49]

• On the path forward:
  "Competencies are dumb if your organization has them. Do your best to influence HR not to introduce them. If they're introduced, do the absolute minimum work required to meet the standard for competencies, because competencies don't determine success, behaviors do."
  — Sarah, [31:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:05 — Introduction to competencies and their organizational context
• 03:26 — The administrative burden and why competencies are hard to implement (Mark's 35-year battle)
• 05:38 — Why behavioral measurement is what matters, not traits or fuzzy attributes
• 08:28 — Example: The slippery meaning of “relationship building” as a competency
• 13:12 — The second major problem: lack of connection to real behavior
• 14:28 — Competencies in HR for execs: never used at the highest levels
• 17:14 — How orgs and roles change constantly—competencies can’t keep up
• 22:20 — What to do: smart political guidance for managers in competency-based companies
• 26:37 — Using competency language wisely in reviews and interviews
• 28:12 — Handling HR requests for updated competencies (the “trash can fire” philosophy)
• 31:50 — Final succinct guidance: Competencies ≠ Success; actions matter more

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Final Takeaway

If your organization uses competencies:

• Don’t waste energy trying to upend the system—work within it, use the language, do the bureaucratic minimum, and focus your real efforts on observable behaviors.
• Competencies don’t drive success—behaviors do.

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[Manager Tools, June 22, 2026 — "How To Work With Competencies"]

Transcript

[Sarah]

Welcome to Manager Tools.

[Mark]

This is Sarah and I'm Mark.

[Sarah]

Today's podcast, how to work with Competencies, Part one of one.

[Mark]

As always, folks, our content has been crafted by humans and we are now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are, what are competencies? Should I use them? And how can I be successful if my company uses competencies?

[Sarah]

If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening.

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Moving into senior executive leadership changes everything. Your role, your communication, your relationship with uncertainty. Executive Tools is built for leaders at the top who know that good judgment, not just hard work, is what's required. Now gain access to our Executive Tools podcast with our executive Tools license. Visit manager-tools.com licenses.

[Sarah]

Today we're talking about competencies, which are a pretty common organizational tool for helping organizations when it comes to hiring, evaluating, developing employees. It's known well in HR circles and HR is usually from an organizational perspective that the driving force behind the implementation of competencies. Now, we suspect that the majority of Manager Tools community members have heard of competencies and many in our community work in an organization where competencies are likely used.

[Mark]

Yeah, I wouldn't say a majority. I would say many. I would say 30%, maybe.

[Sarah]

Okay, good to know. Yeah. And folks, the HR consulting firm DDI is probably the biggest and most well known purveyor of competency based tools for organizations.

[Mark]

Yeah, and DDI stands for Development Dimensions International. I remember when they changed their name to DDI from Development Dimensions International, I don't know, 20, 30, 30 years ago. And I was like, where development go? Where did the whole name go? I didn't realize that they changed their name. So a little bit more detail. If you wonder what competencies are because you haven't been exposed to them, it's a very soft definition, which is one of our problems with it. They describe it as characteristics, traits and skills that companies use to define what will make someone successful. They're used, as I think Sarah said, used to define hiring criteria. They shape job descriptions, they determine promotion criteria. They're often the framework used to support performance reviews. And in that way, it makes sense at a high level that why, if you're hiring for job A, would you have a different interview than what the job description was or a different performance review criteria than the job actually was, and so on. Unfortunately, they're really cumbersome and they don't work very well either.

[Sarah]

On top of being unclear.

[Mark]

Yes, exactly.

[Sarah]

Yeah, exactly. All right, so folks, our outline is very fairly basic today. We've got two points to cover a simple Case against competencies and what to do if your organization uses competencies.

[Mark]

Yes. So we'll start with a simple case against them. And I'll start because I've been fighting a running battle against competencies for the last 35 years. Unfortunately, competencies have two huge problems. The first, folks, is a foundational one. Creating a list of competencies for every job is just massively hard. You have to create a competency list for every job, for every hiring situation, for every performance review. This is hard work if just from a standpoint of quantity. And typically, my recollection is DDI is only working with big companies. So we're talking about tens of thousands of jobs that somebody actually has to go through and figure out what are the competencies of this job. Now, you might think, well, HR would do that. But HR doesn't know the jobs well enough. So what ends up happening is this massive administrative requirement on the part of thousands of managers to, okay, we need a competencies list from your job. And then, well, the manager's like, well, I don't know what competencies are. That's okay. We have training for you. And the manager, she's thinking, what do I get out of this? Right? What do I get out of it? The fact is, managers get almost nothing out of it other than administrative burden.

[Sarah]

Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, folks, in a lot of the situations which we have been involved companies introducing a competency framework by borrowing from other companies. Competency work, that's generally how they. They do it. And it's a huge error because competencies vary based on all kinds of things like structure and culture and industry. So going back to Mark's original point, managers want to make this activity, this very cumbersome and large activity, simpler. So they try and borrow competencies from other organizations, but those. Those competencies don't work well for their organization. And thus they're creating competencies which don't actually measure the job that they're trying to measure with them.

[Mark]

Yeah, exactly. And folks, it's more than that. What organizations actually need are behavioral definitions for jobs. What do we want the candidate to be able to do or to actually do? And what are the behaviors we're going to rate their performance on? And results can be a form of organizational behavior, for the record. And everything at work is about behaviors, whether people realize it or not. But as you heard, I think Sarah was the one that said it. Skills, traits, characteristic. Well, the only way you can really see a skill is for someone to behave and then for you to infer that they have that skill, a trait and a characteristic. Those are both internal and you again have to see behavior in order to infer those things. And the fact is the average manager, the average professional, in fact, we're not picking on managers here. They're not good at making the kind of inferences that a organization psychologist who works for DDI or many other companies could in fact say, oh, well, that behavior proves this person has this trait or this characteristic. Well, I found in a lot of situations, if people are behaving against their natural style, if you will, it doesn't prove they have that traitor characteristic. It only proves they can behave that way if they need to. And so if you think about it, for performance evaluation systems, what specific behaviors denote excellence as opposed to competence, which is a very interesting problem, by the way. And what denotes poor performance relative to competencies? And it's very hard even if you do the work, really good work and create a list of competencies. And it's very hard for the average manager to be able to infer the competencies from the behaviors they actually see. And what I have found, and this is not data, it's an anecdote, but I found several situations where managers essentially inferred competencies that were good to have. Right. Hey, if you have 10 of the 10 competencies, you're going to get promoted or whatever. They inferred it based on people who were just like them.

[Sarah]

Oh yeah, the bias toward people like me.

[Mark]

Yeah. And I'm sure DDI was thinking that's exactly what we don't want and they'd be right to not want that. I would respect them for saying that. But like, oh yeah, I could see that he or she has this skill, this trait, or this characteristics because of what he or she just did. But somebody else, they would infer some other sort of trait or characteristic that wasn't necessarily what the job required. That inference equation is a really, really hard one.

[Sarah]

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's, it's, it's a tricky one to make. And it's, it's all based on the, the, the person doing the judgment of the competency. Exactly. So folks, we're going to give you an example. So for instance, the job's competency in this case would be relationship building cultivates trusted advisor status with C suite executives and key stakeholders. That's the competency.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Sarah]

So folks, in this instance, what does cultivate really mean? And what's the actual definition of trusted advisor? The way you know that someone doesn't know what A trusted advisor is or isn't is to ask what is a pair of hands relationship? These two professional concepts are inextricably linked.

[Mark]

Yeah, they're literally, it's, it's the, the foundation of one of the most important consulting books ever by Peter Block and called trusted Advisor. In fact, and I actually had a conversation with someone about this competency and that they're building trusted advisor status. I said, so they're not just a pair of hands? And they said, what do you mean by pair of hands? I said, well, if you're going to say trusted advisor, you have to understand what pair of hands is. I don't. It just feels like that's the right thing. We want them to be a trusted advisor. I was like, well okay, what behaviors would they engage in?

[Sarah]

Yeah, that's great. Exactly. And I mean folks, it doesn't stop there. Who decides what key stakeholders are? We met a lot of folks in that role don't do the hard work of gaining agreement on those things with their bosses. And that's back to our point. What this all comes down to is that sentence relationship building cultivates trusted advisor status with C suite executives and key stakeholders doesn't mean anything until the two of us have had a conversation together and defined what that means by itself. It's right. It's got no definition. And if it doesn't have a definition, then we can define it however we would like to define it, which is the problem.

[Mark]

And that's what managers do. They absolutely do. And I think that competencies are well intentioned, but because they're not often behaviorally specific enough, you end up with this vast inference gap. The manager is going to have to interpret these vague guidelines in their evaluation of their direct and sorry folks, we love you managers, but gee whiz, no, it's not going to happen. Here's another one, okay. Resilience navigates client pushback, challenging technical roadblocks and escalations with a solution oriented mindset. Now folks, what does navigate mean behaviorally? And I'm going to tell you, this is just two. I could find a thousand more. They're actually, DDI actually has books. I can picture an office, an HR office that I was in 25, 28 years ago and there were DDI books, big, big, thick, leather bound books with all of the possible competencies. And in fact some managers actually go to the book and just scan through competencies looking for the ones that seem to fit them. Now they are organized by job classification and category and so on. Anyway, so what does navigate actually mean? What does it mean behaviorally to challenge? Okay, and how do we know behaviorally that someone has used a quote, solution oriented mindset. And by the way we talk about behaviorally. Folks, I just want to make this point again. Manager tools, executive tools, career tools. We are founded in behavior. It's too strong a statement to say we don't care about attitude or intent or mindset. Obviously we care about people's attitude. Although the only way you can tell about somebody's attitude is to watch them, hear, listen to them, and talk and listen to their behaviors. Right. See and listen their behaviors. So behaviors are the only thing you can see and talk about that are actually real. And the moment you infer from a behavior a trait or characteristic, you're probably making a value judgment that you're not qualified to make. And no offense, neither are we. We're not calling you out. The average manager isn't, because the average professional isn't either. The job competency outline also included the verbs drive, champion and shape. What are these things? Again, just a lot of room, a lot of hard work for what amounts to a lot of inference, which is essentially what managers are already doing in their performance reviews and their job interviews and so on.

[Sarah]

Yeah, absolutely. So folks, that is not the only major problem with competencies. The second major problem is that they rarely get to actual behaviors, simply using the competency title to describe a group of various items that are precisely defined or even well understood. Objective concepts.

[Mark]

Sure, they're objective concepts, but they ain't behavior.

[Sarah]

Right? Exactly.

[Mark]

Yeah. The fact is, the vast majority of competency based job descriptions, hiring guidance and evaluation criteria are, sorry, ddi, a mishmash of ideas, unmeasurable ideals and personality traits and characteristics that are unknowable. You can infer them, you can guess at them, but they are not knowable in the sense that I know two plus two equals four because they're not behavioral. 10 managers would have 10 different interpretations of what any given competency actually means. Behaviorally, the competency idea is to standardize, but in in our opinion, it really does nothing of the sort because it's still that managerial influence or the HR person's influence interpretation behavior. Yeah, exactly.

[Sarah]

That's exactly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And folks, competencies do have one other problem that is not as widespread but is actually more problematic. In some cases, HR will attempt to use competencies throughout the entire responsibilities of hr. They'll insist that no hiring can be done without a competency review in advance. They'll insist the job descriptions Must hew to the corporate list of desired competencies and they'll use competencies to inform their, their version of performance reviews. But in a quiet admission of competencies not really being actually universal. Competencies are never applied to senior executive roles in any way.

[Mark]

Yeah, I just never liked that part. I just thought it was. I just thought it was. Watch what's happening in this hand, but don't pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain. Like, I just didn't. I thought if you're really into this, it should go all the way top to bottom.

[Sarah]

Yeah. And if it can't go all the way up, then I think that's. Yeah, that's it. It's again, it's a quiet admission of the fact that it's not objective enough to be useful to, to be verifiable and valuable to the organization. Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

[Mark]

The fact is, folks, we almost named this guidance. Competencies are dumb. We didn't. Because while that might be useful information, it's not actionable. More importantly, a manager in a competency using organization cannot simply say to your boss, those things are dumb. I'm not using them. Okay, you can't do that.

[Sarah]

Exactly. That's, that's completely true. I mean, that's our same. That's our same. Don't be dumb. Exactly. We know that you're going to be in situations where you're going to have to deal with things that while we wouldn't recommend you do, you're still going to need to bow to HR's choices in this case. So giving you the guidance that you need to be wise while using those unrecommended systems is kind of.

[Mark]

That's good. Wise. Yeah. Didn't even think of it this way, Sarah. If you're not in a competency organization now and you move to one now, we're not saying turn down your dream job because the company uses competencies. Don't do that. We'll give you more behavioral guidance here in a minute. But you're right, this gives them wisdom to understand it. Which, by the way, you won't get if you're new and you go right into a competency organization. They're not going to give you the wisdom. They're just going to tell you what your deliverables are around the competencies that are inserted in hiring and job management and all that kind of stuff. That's right. It's wisdom.

[Sarah]

Yeah. The train, the training you get, folks, certainly isn't going to include how to navigate around the lack of clarity associated with the competencies we expect you to measure. They're definitely not going to do that. Definitely not. And one final point, that really ought to be the death knell of competencies, folks. Organizations and org charts and jobs are constantly changing. The current example of this is in 2026 AI. Are companies that use AI going to go back through all of their hiring guidance and job descriptions and review them while adding job specific AI competencies? I mean, we doubt it. That is a lot of work. It is a lot of work. And everyone's job is going to change. But will everyone's competencies change also?

[Mark]

We've been doing this 21 years now. June 2026. This will be our 21st anniversary. We started in 2005. And I think one of the most common common misconceptions of people that nobody talks about because you don't ask the fish about the water is org charts are static.

[Sarah]

Yep.

[Mark]

When in fact on a scale of 0 to 100, static being 0 and wholly dynamic like Master Jam is 100, they're closer to 70 than they are to 0 because somebody moves a job and then that boss decides I can't hire. So I'm going to pull some of that stuff into this guy's job and give some of that to her and I'm going to make her my number two and that job won't exist anymore and we'll save that salary. Now the people going, wow, do I get more money for doing that other person's job who's in lawyer? No, you don't. And that's how organizations change. And we're going to add a couple more people to this group because we think there's a real opportunity here. But that group is two areas away from you. And so you don't hear about those two new hires that weren't on the org chart before. That stuff is happening all the time. You can't have a 10,000 node network and say it's not changing. It defies logic that you could do it. I don't know what the math is. Probably has to do with Metcalfe's law. But think about if there's a job that changes every day in the organization, how long before a 10,000 person organization is is completely changed? I would argue it's not actually 10,000 days from now. It's much sooner. It's more like 300 days from now because those jobs change the jobs beneath them and just on and on and on. Jobs are always gradually changing roles report to different managers after reorgs Managers have different goals and objectives. Some roles should have come. Should have come of their competencies. Some of their competencies trimmed. Others competencies should expand. But is that happening at the speed at which the organization is changing? No bloody way, it's not. And respect. No offense, I mean, in theory, I like the idea of having common frameworks for thinking about things, but the administration necessary to keep these things current. You're always dealing with an old competency list.

[Sarah]

Yeah. You know what this reminds me of? Mark is the lesser known that I might like. Organizational 101 concept that. That says your organization is designed in such a way that there's more work to do than people employed to do it.

[Mark]

It's another one. Yeah, completely.

[Sarah]

People within organizations wish it were defined in such a way that there was the right amount of work for all of the people all of the time. But I mean, it. It sounds good theoretically. But imagine the administration associated with con. Oh, Mark's a little tired today. Oh, okay. We'll give a little bit more to Sarah, but. Oh, shoot. She's also super busy. Let's hire somebody. And then the next day, oh, look, Mark's back up to full speed. Fire that guy. That guy that we just hired. Don't need you anymore.

[Mark]

Oh, my. That's a good one.

[Sarah]

It would just be constant. And it's the same thing for competencies, folks. If they wanted to change them at the speed which people's jobs are actually changing, it would be an administrative nightmare to do it. Absolutely.

[Mark]

Yeah. So if your org has a competency framework, you have to work within it. As odious and burdensome as that might be,

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[Mark]

now we get to what to do if you're what to actually do.

[Sarah]

Yeah, it's exactly.

[Mark]

If your company uses competency.

[Sarah]

Yeah, exactly. And if you'll remember, Mark mentioned earlier that the name of this podcast could have been Competencies are dumb. It isn't, but could have been. And so our guidance here is, folks, be smart. Be smart politically. Don't disparage competencies, don't try and change the system and convince your organization that competencies are dumb. That's totally a political mistake. Take, keep your mouth shut. Don't send these show notes. If you are a licensee and are getting these emailed show notes. Yay you. But don't send them out to HR and tell them you're opting out of competencies.

[Mark]

I love that.

[Sarah]

I'm not going to do it over here in my opting out. Don't recommend that HR change their approach based upon what Mark and I are talking about here today. You one manager are not going to change the fact that your organization you uses competencies. That's how your organization thinks about roles and evaluations and hiring. Fine, let them do that. Don't try and change it.

[Mark]

Now I want to add, this is not in the show notes, folks, but I want to add to Sarah's comments about politically because I was thinking through what I wrote about being smart and don't joust at windmills. Don't fight the dragon. You're not going to do it. Don't fight the, the organization. Yeah, but there's a version of that that we have to be careful because there's a different behavior we recommend and that is what if your organization is considering competencies but doesn't presently use them? Please do not take our guidance here about the political stupidity of fighting against competencies in an existing competency based organization. Don't do that. But if somebody says to you, hey, they're thinking about competencies, raise your voice and say, I don't recommend it. It's an administrative burden. I would start asking questions about how are we going to put competencies together for every job. Well, each HR person is going to work with their managers. So you're saying every manager is going to have to come up with a competency list for every job and then for every hiring interview, before we do an interview, even if we're in a rush, we need to create an interview that's competency based. Right. We have to do that and we're going to have to train on that too. Right. So we're talking about hours and hours, hours of work and I'm not really sure I understand what the benefits are other than, and I wouldn't say this out loud because you, if you're, you're in a political fight like this, you don't want to poke the bear too much. But I wouldn't want to say at the end of that, and the only thing that benefits is HR finds it's easier to manage all of the jobs here. Yeah. Because to them that might be a legit reason to do it. But that doesn't mean that they should be able to task all the managers and everybody else.

[Sarah]

That's a really good point.

[Mark]

Yeah. So just a little distinction there. All right, continuing in that political vein, you should at least know the competency write ups for your role in each of your direct roles and the hiring and evaluation criteria. Okay, yes, you may not. Maybe we've convinced you not to like competencies, but you have to have a political affidavit here. You have to be able to talk in the language of your organization. Designate to your number two the housing of the competencies for all your roles. Make sure everybody on the team knows your number two has them and that you're happy to share. But get it off your plate. If you're considering someone to be a number two, they can handle this additional duty of being the one that stores and can tell people where to go on HR's website to get the competency list or the competency based interview for that job.

[Sarah]

Yeah, absolutely. And folks, when you hire, still conduct a behavioral interview as we recommended in our our hiring guidance, and consider whether any or many of the competencies are worthy of creating a behavioral interview question designed to get the answer to that competency, to determine whether or not the individual possesses that competency based upon your, again, best definition of what that competency means for you, your organization, your team, et cetera.

[Mark]

Again, inference, inference, inference. Yeah, not fact, not behavioral. When you conduct evaluations, make sure you use competency language when you can. This bolsters the effect of your review on both your best and worst performers. For your best performers, guys, having an eye on competencies will increase the chance that your boss and HR support your conclusions about how good they are. So you're in a competency nation, so speak the competency nation language, okay? That will make you look good as a team player as well. It'll also make your direct look better that they are nailing all the competencies. Write your reviews with competency language, at least in part, while also focusing on behaviors.

[Sarah]

Yeah, that's exactly it. And folks, on the other hand, do not think it's your responsibility to keep current the competencies for each of your roles. This is, as we mentioned, one of the biggest problems with competencies. They cannot keep up with the pace of change relative to roles and responsibilities in your company. And folks, at this point, even if you have a number two who can do some of this work for you, it is not in the best interest of you or your team or your organization to Go through these efforts. And there's one small caveat to this. Periodically, HR will ask you to update them. And while this is smarter than hr, trying to do it themselves, because seriously, how would they possibly know? They.

[Mark]

No offense to them.

[Sarah]

Yeah, no offense to them.

[Mark]

They don't have the scale.

[Sarah]

Well, and it's not their job. You're the only one that really could do it. Frankly, this qualifies as a staff function tasking you. Yes, it's a deliverable, but it is also a trash can fire if you don't meet the deadline. Now, folks, if you're not familiar with trash can fires, we will put a link to that podcast. Don't put out trash can fires at the bottom of this podcast. It's an executive tools podcast. If you're not an executive tools licensee, we encourage you to become one. Mark, correct me if I'm, if you, if you disagree, but one of our best, most loved executive tools topics, most

[Mark]

love, by far popular people have said they've listened 10 times and they are like, you mean I can. I. I have 35 things to do and I can designate some of them trash can fires so I can focus on the big nine. I'm like, yeah, but nine's too many. But yeah, yeah, you're supposed to be willing to get in trouble for stuff.

[Sarah]

Uhhuh. Yes, exactly. So again, folks, at this point, staff function is tasking you. So what we would recommend is you ignore their requests, politely beg off saying you're working on bigger priorities. Ignore their first, second, even third requests. Getting in trouble with a staff organization won't kill your career. But spending time on competencies and not meeting your primary responsibilities as it pertains to delivering results for your organization, that will kill your career. Yes, absolutely.

[Mark]

And the way you handle that is, yeah, you're taking some heat from, from a staff function. That's okay. We don't mean to generate staff functions, but there's a difference in terms of urgency, importance and relevance between line and staff functions. And if you're wondering what that means, your boss is in your line and her boss is in your line. Anybody else whom you don't report to their staff, there's some subtleties to that, but yeah, it's pretty simple. Hr, IT finance, you can probably guess what staff is actually. But here's the thing. After you have said no, or just ignored them, said, I'm really busy or whatever, when they finally go through your boss, because that's what they'll do, they'll say, hey, you got a Laggard here, he owed us stuff 60 days ago. We still don't have it. And then your boss says, you have to do it. Okay, do it. But here's how. Give each person an each role for which you have competency maps. Their map, and ask them to update it for you, spending less than 30 minutes on it, and send in their work. It doesn't require your oversight. You might give it a cursory glance and make sure it's not horrible, but it certainly doesn't require you actually doing it. And by the way, a staff person cannot tell you, you must do this yourself, okay? That's not how organizations work. In fact, your boss really can't technically, in organizational theory, tell you you have to do this yourself. He or she can ask, but you're the one who's responsible for your team. You're the CEO of your team. And certainly there are some cases where you would say yes, but there's other cases where you would nod your head and say, okay, and then you'd still delegate it. And then you double check their work. Because if you work for a boss who's giving you a lot of stuff that you and only you can do, unless it's confidential, then you need to work for a different boss. Go get a different boss.

[Sarah]

Yeah, that's exactly it. All right, so, folks, to sum it all up, competencies are dumb if your organization has them. Do your best to influence hr, not to introduce them. If they're introduced, do the absolute minimum work required to meet the standard for competencies, because competencies don't determine success, behaviors do.

[Mark]

That's it. Good one. I liked it.

[Sarah]

Yes. Thank you, Mark. Thank you all for joining us. We hope this one helped you. Now help us help others and tell your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. Remember, five stars only.

[Mark]

Five stars only, please. Sam.