The Art and Science of Competency Models: Pinpointing Critical Success Factors in Organizations [Hardcover]

Anntoinette D. Lucia (Author), Richard Lepsinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0787946028 | ISBN-13: 978-0787946029 | Edition: 1

How Do You Ensure that Employees Are Doing the Right Things?

Many of us ask, "What does it take to do a job well?" and stop there. But there's more to it than that.

What skills and knowledge are necessary for effectiveness in a certain job? Does the employee have the appropriate skills and knowledge, or is some kind of training necessary? Are these job expectations aligned with the culture and strategy of the organization as a whole?

These questions are essential to performance improvement efforts. And competency modeling is designed to help you find answers to questions such as these.

A competency model is . . . a descriptive tool that identifies the skills, knowledge, personal characteristics, and behaviors needed to effectively perform a role in the organization and help the business meet its strategic objectives.

From the authors of the best-selling book The Art and Science of 360? Feedback comes this guide to the design and implementation of competency models.

"The authors have taken competency modeling out of the domain of academics and social scientists by creating a practical 'how-to' work that clearly and simply explains the steps in developing and using competency models. I recommAnd this book to anyone whose job includes the pinpointing and sharpening of relevant competencies, for themselves or for others."
--Scott B. Parry, chairman, Training House



"Lucia and Lepsinger have demystified competency models and put in the hands of the reader a blueprint for developing meaningful recruiting, performance measurement, and succession planning systems. They succeed with a straightforward, pragmatic style, using actual examples that make the book an easy read."
--Frank Ashen, senior vice president, New York Stock Exchange



Get the Results You Expect!

Competency models are a means of ensuring that your investment in your employees will yield the expected results. The popularity of competency modeling is steadily increasing: human resource proYou'll use this cutting-edge guide to:


* Clarify job and work expectations
* Hire the best available people
* Maximize productivity
* Enhance a 360? feedback process
* Align behavior with organizational strategies and values
* Adapt to change

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The authors have taken competency modeling out of the domain of academics and social scientists by creating a practical 'how-to' work that clearly and simply explains the steps in developing and using competency models. I recommAnd this book to anyone whose job includes the pinpointing and sharpening of relevant competencies, for themselves or for others." --Scott B. Parry, chairman, Training House

"Lucia and Lepsinger have demystified competency models and put in the hands of the reader a blueprint for developing meaningful recruiting, performance measurement, and succession planning systems. They succeed with a straightforward, pragmatic style, using actual examples that make the book an easy read." --Frank Ashen, senior vice president, New York Stock Exchange

About the Author

ANNTOINNETTE D. LUCIA and RICHARD LEPSINGER are managing partners of Manus, a Right Management Consultants company that specializes in helping organizations implement business strategies. Their consulting work has included facilitating organizational change; team building for senior management teams; linking human resource plans to strategic plans; ensuring the integration of teams following mergers; designing, conducting, and evaluating executive and management development programs; developing competency models; and using feedback systems to help individual executives improve their effectiveness. They have worked with managers and management teams at Coca-Cola, Allied Signal, Northwestern Mutual Life, Chase Manhattan Bank, KPMG Peat Marwick, MCI, the New York Stock Exchange, Prudential, PaineWebber, Subaru of America, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, and Union Carbide, among others. Lucia and Lepsinger are co-authors of the best-selling book The Art and Science of 360? Feedback, published by Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (March 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787946028
• ISBN-13: 978-0787946029
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #241,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" reading guide !!!, September 17, 1999

By 

Turgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art and Science of Competency Models: Pinpointing Critical Success Factors in Organizations (Hardcover)

"Competency models that identify the skills, knowledge, and characteristics needed to perform a job have been in use for more than three decades. In the last five years, interest in them and their potential to help staffing and development efforts has increased dramatically among our client group. We believe this interest will continue to grow over the next few years due to three key, related trends-intensified competition, aggressive cost management and downsizing, and the proliferation of 360-degree feedback system (A. D. Lucia & R. Lepsinger / Preface xiii)."

In this invaluable study authors

* define what a competency model is, describe its components, and discuss some of their broad, general applications.

* examine how competency models can be applied within selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems to support an organization's business objectives.

* discuss establishing the performance criteria with which your organization measures success to better focus your data collection and analysis.

* describe specific action steps to follow during the development of the competency model from scratch.

* discuss various methods of data collection and how they can be used to increase the likelihood of identifying the knowledge, skills, and characteristics required to succeed in the job.

* describe the process of creating competency-based selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems.

* discuss the methods for converting the model into the necessary formats or tools to integrate the competencies into each step of human resource management.

This study is a "must" reading guide for HR professionals and line managers. I highly recommend.

See also :

* The Competency Casebook/D. Dubois

* Strategic Human Resource Leader/W.J.Rothwell et.al.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very readable overview, April 24, 2000

By 

Miriam Lawrence - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art and Science of Competency Models: Pinpointing Critical Success Factors in Organizations (Hardcover)

This is a perfect choice for the novice reader who is trying to get a basic understanding of the whys and wherefores of compentency models. It's very readable book and not nearly as dry as I might have expected. In particular, the authors' copious use of real-world examples, cases and models is extremely helpful. I even got some great ideas for project management that I'll be able to apply broadly in my work, regardless of whether or not my organization undertakes a competency modeling project.

My only criticism is that the book focuses exclusively on CMs in a HRM context; there is no real discussion of industry-scale models, which was my main reason for reading the book. Nevertheless, a very good resource for a beginner.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good coverage of the field of competency models, June 26, 2001

By 

Patrick Merlevede (Eeklo, Vlaanderen (Belgium, Europe)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art and Science of Competency Models: Pinpointing Critical Success Factors in Organizations (Hardcover)

Competency Models have become a must for an up-to-date HRM system - I have been helping companies to build this kind of models since 1996. These models make great tools for selection, training and development, appraisal and succession planning. Unfortunately, until I came accross this book, I found that most of the reference works to this field are quite unaccessible, not the kind I would put into the hands of a newcomer. This is a practical book, showing why competency models are important and helping the reader to go through the complete process of setting up such a system, including a chapter on how to sell the idea to others in the organisation - I wish some of the people I work with would have read this book before, that would have smoothened the problems that are caused if these steps aren't followed well. The book also shows how to transform your competence model into a 360° feedback questionnaire. It was the first time I came accross a book explaining how to do that! The only area that I found a bit weak is the compentency-interview (both for building the model, als doing behavior-based interviews for recruiting), but maybe that's a bias coming from my own expertise in that domain (my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence" includes a full chapter on how to ask the right questions).

Conclusion - whether you know about Competency Models or not - add this book to your library! And if you are a consultant in the field of competency models, this is a book you might recommend to your customers.

Patrick E. Merlevede -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"