How to Identify and Organize your Competence (BV39)

In this video, I’m going to talk about the competence organization and why you need to have one. Hi there, Matts Rehnstrom here, Shaper of Business Excellence. In this video I will talk about yet another one of these very important components that we have within our business. And that is so vital for you to excel in. Because if you do, you will have a much better organization and you will provide your customers with a much better value than you do today. 

You should focus more on the competence

Let’s deep dive into the Competence Organization. We have been talking about these different components like the Based Model, the Business Idea and the Vision, the Strategies and so on. And in my latest video I talked about the different organizations within the Organization Model. And this is in contrast to the line organization that we use to see the hierarchy because the hierarchy doesn’t really produce any result – the hierarchy is an organization, a structure. It is a hierarchy of whom – a lot of people, who his boss over who, and who was on the same level and so on. And the man or a woman on the top is the one who is controlling everything. 

It is your processes and projects that demands special competence

But if we’re looking into the Process Organization and the Project Organization, that is these two vital parts in the Organization Model, because those are the ones that create value. All value that you create, you create within either a project or a process, or several projects, several processes. But these processes and projects need then competence, and that is provided by the competence organization. So if we move over on this chart to the competence organization, you will see that the competence organization in contrast, again, to the line organization, it’s not a hierarchy.

The Competence Organization is built on Set Theory

It’s more set theory where, we have different sets of skills, of knowledge, of competence. So here we build groups of certain vital competence that we need to have in the organization. If we have it, an industrial company, it could be engineers within one area, engineers within another area. We have administrators, we have people working within sales. But mark me here, when I say sales, it doesn’t mean that it’s the sales department, because other people work with sails as well. It’s not only the sales department that work with sales, the CEO, he does and he is not a part of the sales department, but he works with sales. Someone that works with servicing the customers within the service department, they actually sell as well. So they need to do have competence regarding sales; sales knowledge. So here we grouped all the knowledge that we have that is vital for us.

WHAT you should do, is detailed into HOW you do it

We know within the processes and within the projects we know what to do and we know how to do it. And when we’d come into the HOW we need skills in order to, we need competence in order, to tell exactly how to do with the WHAT. 

In the WHAT we can say “fixe the car”. Yes, but if I’m going to then how am I going to fix the car? Yes, you need to dive into the motor, the engine, and you need to fix the engine. Ah, then I need skills! And the skill that I need in order to look into the engine, those are one set of skills that is within the competence on organization. If you don’t have a competence organization or if you don’t look at your competence in the organization in this way, you will always run short of the understanding of what competence, what skills, you have in the organization.

Develop the right competence needed

People will feel unsatisfied with that lack of knowledge they have – The lack of skills they have when they are about to perform different tasks, activities, within the organization. And I meet many organizations where people feel that frustration because they don’t feel that they have been given the chance to learn enough about what they’re supposed to do. And that is because you don’t focus on the competence. You’re focused more on the line organization. But if you have the competence organization, you will focus on competence instead. So you can as, an organization, provide the best skill, the best knowledge, for your processes and your projects. So that’s why you need to have the competence organization. 

Do you understand what competence is needed?

If you like to have this poster where you can see all these vital and important components, then just click the link below and we’ll take you to a page where you can download it for free. 

So how is it in your organization, do you focus on the competence that you have or do you focus more on the line and functional organization? 

You can’t have both. You can have a line organization and have a competence organization at the same time, but if you do, please let me know so I know what you have learned from having the competence organization or if you think it’s a good idea to have one. 

Until the next time; let’s go and Shape our Business for Excellence.