Around June 2005, I was in the midst of handling for the first time selection processes independently. Taking an interview was an eye-opening experience.
‘How do you take a hire/no hire decision at the end of an interview?” was the primary question that intrigued me. On the basis of my initial experiences I had written the following note. Today, it still does inform my thoughts and actions.
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Let us divide the requirements of a candidate into 3 categories, viz:
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Attitudes
One may quickly reach the conclusion that I am speaking of competencies out here and consequently of behavioural indicators and Behavioural Events Interviewing (BEI’s). But that isn’t the case. Let me elaborate further.
To answer that question we have to first look at the definition of competencies.
Competencies are the underlying characteristics which are causally related to superior performance.
Hence there is a cause and effect relationship between the identified competencies and superior performance.
There are 3 underlying characteristics:
- Knowledge – what one acquires through learning. Is relatively easier to pick up than the remaining two and once acquired less stable.
- Skills – which one acquires through practice. Hence communication can be termed as a skill (the more you practice the better you become at it!). Hence there has to be an act of doing in it. Skills are tougher to pick up than knowledge but once acquired more stable.
- Attitudes – difficult to acquire but once acquired the most stable.
But the problem with these characteristics is that they are underlying. Let us elaborate this through the renowned iceberg model.
Consider the iceberg as constituting the universal set of competencies. About 9/10th portion of an iceberg is below the surface of water (the Skills, Attitudes part), whereas only around 1/10th is above the surface of water (the Knowledge part). Hence the hidden portion constitutes the majority of the iceberg and it also constitutes the:
- Difficult to acquire
- Once acquired, stable
, portion of the iceberg. Hence it constitutes the most important part of the iceberg but then it’s hidden. In a structured interviewing process where one has limited time to reach a conclusion it becomes tough to evaluate a candidate on these hidden aspects directly. Hence there is a requirement to look at indirect indicators of these competencies. This is where the concept of behavioural indicators comes in. One does competency modeling where the differentiating behaviour of superior performers are looked at and hence arrive at the competencies and the consequent behavioural indicators one needs to concentrate on during the interviewing process.
Let us elaborate this through a non work life setting. We would look at a situation which can be commonly understood by one and all. Let me ask you a question:
- Who is a better batsman – Virendra Sehwag or Sachin Tendulkar? Or how does one decide who is the better batsman of the two?
One may say we should look at the batting averages of both of them, or the number of test centuries, or the number of match saving/winning innings, etc. In all of these we are speaking of parameters which are ENDS.
The advantage in this situation is that the ENDS are easily measurable. But assume for once that this wasn’t the case, i.e. – the ENDS weren’t easily measurable, and we had been asked to make a judgement on whose a better batsman. In this case we don’t have the luxury of falling back upon easily measurable ENDS. So how does one get out of this fix? Let me propose a few plausible solutions to you. The basis of the solutions would be – we would look at the BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENTS which go into their batting.
| Behavioural indicators | Tendulkar | Sehwag |
| He reaches out to the pitch of the ball while playing | Yes | No |
| Demonstration of Hand eye co-ordination | Good | Outstanding |
| Counterattacks under pressure | Sometimes | Always |
| Aggressive behaviour on the field | Medium | High |
“Due to the lack of concrete END metrics we would arrive at a conclusion of who is a better batsman depending on an evaluation of the above behavioural indicators.”
To a cricket buff, the above analysis would be nothing short of absurd! At the end of the day the results matter. People can have different ways of arriving at them.
Let me throw up one more situation .Sehwag started playing later than Tendulkar. Say the BCCI after having seen Tendulkar play in the earlier part of the 1990’s decided that they want to model every budding cricketer’s behaviour on the basis of the = Tendulkar’s cricketing behaviour. These behaviours would be used as:
- Selection criteria for selection into the Indian team, and
- Training youngsters at cricketing camps.
Had this happened, would we have a Sehwag in our midst today? Wouldn’t we have naturally eliminated the possibility of a Sehwag being groomed? By following the above model we would be essentially creating clones within the system – and that would happen because we are trying to get too specific with our specifications, i.e. – we are going down to the behavioural indicator level.
But in an interview process when one is trying to predict future results we rely on these intermediate measures. One may say that they would give reliable results but are the results valid?
Hence the first bone of contention is “Is there only one right way of achieving success?”
We would revert to cricket to explain the second bone of contention too. BEI’s are based on competency models. Competency modeling is supposed to look for “differentiating behaviours” between high performers and others.
Sunil Gavaskar was a renowned batsman of his times. Would he have been successful in the present “one day international’s heavy cricket itinerary? Based on the limited amount of one day internationals he had played we can make a reasonable guess that “his success in one day internationals would have been less than in test match cricket”. This brings us to the second bone of contention with respect to competencies.
Behaviour which leads to success in one kind of setting needn’t necessarily lead to success in a changed environment.
Hence the two problem statements can be framed as:
- In any given situation is there only one way of achieving success?
- Are behaviours, which have been found to be causally related to success in a particular environment, necessarily successful in a changed environment?
“So are we speaking of not using competencies at all?”
The classification of competencies into K, S & A’s per se seems to be fine but further classifying them into behavioral indicators and using these for taking people decisions seems to be flawed.
But how does one then evaluate a candidate on his hidden competencies – the S’s and the A’s?
That’s a question to which even I don’t have an answer right now but trying to reach a conclusion on them through a BEI seems to be the wrong way out.
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(Sometime in 2005)
Later I would come to a conclusion that what you can standardize in a Selection process is ‘What do you Select candidates on?’ and ‘How do you gather data during a Selection process?’ You can have guidelines for Selection/Non-Selection decision making, but these guidelines would support subjective judgment and not replace it.
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Sourav
