What Do You Want?

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: none

Competencies: all

Who benefits: you

Consultant Usage: up to you

What’s it about? I thought that before I make a suggestion or two today, I would review with you (okay, with myself with you invited to join in the thinking process) what I am trying to accomplish with these postings. 

The Blog exists as a place for discussions of job competencies common to all organizations that make us successful at work.  Or the absence thereof, makes us less successful.  And often the possession of certain of these competencies helps us outside of work with family, friends, self and other persons of interest. 

My role on the Blog has been to supply you – the dear reader – with reading material or other references that might help you enhance a particular competency.  My dilemma, of sorts, is where to put my effort.  I haven’t counted them all, but I am working with several lists of competencies that must total 50 or more in the aggregate.  Which should I choose each week?

I tend to put more time and energy into competencies that nearly everyone can relate to: self-development being number 1 (let’s not quibble here…I say self-development is a competency), along with career management, and various communication skills.  But there are other competencies much more narrowly focused that also deserve at least occasional attention: technological leadership, cross-functional versatility, strategic problem analysis to name a few.  These competencies are not any less important; there are just fewer people who need to excel in these areas.

So if you are a regular reader, here is a heads up.  Most of the time I will focus on the common competencies that we can all relate to.  But from time to time I will address a specialty area that a smaller number of you may find useful.  If that be the case, skip me for a week and see what seven days brings.

Having said all that, it would also be useful to me to know if you have a special interest that you would like reading or other references recommendations.  Use the comment section and I will try to address your needs.

Meanwhile, how about I give you a couple of suggestions (a suggestion is less emphatic than a recommendation).  These are suggestions only because the books have just been released and are unread by me, but the authors and publisher are known to publish good stuff!  You can be one of the first on the block to have them…if, of course, they would serve any useful purpose for you. 

Here is one of those common competencies we can all relate to: Your stomach’s churning; you’re hyperventilating — you’re in a badly deteriorating conversation at work.  Maybe you should have read Holly Week’s just released book Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them.

Or a more limited category for CEOs and the ilk: Even the best-run companies can get blindsided by disasters they should have anticipated. These predictable surprises range from financial scandals to operational disruptions, from organizational upheavals to product failures.  Perhaps you are ready for a timely new book Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming, and How to Prevent Them by Max H. Bazerman and Michael Watkins.

Both books seem important.  Yet one has broad appeal; the other a more narrow appeal.  So each week I shall scratch my head and try to figure it all out.  Or you can help me and suggest a topic or two.

Catch you next week. 

 

   
[tags]competencies, competency, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]

 

 

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.