Weighing Goals vs. Competencies

There is always a struggle in an organization between time spent on helping workers meet goals and time spent on helping workers develop key competencies. Project managers often suffer when the balance isn't maintained. If the organization focuses too much on reaching goals (financial, business or otherwise), then workers are more likely to exhibit behaviors such as intimidation, back-stabbing and other opportunistic tactics. If the organization focuses too much on competencies, then people may work efficiently and even work well together, but important business and financial goals may not be met.

 

So where is the happy medium? LPL Financial started from scratch and chose a 75% weighting on goals and 25% weighting on competencies, which seems like a reasonable balance. You can measure the balance by adding up the time spent by workers in each of the two areas, counting activities such as training attendance, completing goal-setting forms, and getting feedback on using skills.

Look over your performance landscape, and assess whether you need to improve the weighting of these two criteria in your project. If you know you have an imbalance early enough, you can make improvements through your training plan.