Mapping your future: putting new competencies to work for you

T+D, May, 2004 by William Rothwell, Rich Wellins

This last of a three-article series on the ASTD 2004 competency study, "Mapping the Future: Shaping New Workplace Learning and Performance Competencies;' addresses the following questions:

* How should you use the competencies to guide your professional development? The short answer: Use the competencies as a foundation on which you can build career plans and align your career with the needs of the organization.

* How should organizations use these new competencies? The competency model can help align the HR system vertically with the organization's strategic objectives or horizontally with other HR functions. It provides managers and leaders a tool for selection and promotion, training and development, career and succession planning, and performance management.

* What are the applications for educators? This competency study helps those responsible for academic programs to create a curriculum that is based on employer expectations.

The study results will help workplace learning professionals select, develop, appraise, and manage their careers.

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This third and final article on the landmark ASTD competency study details how you can use the competencies for professional development. The book ASTD 2004 Competency Study: Mapping the Future, released this month, presents the final and complete study.

How can you meet the challenges of the future? As a workplace learning and performance professional, you bear a major responsibility to set a positive example for continual learning for others in your organization. After all, if you can't lead the way, who can? But how do you go about serving as a role model?

The two previous articles in this series helped set the stage--as did a fourth article, by Pat Galagan, "The Future of the Profession Formerly Known as Training" (December 2003), which provided excellent insights on where our profession is going. "Eight Trends You Need to Know Now" (January) focused on trends in our profession and their implications. The second article, "New Roles and New Competencies for the Profession" (April), summarized the key findings from the ASTD 2004 competency study, "Mapping the Future: Shaping New Workplace Learning and Performance Competencies."

In this article, we address three important questions:

1. How should you, as an individual contributor in workforce learning and performance, use the competencies to guide your professional development?

2. How should organizations use these new competencies?

3. What are the applications for educators?

Our goal is to have every workplace learning and performance professional make the model his or her own and use it to keep ahead of change. For simplicity, in this article we will use the term "competencies" to reflect both the "foundational competencies" and "areas of expertise" in the new model.

Using the competency study to guide your professional development

A competency model can provide an important, and useful, tool to guide individual development. The ASTD 2004 competency study, "Mapping the Future," is no different. It describes what it takes for you, as an individual contributor and as a workplace learning and performance professional, to achieve career success. It is a foundation on which you can build career plans and develop yourself in your chosen path.

The key to a successful career in the future is to align with the needs of organizations and their leaders to achieve business results. "Mapping the Future" provides the means to create a common language that you can use to discuss what it is your organization needs from workplace learning and performance. It also answers this question: What competencies should individuals possess to be successful in the field? It provides a clear picture of success so you can compare your performance against a set of valid descriptors.

You may, however, begin by some reflection on what it will take for you to be successful in the field and in your organization in the future. A good strategy for you to follow is to think about yourself in relation to the competencies outlined in the study and answer the following questions:

* Which competencies are likely to be most important to my current job?

* Which competencies will become more important in the future?

* How do I stack up against the competencies in terms of my performance?

There are many ways to carry out that assessment process, informally or formally. An informal method uses competencies as a foundation to prompt self-reflection and guide career conversations with your mentors or supervisors. A more formal method relies on such organized approaches to assessing individual competencies as 360-degree assessments, assessment centers, and work samples. The results of such assessments will indicate which strengths you should be leveraging and areas in which you need further professional development.

Strengths and development needs, once identified, can be documented and form the basis for an individual development plan. A well-prepared IDP can help you leverage your strengths and focus your developmental priorities. The plan can also facilitate accountability by clarifying what learning strategies you will use, when you will learn, what support you will need, and how your results can be measured. Your development needs can be met through many learning approaches, including training, education, rotational experiences, mentoring, coaching, organized work assignments, e-learning experiences, and many other learning-oriented interventions.