Illustration
Zodwa is an engineering team leader. He is moved into the position of maintenance manager. He has new job challenges that are similar but not the same as those in his previous job. He adapts what he learned in the engineering team leader role, to the new challenges in the maintenance manager role. In this case the cognitive process he used was Transferring Learnings from the old job to the new job.
In the new job, he encounters problems that he has never encountered before. They are completely novel to him. To solve these problems, he must use “raw brain power” to come up with solutions. The cognitive process he will need here is called Fluid Problem Solving.
In the maintenance manager role, he encounters a problem which is at first unclear. To solve it he will need to engage in a variety of cognitive processes. He may need to do some research (Learning). He will need to gather data and understand the facts relating to the problem (Analysing). He may need to engage in what – if thinking. If I do this what will happen? If I do that what will happen? (Hypothesising) He may need to pull together all of the information he has gathered (Synthesising), devise potential solutions (Conceptualising), pull them together into a plan of action (Drawing Conclusions) and then decide on a course of action even when he cannot be absolutely certain about the outcome (Judgement).
The extent to which he can do this successfully is of course partly determined by his knowledge and skills base (Competencies), but if his Cognitive Capability is insufficient, he will
- Not be able to utilise his Competencies effectively to deal with the problem
- Be unable to address those aspects of the problem for which his Competencies have not prepared him.
To build on the CPU analogy, think of Cognitive Ability as the HARDWARE on a computer:
⦁ RAM, Processor, Hard Drive
Think of Skills and Knowledge (competencies) as the SOFTWARE that is installed on a computer.
You cannot install complex, high level programs onto computers that have limited hardware specifications. What happens when a computer cannot effectively cope with the software that has been loaded onto it? The computer slows down, hangs, or bombs out. It simply does not have the resources needed to fulfil the processing demands made by the software.
In the same way, people, like Zodwa will “fail” when their hardware – hardwired cognitive ability – cannot cope with the problem-solving demands that their jobs place on them. Software on a computer is static/dormant and does not do anything, until it is taken up into the computer’s processor. Only then, when it is processed, does it produce useful information. It is the same with people. Our skills and knowledge lie dormant until we apply cognitive process to them. Only then do they “come alive” and contribute to dealing with a job challenge.
Cognitive assessments therefore give us an indication as to the extent of a person’s cognitive processing abilities and how well they are matched to the problem-solving requirements of a job.