Research Revisited
In Module 1, we highlighted that the key Capabilities that drive individual performance are:
⦁ Personality and Emotional Capability (for ease of reference we will at times simply refer to this as EQ)
⦁ General Mental or Cognitive Capability for ease of reference we will at times simply refer to this as IQ)
We also highlighted the study done by Schmidt and Hunter. In their study Schmidt and Hunter analysed a vast array of studies that looked at how well a wide variety of criteria predicted individual job performance. Their review of all of these studies showed that General Mental or Cognitive Ability, combined with a Personality assessment, has a .68 correlation with job performance. This means that there is an extremely strong relationship between EQ+IQ and job performance. The strength of this correlation can best be appreciated when one considered that a correlation of .35 is regarded as being very significant.
When reviewing predictors of job performance, Schmidt and Hunter only found a correlation of .18 and .10 between experience and education, and job - performance, respectively. This is where most selection processes focus, and to make matter worse an unstructured interview which as we will show in a later module is an extremely unreliable selection tool.
When companies follow this route, one cannot help but being reminded of the great movie line:
Are you feeling lucky punk?
from the iconic Clint Eastwood movie, Dirty Harry.
But why are EQ and IQ so important?
We will illustrate this comprehensively in Modules 4 and 5 and also with the case studies in Module 10.
For now, it is worthwhile considering a few things about Capability.
One. Not everybody has the same capability – it varies from person to person.
That is why a “nerdy” individual like Bill Gates created Microsoft while none of his peers did.
Bill Gates was a Harvard drop – out and had an inferior educational qualification compared to IT graduates. Despite this, he exponentially outperformed all of them because his inherent capabilities were superior.
He had a greater intellect, more drive, more ambition, more creativity, more dominance, more initiative, more ability to think out of the box, was more competitive, more opportunistic…. Simply put, Bill had superior capability.
Bill did not acquire his capability at Harvard. He was born with it hard – wired in his brain, and his life experiences as a child and teenager developed and crystalized it into who Bill was as a person in his late teens and early adulthood.
It is WHO Bill was, that made Bill WHAT he was – founder of Microsoft and one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
Two. Capabilities are the foundation for Competencies.
Remember from Module 1 that Competencies are the job specific and generic skills (often referred to as technical skills) that people learn through education and experience. Not everyone has the capability to learn the same set of competencies or to develop competencies to the same level.
Cognitive Capabilities will play a pivotal role in determining:
a) The type and level of competencies/job skills a person can acquire.
b) The effectiveness and level at which they can utilise and apply their competencies/job skills.
For Example
Jackson’s cognitive capability or engine may be “big enough” for him to study for and qualify as a professional electrical engineer, whereas Daniel’s cognitive capability may only be sufficient for him to succeed in studying to become an electrician.
Mpho, also a professional electrical engineer has superior cognitive capabilities compared to Jackson. Though they have similar skills sets, she is likely to be able to utilise these skills more effectively.
Personal and emotional capabilities will play a significant role in determining how easily a person can develop technical and non-technical competencies.
For Example
Mpho is self – confident, assertive, loves working with people and using her initiative (Capability). It will be relatively easy for her to develop and apply leadership and managerial competencies and techniques (Technical Competencies).
Gareth is shy, passive, compliant and lacks confidence (Capability). It will be much harder for him to develop and apply leadership and managerial competencies and techniques (Technical Competencies).
Jane is open, flexible, resilient and has good emotional control. It will be relatively easy for her to develop and apply conflict resolution skills.
Peter is rigid, emotionally sensitive, volatile, and domineering. It will be much harder for him to develop and apply conflict resolution skills.
Three. Capability can be Actualized but not Increased.
While Competencies can be developed up to the level of a person’s Capability (we refer to this as being actualised), a person’s capability cannot be increased. Not easily anyway. While the concept of Brain Plasticity has been well established – meaning that the human brain can develop new neurons and connections between those neurons thereby increasing its capability, this does not occur easily by any stretch of the imagination.
It takes serious discipline to apply targeted interventions over an extended period for the brain to “increase its capability”. Within an organisational setting it just does not seem practical to go this route.
What is much more doable is to actualize untapped capability. We all have untapped capability and with motivation and development opportunities we can all make better use of our capabilities. No amount of intervention or application is going to turn the ordinary citizen into the next Bill Gates, Patrice Motsepe, or Jeff Bezos.
The critical thing is to place people in roles that are well matched to their capability, rather than to try and “increase” someone’s capability for them to able to deliver against a role’s requirements.
Four. Crystalized Capability produces predictable patterns of behaviours.
Once there was frog at the side of river. A scorpion approached him. “Frog, please put me on your back and take me across the river. I will give you a bag full of delicious worms.” “No” replied frog. “How do I know that once you are on my back you won’t sting me?” “It’s obvious Frog” said the scorpion. “If I sting you while crossing the river, then I will fall in and drown.” Made sense to Frog and so he told Scorpion to hop on his back. Off they went. Halfway across the river, Scorpion stung Frog. In his death throes Frog gasped” But why Scorpion why did you sting me?” “Because it’s in my nature and that’s what Scorpion’s do.” replied Scorpion. A little while later, both Frog and Scorpion were dead.
Crystalized capability is much like this tale. Our brains are hardwired to potentially make us behave in certain ways. Through life experiences, while growing up, our genetic programming actualises into behaviours which are reinforced. These behaviours are repeated countless times until by early adulthood they populate a huge part of our neuro -circuitry and become the default ways in which when we pretty much deal with all aspects of life including work.
Once again, this highlights the importance of matching employees’ Capability to jobs and career paths.