An Employee Best Fit Model – The Capability Assessment Triangle

By Michelle Malay Carter on May 10, 2010 

PeopleFit\'s Capability Assessment TriangleBest Fit Model – PeopleFit’s Capability Assessment Triangle
How?do managers go about finding the best fit between employee and role?? Most look at resumes and use behavioral based interviewing, but these?items only get at what someone has already had a chance to do.? With research showing that 20 % of employees are underutilized, we a leaving a lot of potential untapped because we don’t have a way to reliably determine potential capability.

I will propose adding a third qualifier to the two most common sets of qualifiers:

Can
1.? Knowledge, skills, experience, education – what can I do because I’ve done it before?

Will
2.? Values, preferences?- what will I do because I find it appealing?

The Missing Link
Area number three, problem solving capability, answers the question that behavioral based interviewing misses – what could I do if I had aforementioned items number 1 and 2?? It has to do with one’s potential capability.

Could
3.? Problem solving capability (information processing)?- what could I do because my mental bandwidth can contain it?

Coming Next?
What does problem solving capability look like by level and how does that align with work levels?

I’m?OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.

Filed Under Employee Engagement, High Potential, Managerial Leadership, Requisite Organization, Talent Management, Work Levels

Comments

3 Responses to “An Employee Best Fit Model – The Capability Assessment Triangle”

  1. Jim Schultz on May 10th, 2010 11:33 am

    Hi Michelle,
    Our Vistage group has had numerous passionate discussions about potential capability. In my experience, the best way to identify an employee?s potential capability is the use of task assignments. How they perform on the task using their discretionary judgment and with the time span provide evidence of their applied capability. Then using Elliott Jacques talent pool maturation data sheet, I can plot their potential capability. This has helped me determine better fits in my organization. Before using task assignments, it was a ?gut feel? on their potential capability and sometimes the knowledge, skills, experience and education blinded me :)

  2. Michelle Malay Carter on May 10th, 2010 12:13 pm

    Hi Jim,

    Thanks for stoppong by. Yes, task assignment is the true test. And yes, there absolutely are “social illusions” that lead us to under or over estimate someone’s capability.

    In my next post, I am going to offer some things to consider to help link your gut feel to Jaques’ work levels model. If you are trying to assess whether someone in a level 3 role is ready for a level 4 role, you may not have 2 years to see if s/he can deliver a level 4 time span task.

    Thanks for the comment.

    Regards,

    Michelle

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