- Now out of our four layers of individual performance,
skills, tasks, problems and results,
the least understood is skills.
To truly understand how to track performance,
we need to have a very atomic view of skills.
That is, we have to break down skills
into their component parts so we can better understand
the ways that skills can be used to perform tasks,
solve problems, and generate results.
Dick Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute,
calls this the language of skills.
There are three kinds.
Knowledges, transferables, and traits.
In other words, what we know, what we do,
and how we do it.
Knowledges are bodies of information we have in our heads.
Transferables are skills we can use
in a range of situations,
and how well we manage ourselves in a work situation
is determined by our unique traits.
How are each of these kinds of skills different
in a rapidly changing world in the context
of performance management?
Knowledges are usually critical for
very specific activities.
These are often needed for tasks that require
depth in activity or field.
For example, brain surgery requires a range
of deep knowledges.
So to a different degree does car repair
or website design.
For these kinds of tasks, performance management
is about determining what workers
already know about particular subjects,
if workers have the knowledges they need
to achieve their goals,
and if they use those knowledges in the most effective way.
Transferable skills are critical for work
in a variety of contexts.
Transferables are especially important
when a worker is continually asked to solve new problems,
or to work in a variety of new situations.
Here, performance management is about
determining how well a worker can adapt to new challenges,
and if their transferable skills are honed enough,
to be useful in situations they may never
have encountered before.
Finally, self-management skills are the
foundational layer on which other abilities are built.
It doesn't matter how deeply knowledgeable we are
on a particular topic or how flexible we are
in different work situations,
if we can't get the work on time,
or if we can't deal with uncertainty
and frustration well.
In fact, a significant amount of what we think of
as performance is actually rooted
in the way we manage ourselves.
The better that we are as individual workers,
we can understand our own unique skills
and understand the skills that are ideally needed
to perform our work, the better we'll be
at managing our own performance.
You'll be far better prepared to understand
your own unique capabilities if you've
already done some kind of self-inventory,
running through a series of exercises
to determine your favorite skills,
as well as your other favorite characteristics of work.
Having a clear idea of your knowledges,
your transferables, and your traits
is a tremendous asset in the context
of performance management.
If you can name your best loved skills,
those you're good at and the ones you love using the most,
you're going to be in a far better position
to understand where and how you're likely
to perform at your best.