Sat through an interesting class in Human Resource management recently that contained a bit of interesting information. The focus of the class was teaching business students how to identify a company’s core competencies. In the western world, the modern idea of “competency” in business has been around since the early 70s. Its origins lie in the US State Department where McClelland developed an initial version of the Behavioral Event Interview that was used in hiring foreign service officers. The BEI method was improved in the 80s to the point where it is now used across industries in current competency modeling.
Companies develop competencies like “teamwork” and “analytical thinking” based on the qualities they think they’re looking for in employees in order to help the enterprise as a whole realize its mission and vision. These competencies are the fuzzy definitions of qualifications that job applicants are striving to exhibit in a job interview. Companies use competencies to guide HR staff in selecting the right people for a variety of positions that may differ widely in technical requirements (easy to discern in an applicant) but all require similar corporate competencies.
The Chinese have only recently come on board with corporate competency modeling. In the early ‘90s, famous companies such as Lenovo, Huawei, and Vanke were all pioneers in developing not only corporate mission and vision statements but competencies that they looked for in their employees. So why such late-comers? Some would argue that China is just slow to saddle up to the capitalist table. Anyone that’s traveled to/read a bit about China knows that capitalism is alive and well in the once-closed society. Some Chinese would also argue that competencies are an inherent value of almost any Chinese person – an ingrained cultural sense in their national psyche. The famous military philosopher, 孙子, or Sun Tzu as he is known in the west, was perhaps one of the first people to really think about and teach core competencies. In his popular book, 兵法 or The Art of War, is now almost required reading for every professional in the western world 商场如战场. In this work, Master Sun clearly outlines what he considers the five competencies of a successful military general – 信 credibility，智 wisdom，勇 bravery，仁 benevolence，严 discipline. The parallels between war and business are all-too-similar sometimes. These qualities of a good military officer are almost always at the core of any modern business’ core competencies. For more information about Sun Tzu’s thoughts on business and how it applies to both Chinese and western business practice, you can peruse here.
