Who am I - 20 Experts in work

20 Experts in work

Basic work competencies are fourteen competent ways of performing in independent activities, leading others, collaborating, planning and solving problems and viewing the world and oneself. Basic competencies may be expressed as twenty easily relatable "Experts in work" from a Quality seeker to an Optimist. See also the preceding lesson "Basic work competencies" and "Self-directed career planning" with emphasis on career planning.

Basic competencies derive from individuals' characteristic motivations, ways of thinking and attitudes developing earlier in life and being more stable in time than occupational and job specific competencies. But most of all, they guide all educational, occupational and job specific competence and in the best of cases they may shed light also on your previous career decisions. Whatever work you are doing or plan to be doing, basic competencies function as direction givers and path providers but - also as imposers of limitations. Basic competencies can be described as a pyramid's base structure guiding the two upper structures, see the figure below. Hence, it makes sense to pose oneself the question: who am I at work?



Answer to the question who I am in ACTION becomes elucidated by examining experts such as a Quality vs. a Results seeker, an Action vs. Thought leader, a Communicator, Advisor, Listener and Follower of one's own path. Answer to the question who I am in PLANNING and problem solving becomes elucidated by examining experts such as a Fact-based person vs. Idea generator, a viewer of the Practical vs. the Complex picture, Analytic vs. Intuitive thinker and Cautious vs. Quick implementer. The satisfying WORK ENVIRONMENT becomes elucidated by examining the proponents of Order vs. Variety. Expertise in success expectancies is exhibited by both Realists and Optimists. From the experts, choose the most characteristic of yourself on this PDF document.

Self-performed expert choices > self-portrait of competencies

So, people draft their competency portraits by choosing expert figures most relatable to oneself based on their descriptions in action, planning and problem solving, work environments and expectancies of success. In action and in planning and problem solving the choice is made on the two most relatable figures. In regard to suitable work environments and success expectancies the choice is between two alternative figures. The choices are finally recorded on the form's summary page.

Relatable and lively expert figures arouse people's interest in self-examination much better than all externally given, overly round, often opaque listings of attributes. As a mirror of the individual's personal identity, the description: "I AM..." inspires people to self-directed development of one's career and competence. Similarly in recruitment, the description: "...a Quality seeker in action, an Idea generator in planning and suited to Variety providing work environments" captures the essence of a person's competence while communicating efficiently to all parties.

In addition to the freely downloadable pdf form, an alternative way to make choices on the experts is to use a payable card pack "20 Experts in work. Colorful, laminated cards can also be used in captivating and playful team building exercises where team members get to know each other by making guesses on each others' competencies. Under the pretext of play such guessing games spread the expert vocabulary efficiently throughout the whole organization.

Choosing between the experts involves focusing on somewhat tough discriminations. All the figures are valued experts in diverse educational and information environments, occupations and jobs and they are seen as equally socially desirable. Choice making results in a self-portrait of the individual's competencies which are then recorded on the form's summary page. As continuation one may request a trained coach for a feedback session on the choices.

WOPI testing > specified portrait of competencies

Self-performed choices are often sufficient in clarifying the person's current state and future directions in his/her career and competence. As continuation to the choices one can fill out the WOPI test with 224 detailed questions used in real world recruitment. The altogether six chosen expert figures form the "tip of the iceberg" while the WOPI test covers all the twenty expert figures. For a comprehensive picture, it may be useful to illuminate the non-chosen but potentially important expert figures as well as those wholly rejected by the person. The test's detailed quality has another benefit. Namely, WOPI produces numerical scores on all expert figures, thereby adding precision to the big picture. The main attention should be directed on the person's inner resources, ie., to those scores that diverge most from the person's own midline. The less important comparison to other people is displayed in numerical scores on the test profile. Candidate comparisons are more the focus of recruitment.

In the big picture, the self-performed choices coincide well with the test results, thus confirming the validity of the particular basic competencies. However, the specifications caused by the test's detailed quality can be truly useful and revealing. For example, an individual's self-performed choice may indicate identifying with an Intuitive thinker whose competence value is production of creative solutions. But, the WOPI test shows that the person's score reaches only the middle point between an analytic and intuitive thinker. Instead, the person reaches a high score on Idea generation, the competence value of which is production of new content. The testing may bring "cold showers" on the person but it may as well expose competencies that he/she was totally unaware of.

Ofttimes the self-portrait deriving from the self-performed expert choices is influenced by idealized viewing of oneself and social desirability effects. In addition to the precision brought about by the large number of datapoints (questions), good quality tests are originally constructed to control for social desirability producing more realistic test results. Marked differences between self-performed choices and test results can in an important way expose the "final truth". So the test results are not given the truth criterion status but the goal is to reflect upon the reasons for such differences. As with the self-performed choices, it may be useful to discuss the results of the testing phase with a trained coach.

Self awareness for organizations

Self-awareness brings also significant value to organizations. The consultant company Korn & Ferry (2015) mapped out the "blind spots" among nearly 7000 professionals in 486 listed companies, comparing them to the company's stock value. Blind spots were defined as gaps between the professionals' self-reports on their core competencies and reports given by their co-workers. The companies with highest rate of return showed significantly less blind spots among their professionals. According to a blog published in Harvard Business Review in 2018, self-awareness helps leaders more than an MBA (HBR 2018). An article by Rubens and colleagues (2018) instructs in implementing self-awareness training in MBA programs.