ABSTRACT

Personal competencies became a focus of interest in the mid-1980s, in the wake of Richard Boyatzis' seminal book The competent manager. In the UK, Michael Wellin published a lesser-known volume, Behaviour Technology: A new approach to managing people at work. Although the list of competencies did not include some of those which became popular in later years –e.g. 'strategic thinking', 'customer satisfaction' –they were still very strongly predictive of overall effectiveness; two times more so than were personality test scores. This finding was unsurprising since it was suggested, that personal competencies mediated between personality and performance. The single competency listed in the adaptability cluster probably reflects the fact that the pressure for change in UK industry had not yet reached its peak at the time when the 16-competency framework was published. The four clusters will serve in this book as 'broadband' indicators of personal competency, much as the Big Five factors did with personality traits.