Building a Legacy: Competence
Practice, practice, practice! As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” Famous Green Bay Packer Vince Lombardi made the statement that “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” When you become perfect at something, one could say you are competent. What is competency and what is the process for attaining it?
The dictionary defines competence as “the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.” I believe there is more to doing something successfully and efficiently. There is a wholeness to competency which includes attitude, skills and knowledge. From the definitions.net website, R.W. White says competence “is the ability of an individual to do a job properly (italics added)….A competency is a set of defined behaviors that provide a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of the behaviors in individual employees.” R. W. White’s article used the term in regard to performance motivation.
Say for instance your boss gives you orders for your job, and you follow through with completing the task. You want to do it successfully and efficiently. In the midst of the task, you realize that with a little tweak here or bringing in another source there, the task will get done more efficiently and with a better outcome. You have built your knowledge, and this knowledge has made you more competent.
Skill building goes hand in hand with knowledge building. This previous scenario demonstrated how knowledge was built while you learn to improve the way you do things through tweaks and other resources. As you become more proficient, information is gathered, and you learn and see other ways of doing the task. You implement those ideas and do the task. The cycle continues with performance, doing, learning and improving. Each step leads you to building your skills which leads you to becoming more competent.
A good attitude also plays a role in competency building. Without a good attitude, you may get the job done efficiently and successfully, but it may not help you keep your job or focus on what really matters with your job. Attitude will affect your work. I could not find the source of this quote, but it is “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you don’t change it, you will never go anywhere.” If you are to be competent, personally or professionally, you have to understand that competence is tied to your attitude.
Even though competency may seem second nature to some, it may be difficult for others. Are you one that finds competency easy to grasp? Learn, change to improve, do better, and develop a good attitude. These lead to competence. Building your legacy requires that you are competent in what you do, whether it is on the job or in life in general.