Do we have the Competence for Executagility® in our projects?

Hi, I'm Andrea Jones and today we'll talk about the competence pillar within executagility. Now remember, executagility is the ability for your organization to execute your most important projects consistently over time. We have talked about the four pillars, the first being alignment, the second being available time. Now we'll talk about competence. And last will be structure. The good news about competence is most companies have people who are competent, and by competent I mean technically capable. They have the technical skills required to do the projects that they're being asked to do. So that's really good news. It means that you haven't overburdened them and given them too much work, that they can't get around to everything and they're on board with what needs to be done. They understand why they have the skills to do it, and you probably don't need to outsource those technical skills. Now, even though most companies do have this, there are a few caveats to make note of. Sometimes people might not yet have the technical skills, but they're motivated to obtain them on their own. And here's a specific example. If you have a paid subscription to ChatGPT, for example, it can help you with coding. So maybe if you're trying to do some kind of back end coding or script, a person who's reasonably savvy could probably partner with a chat or an intelligence tool and get that technical thing done, even if he or she wasn't the one to actually code whatever it was. They could get the language out of chat and then they could test it and maybe modify if necessary. So that's a great example of someone who might not immediately have the specific skills, but could partner with an easily obtainable resource to get them, or they are open to watching YouTube videos on their own, or they're really savvy at just trial and error. And the trick with that, of course is they now might need a bit more time, right, to be able to get the technical skills required, given everything else that they have to do, their other priorities and of course their day to day responsibilities. So if you're going to ask somebody do you have the technical skills? They say, no, but I'm willing to get them. You also need to make sure you give them enough time or you talk to them about whether they have enough time already to do that and not neglect their other responsibilities. And if they don't have enough time, you know, watch the available time and consider how to reprioritize there. The other thing you of course could do is you could outsource the technical work. Maybe it's a marketing a new website you need to do and you want someone else to do the work. If you outsource it, then that company to whom or individual to whom you outsource it should have the technical skills that in fact, that's what you're paying for. But often companies want to keep this technical skill stuff in house. So perhaps you would have, instead of completely outsourcing, you'd hire a coach or a trainer, or you get somebody training. And then again, you need to consider that available time. Either way, though, the crux of all of this is trust. If you have a motivated employee or someone you think is able to have the potential to grow into a new role, he or she needs to have trust with you as the leader that they can share when they're not quite getting it, or they do need a little bit more help, or they need a little bit more time. Otherwise they're going to say they have the competence or you're going to think you have it, or you're going to think you gave them the means to get that technical skill. And if they don't trust you, they're unlikely to raise that flag when something goes south. When you have a good structure, to be fair, you often might notice this either way. But I still recommend having great trust with your employees. All right, that's it on competence. Thanks for watching.