Understand the Capability Gaps – Prioritize Your Needs
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
– Henry Ford
To do things differently, to make new things happen, quite often requires the application of different or new skills. People may already have these skills, but have just not yet tapped into them. Understanding what skills are required, what skills you’ve got, and deducing from this the skills gap you have, is essential to deploying people effectively to instigate improvements.
It is often very easy at a human level to misunderstand the required change in people. There are different levels of seniority, capabilities and emotions that require the development of different capability development needs. One size does not fit all. Having common ways of working involves everyone understanding the role each person plays. We have to develop technical knowledge and expertise as well as to coordinate that our work together is effective and efficient. Quite often the training carried out can be standard, but the coaching support provided should be unique.
Follow this line of questioning to uncover gaps and prioritize need
| Self Assessment Questions | Qualifying Questions |
|---|---|
| Do you know what skills you currently have? | If yes, what are the ones you have? |
| Do you know what new skills you need? | If yes, what are they? |
| Do you know what it will take to close the skills gap? | If yes, which are the most important and why? |
| If everyone agreed on how this skills gap should be closed? | If yes, to what extent are they all agreed? |
