Competencies for the future

Industry or corporation awareness

Understanding the vision, strategy, goals, and culture of an industry or organization; linking human performance improvement interventions to organizational goals.

Leadership skills

Knowing how to lead others positively to achieve desired work results.

Interpersonal-relationship skills

Working effectively with others to achieve common goals; exercising effective interpersonal influence.

Technological literacy

Using existing or new technology and different types of software and hardware, and understanding performance support systems.

Problem-solving skills

Closing performance gaps between actualities and ideals; helping others uncover the gaps and use that knowledge to close current and future performance gaps.

Problem-definition skills

Detecting performance gaps and helping others find ways to close current and future gaps.

Systems thinking and understanding

Identifying the inputs, through-puts, and outputs of a subsystem, system, or supra-system-- and applying that information to improve human performance; realizing the implications of interventions on many parts of an organization, a process, or an individual; taking steps to address the side effects of human performance improvement interventions.

Performance understanding

Distinguishing between activities and results; recognizing outcomes.

Knowledge of interventions

Demonstrating an understanding of the many ways that human performance can be improved in organizational settings; understanding how to apply specific human performance improvement interventions to close existing or anticipated performance gaps.

Business understanding

Knowing how the functions of a business work and relate to each other; knowing the economic impact of business decisions.

Organization understanding

Seeing organizations as dynamic, political, economic, and social systems with multiple goals; using that larger perspective as a framework for understanding and influencing events and change.

Contracting skills

Organizing, preparing, overseeing, and evaluating work performed by suppliers, contingent workers, and outsourcing agents.

Buy-in and advocacy skills

Building ownership or support for change among affected individuals, groups, and other stakeholders.

Coping skills

Knowing how to deal with ambiguity and how to handle stress resulting from change and from multiple meanings or possibilities.

Ability to see the big picture

Looking beyond details to see over-arching goals and results.

Outlined by ASTD Models for Human Performance Improvement: Roles, Competencies, and Outputs (ASTD, 1996).