Many organizations invest heavily in various assessment models to provide objective assessment of the qualities of their staff.  These assessments are usually based on efforts to identify the key competencies required for success within that business environment. Often there is a dual goal: diagnostic on the one hand , serving as a basis for identifying both individual needs to improve performance, take on a larger role and/or ensuring alignment between the qualities of the person and the requirements of the role. The other goal is more developmentally focused, with the assessment data being used to identify and prioritize training and development initiatives. These systematic efforts enable the organization to clarify what it is looking for and enables them to focus on key development areas and at the same time allows individuals to receive concrete feedback about their strengths and weaknesses.  The results form the basis of personal developmental plans.

It struck me, when asking Heads of Human Resources and Senior Managers about their experiences and results of personal development plans,  that there is significant concern about the effectiveness of this approach. One HR-Director even told me that as little as 8 % of the Personal Development Plans are ever carried out. Moreover, developmental programs, based on the results of such assessments, do not produce the expected outcomes . And even when there is significant investment  in validating data presented by line managers, there is no guarantee of achieving a qualitatively better talent pool. These observations led me to explore the limits of competency-based approaches.

It is fair to say that the focus and added value of classical behavioral/personality assessments is on identifying weaknesses (the necessary behaviors that are ‘not yet there’). However, as I mention above,  and as is pointed out by Elliot Jaques (2002), Roger Martin (2007) and Otto Laske (2008), the critical factor in business success is not only what people do, but also how their cognitive processes produced their actions. In addressing business problems it is the thinking pattern of the person in charge of that action that influences the kind of contribution he/she will make and the implicit use of his/her competences.

Following on the work of Elliot Jacques, Otto Laske (2008) introduced the concept of ‘thought forms’ as a way to look at cognitive processing ability, or fluidity of our thinking processes. Based upon the insights of Laske, a cognitive coaching approach was developed, distinguishable from behavioral coaching.  Although a lot of writings on behavioral coaching provide extensive recipes for what must be done to function at a certain level (cfr. the critical transitions as specified in “The Leadership Pipeline”), the basic argument of the cognitive coaching school was that no one addressed the question of what mindset was needed to make the suggestions work. Moreover, most competence frameworks are static and do not acknowledge that the mere definition of a competence takes on different forms, according to the level of complexity in which it is used. On the other hand, the cognitive approach does not define  a direct link between the mindset and  behavioral development.

Otto Laske (2008) recently provided a developmental framework that enables us to diagnose fluidity in our cognitive processes. He explored how people distinguish between four basic thought- form categories that indicate both how we think AND linking these thought forms with the level of complexity a person is contributing on. Thought forms can be considered as the deeper cognitive structure that allows one to make sense out of reality (Otto Laske, 2008).
There are four different perspectives:
• Things emerging or in motion (Process)
• Things making up a ‘big picture’ (Context)
• Things sharing common ground (Relationship)
• Things viewed as systems in transformation, that is, mutually intertwined and dependent upon each other.

The basic premise is that first, things have to exist (C). They can then be seen as undergoing change (P) and being related to each other (R). Transformational systems (T ) ‘pre-suppose’ this sequence: C, P, R.
- ("Context") The first category builds upon the conviction that there is always a bigger perspective in which you can position your own point of view. All problems are layered and the trick in increasing effectiveness is to start building common ground from that broader perspective. The thought forms in this category help distinguishing what kind of elements/variables one sees.
- ("Emerging change") There is always an ongoing change process, often not made explicit or emerging. It helps if you integrate the 'emerging' perspective in your arguments. Often problems are just analyzed from a context perspective, forgetting to position the issue in a time dimension of ongoing changes. By making this dimension clear, it often helps to recalibrate the relative importance of different perspectives. The thought forms here enable the active listener to identify what a  person sees as constant change.
- ("Common Ground" - Relations). These thought forms enable us to identify the kind of relationships a person is seeing and creating. On a higher management level this means for example that there is always a common ground in seemingly conflicting points of view. Finding this common ground often requires a different kind of 'modeling' (Roger Martin, 2007).
- (Systems in Transformation). There is always a systemic viewpoint. Connecting changing contexts with ongoing processes and redefining relationships often leads to transformational thinking. The different thought forms in this group allow us to specify the degree of open vs. closed systems thinking. On a senior management level for example this  means that most solutions to strategic problems can only be realized by looking at changing the borders of the system in which the problem raised. So redefining the system almost always helps in increasing impact.

So when a manager sees the world as being in constant transformation, he is aware that each context has its big picture, and is eager to understand here-to-fore hidden relationships, he will be operating from a different stance, and this stance enables him to use cognitive tools of a new kind. 

It is my impression, working with the cognitive interviewing framework of Elliot Jaques and Otto Laske, that thought forms occur at certain levels of complexity. For example ‘recognizing that two or more systems are related to each other, and can be coordinated, occurs when someone functions successfully on a complexity level where redefining systems and processes is crucial. I examined the relationship between the levels of complexity and the thought forms occurring at each level. This work resulted in the description of seven ‘Mental Highways’. The ‘Mental Highways’ can be seen as thinking patterns or language structure schemata through which meaning making at each of the capability levels (according to Elliot Jaques) is created. I’m convinced that these Mental Highways allow us to revisit the way most competence frameworks are built.

Most competence frameworks have four weaknesses :
(1) The defined behaviors differentiate on the first two to three levels of work complexity, and not higher.
(2) Building proficiency in a certain competence follows a path starting from a junior position towards mastership, which is often translated as being able to pass the competence to another person. This assumes that the definition of a competency remains the same on the different levels of complexity. This is not correct.
(3) It is clear that competencies defined in equal categories (eg. “level 3” in a clients competency-scheme) are not defined at the same “Mental Highway” level if you were to look at them from a cognitive perspective.
(4) It is not clear how one can develop a certain competency. The relationship between the ‘classical competency level ‘and the kind of developmental tasks is based upon a belief that a growth task will work, but not on science-based modeling. A lot of growth assignments are not carried out because the ‘size of the person’ (‘thinking capabilities’) is still too small for the ‘size of the role’.
These points make it understandable why the derived behavioral assessments have limited predicted power for Senior Management and/or CEO-functioning.

An alternative is to redesign the behavioral competence models, based upon the idea that thinking precedes behavior and using the Mental Highways as a model to identify the changes in behavior at higher complexity levels.
Let me share two examples, summarized in the table below. The vertical ax is one in increasing complexity (from the ‘lowest’ level 1 at the bottom to the level 5 at the top). Horizontally I have selected two ‘classical’ competency dimensions, ‘Thinking strategically’ and ‘Supporting productive working relationships’.  The new behaviors that are introduced are shown in bold, the increased complexity (and correlated use of thought forms) is show in italics.

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3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."