Organizational Culture – Competency Or “Slices Of Genius”?

Written by: Linda Watkins, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

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For a little more than ten years now, organizational HR departments have been enamored with competency. Countless lists of competencies have been prepared, especially for leadership but also for other categories and positions. The idea seemed to be that one could tell employees exactly what was needed to fill a job.

It’s not that organizations no longer need competent employees. Of course, they still do. Just look at society’s disgust when the government at any level seems incompetent. We want people to be able to do their jobs and do them well.

However, in one fell swoop over the past three years, the world has changed. We no longer need employees who merely fit a list of competencies.

Today’s employees must be competent and innovative, competent and creative, competent and amazingly good at solving problems. We have come to believe that we need highly intelligent individuals to be able to walk on both paths.

A Tech Crunch article by Joelle Emerson and Carissa Romero suggests that the tech world’s so-called culture of genius is one of its biggest obstacles.

“One [problem] that’s often overlooked is the industry’s fixed mindset — its belief that intelligence, talents and abilities are fixed traits.

This mindset manifests as a culture that views brilliance as critical to success, and where some people are seen as inherently more brilliant than others — a culture of genius.”

Emerson and Romero’s point is that companies need a dynamic culture of collaboration and diversity more than an inflexible culture of genius. In other words, a mix of people and ideas to produce creative solutions.

They weren’t saying that we solely need to find brilliant thinkers to solve our problems, but rather that we need a mix of experience, culture, and intelligence.

In her exceptional book on innovation called Collective Genius, Harvard professor Linda Hill talks about developing a new criterion for selecting high-potential leaders, one that looks at what she calls “slices of genius” within their organizations or ecosystems. The term slices of genius caught my interest as a wonderful way to describe tapping into pools of insight and expertise both inside and outside organizational borders. It also describes us as humans – strengths, weaknesses, and sudden inspirations.

I once asked people at a dinner party where they experienced their creativity. Everyone became engaged in answering. Each answered in a different way – for one, it was when cooking, another said when fixing things, another said when working with clients, another when challenged with a problem, and so on.

Our organizations need the possibility to celebrate and encourage those slices of genius. Perhaps we need to build hybrid cultures where values, purpose, and competence interact with slices of genius – human organizations where everyone is empowered to share their expertise and thoughts.

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Linda Watkins, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

Linda Watkins, Ph.D., is an executive and leadership coach with decades of experience helping leaders achieve personal and professional growth, including in new, creative, and future-oriented areas. She helps clients embody their leadership and become authentic, grounded, and future-ready. Many find her work transformational. Linda's passion for helping leaders thrive by developing new skills and capabilities has only grown as the world has become more complex. She and her company, Leadership for Today, are strong advocates for women and have been designing events that empower women for over 30 years.