Capability and Competency: Are You Ready?

What’s contributes to the success of a business?

Sure, we might like the product that business creates, and we might favour the ad slogan or the quirky marketing tactics we see the brand using, but there’s an altogether more important set of ‘assets’ which a company can develop, and which arguably helps it achieve more loyalty and success.

It’s the organisational capabilities of a business, which can really set it apart and deliver something so much more valuable than a share price alone.

What do we mean by this?

Well, while it may be a term that’s new to you, chances are – and hopefully – it’s something that you may well have been investing in and considering as part of your management approach throughout your company’s journey.

Organisational capabilities are those which are intangible, but prized possessions.

They’re things like our flexibility, our consistent brand identity, our accountability to our stakeholders, our ability to recruit and retain well, and our capacity to continually learn and improve.

Where a business has this precious collective of skills, qualities and assets, you can be sure it is one which is agile and able to respond well to the ever-changing world around it.

Of course, the organisational capability of a business doesn’t just ‘magically happen’.

That’s why, when we talk with leaders in a company of any scale, we consistently remind them of the importance of embedding these capabilities and emphasising their importance from the top down…and bottom up.

If I could set one challenge for any business leader as we head in to the latter period of the year, and begin to position ourselves for a clean slate in 2020, it would be to look at your organisational capabilities and how they could come into play, be refined, or gain the attention they’ve been lacking.

So, where to begin?

Here’s a few you might want to focus on for starters:

PEOPLE:

If you can attract the right talent to your business, keep them motivated, retain their enthusiasm and desire for learning, you will be building a competent and skilled workforce which will keep elevating your brand…however bumpy the journey.

BRAND:

Strong businesses recognise that consistency of their brand is everything. It helps you to build relationships internally and externally and creates trust in what you deliver.

AGILITY:

A clever business leader knows that part of the company’s organisational capability should be its willingness and ability to adapt, change tack, explore new approaches, and to respond to unexpected challenges.

LEADERSHIP:

Ah yes – the important element of leadership. This doesn’t need to mean only the person at the very top of the infrastructure, but applies to team leaders, supervisors and line managers within the company. A business which understands what makes good leaders, and evidences this in their structure, is likely to thrive and be more successful.

Carole Burman is the Founder and Managing Director of MAD-HR. If you’d like to learn more about organisational capability, contact E: hello@mad-hr.co.uk or visit mad-hr.co.uk Twitter: @wearemadhr