Understanding competence from a partenerial perspective
Descripción
Understanding competence from a partenerial perspective Ioan Vlașin
Abstract: In a very competitive world, the understanding of the concept of competence is very important. Even if there are studies which show that the competence is an important need for each human being, it is still being seen like an exigency reqiured by the employers. A more appropriate understanding of the concept is possible if it is being understood like a quality participation of one part in a structure which integrates it. This approach may be fundamental for a new language which can rewrite the future of organisations. Thereby, the proposed interpretation may lead to an effective rising of competitivity through the streghtening of partnerships and cultural evolution. Keywords: competence, partnership culture, domination culture, education, variables, cultural levels, needs, nonviolent communication, laws of performance
1 The cultural influence on the understanding of the term of competence The language that a society uses, the significance that some words are having and even the orientation and the way that the education is organised, depend on the type of culture underlying the society. A dominator culture type relates differently to a human comparing to a partnership culture (Riane Eisler). The influence goes from the education to the activity at work and home. In the dominator culture people controles other people who have nothing else to do but to obey. The families and the society are based on this control, more or less explicit. The rules of the system are more important than the people, and that is why they are being punished, hurt or even killed in virtue of some superior interests. The society is being divided in some antagonistic camps and the enemies must be kept away or eliminated. The employees have to meet exactly the tasks they are supossed to. It may look very different from the contemporary society, but it is enough to have a look at the budget for the military actions, analysing the political people’s speaches and their actions to see this kind of approach.
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A partnership culture promote the respect for all the members of the society, it respects the unicity, and the relationships in here are collaborative between equal parts. With this approach, people are leaving happier and more accomplished together. Looking from the perspective of Logan, D., King, J., Fischer-‐Wright, H. (2011) of the cultural stages, the partnership culture is possible only between people whose cultural stage is at least four. The dominator cultures are built up by people whose cultural stage is at most three, characterized by the expression “I’m great! (and you are not!)” According to his study, the majority of the organisations are on the stages from one to three (76%). It is obvious that the education and the way that it is made are being cultural determined and will seek the perpetuation of the type of culture existing in that society. So, in the dominator cultures, the competence will be a requirement to achieve some behavioral standards, to have some attitudes and skills imposed by the system. The pupil or the student must see what is required and they have to obey to the standards. In a partnership culture every part is being respected and what matter for the partnership is how each part participate in the group. The tasks are not imposed, that’s why they have to be assumed responsably. From a part perspective, the competence show the quality of free participation to partnership. The system doesn’t impose to the parts attitudes, behaviors, skills. It only verifies in which way the parts respect their assumed responsabilities and check out about the system’s well-‐ balanced functioning, by pointing the those things that should be considered for it’s proper functioning. The difference perceived from a personal point of view is a big one. A dominator system impose while a partnership one propose, respecting the freedom of the parts involved. The participation in the system, the involvement and the integration are freely consented and fully self-‐accountable. Considered that the tendency is to build partnership cultures, we will further deepen the understanding of competence from the perspective of this type of culture.
2 The significance of competence In the majority of european languages, the word “competence” has two meanings. On one hand it is refering to the responsabilities assigned to one part of the system (the legal authority of a court or other body to deal with a
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particular matter -‐ oxford dictionaries), and on the other hand it shows us in which extent the part fulfill it’s tasks (the ability to do something successfully or efficiently). In other words, the competence is the intrument through which a system manage it’s activity, but in the same time it’s a measure of quality contribution of the part to success of a system. It is not random the fact that the studies made by different countries from different areas of the globe, the competence is being situated among the fundamental needs of the people (Deci, Ryan). Even if the term is partially understood, everyone wants a quality participation because they rediscover themself through it. In one of his book Daniel Pink (2009) doesn’t call this source of self-‐motivation “competence”, he calles it “mastery”, a more adequate term for a individual perspective. People have no other way to know themself but through the relationships and the activities with other people. They can think anything about them, but the certainty of their achievements can only come from the outside. That’s why the quality of their participation is so important. We consider (Author 2013) that their participation occurs on three levels: the personal level (to their nature), the relationship level (the interraction with others) and the cultural level. A good participation on the personal level is responsable for the personal integrity even then when the person is being part of one system. It assumes a harmonious functioning of the organism, a good integration of the two cerebral hemispheres activity, an optimum balance inroversion-‐ extroversion, a total implication, conscious of afectivity, personal responsability etc. For a good participation in the interractions, there is a need of opening, trust, a total lack of interest about social games, as they were highlighted by E. Berne, unconditional love, the capacity of communicating non-‐violent (M. Rosenberg). The involvment in the relationship I and Thou (M. Buber) has a great importance for the self-‐discovery. The participation on the cultural level assume the awareness of the cultural influence that the system has, the capacity of evaluating the cultural approaches of other systems, the understanding of the help that science, religion, philosohy, art, literature can bring for the improvement of participation etc.
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3 Integrative power of competence Because of the fact that the competence is a need for the group (for the management of the activity), but also for the part (especially for the rediscovery of the self), it is the best social integrator for anyone. But it’s power doesn’t stop here, it goes from the integration of the person to the integration of the most complex systems like unions of the states. Like I mentioned before, Deci & Ryan (2000) recognize at personal level three fundamental needs. But in their approach, the competence was not seen in such a large sens, as quality of participation. If we do not understand the competence in that sense, we cannot talk about a quality participation without satisfying the needs of autonomy and relatedness. The competence underlies the autonomy; the more competent a person is, the more autonomy they have. We also can tell that the competence increase the quality of relatedness, of the participation in the group’s culture and of the interractions. On the other hand we need to integrate all the needs in only one to have a unitary management of self being. Managing more needs, the things that have to be done can be opposed. The need of a quality participation, of competence, is, without any doubt, the best candidate to this position. By definition we may see clearly that the integration of a group is getting achieved through the competence. Assigning some competences, it assures a good management of the activities so that all the parts are functioning in total agreement. The laws, headed by the main law of a country, start by assingning some competences to different state bodies and then they establish the rules of activities. The interesting part is that we can talk about the competence of each group like part from a system which integrates it. The states of the European Union are integrated states. They can observe each other and they can discover their own competences from the relationships with the other states. So, the groups, including the states, they want to be competent, not only to insure their survival in a such dinamic world, but also to concur a better management of life on Earth and of sharing goods like the air, the water of the planet or the mineral resources. The cultural influence that many states want to have in the international relationships is in the direction of passing from a dominator culture to a partnership one. The systems and their competence evolve through the successive integration of new elements like constraints. For example, the care of letting to the followers
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the possibility to satisfy their needs, coerce many states to think about a sustainable development. The assumption of new responsabilities determine some changes in the system’s structure and functioning.
4 The evaluation and the improvement of competence In the current practice there are used many competences. If we consider the competence of one person as quality participation, the using of the term at plural becomes improper. It is more natural to talk about the competence in a specific sphere of activity into a system. To evaluate a person’s competence refering to their participation we can use some variables, inspired by the proposal of Timothy Gallwey (2001). These represents those things that the person should manage to be considered competent. It is not important how they manage them, it only matter they can do this. For example, to be a good driver, you must manage the following variables: the car’s speed, it’s direction, the emotions in traffic, the compliance of the road sign’s significance, the recognition and the use of blinkers, the identification of car’s problems etc. Any incapacity of controling them involves a potential danger for the other participants in the traffic. As we can see, the type of variables can be so various: skills, knowledge, self-‐control etc. Some variables are external, other are internal. To develop the competence, the identified variables have to be recognized and managed individually at first, then in group, and then all in the same time. The competence is a relative concept because of the fact that the system identify the variables that have to be managed. One person can be very competent in a specific system, but not so competent in another one, even if it has the same nature. They may have different levels of performance or may be part of a different comunities. For example, a car driver who drives in England on the right side of the road could be very dangerous for the other drivers, even if in the rest of Europe everybody drives on the right side. A comptence development must be always based on the fact that participation is in a system, that the actions influence that system and it’s members. For example, the accountability took by the teachers only at the knowledge transmission level (which have no sense for the pupils) may have serious consequences in a democratic system, starting with destroyed of the pupil’s pleasure of learning.
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On the other hand, even if it is not easy to see, the competence in abstract domains like mathematics or philosophy, would have a major importance. Specific things from science need the mathematical language or specific activities of human life, like maybe the way in which they participate in what is happening around them (authenticaly, nonauthenticaly -‐ philosophy), can’t be clarified without the competence. But it’s sense and role is not discovered by the children unless they don’t identify and understand the system and the context in which it is useful. R. Feynman said that he did deeply understand only those things that he created. Every person who wants to get competent should create their own system of variables management for specific situations by the expansion of their experience, it cant’t be built from the outside.
5 The satisfiying of needs The identification of basic human needs started from the studies made on the internal motivation. Actually, everyone is preoccupied by the things which respond for certain needs. From the experience of some experts (M. Rosenberg) we can see that in a conflict resolution we must access the needs level to succeed in transforming the enemies in partners. But the access is not that simple because elements that seem to be just a part of a nature’s game -‐ the emotions, the feelings, the passion -‐ are in fact important indicators for the satisfying of needs and factors with a lot of influence on people. To be successful in relationships and partnerships which allow us to satisfy our needs more properly it is necessary that the interlocutors come back to a natural state, void of any agressivness and learn a new way to communicate -‐ Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg M.). The need of a new language for a new type of relationships, the partnernership one, is not random. The researchers in the performance area discovered that the deepest changes into an organisation can be achieved by rewriting the future, and this is made through the language that is used (Zaffron, S., Logan, D., 2009). To realize an increasing demerche of competence with authentic bases, void of confusion, it is necessary to use another language, to adopt a new understanding, different from the one before which comes from the dominator culture.
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6 Conclusions The importance of the concept of competence is no more questioned these days. Private companies and public institutions, they both operate with the concept and the educational system use it. In the majority of public institutions or companies, the reached cultural stage is three or less. That is why the understanding of the concept of competence may be misunderstood. This work presents an approach of the concept from the perspective of a partnership culture, on stage four, opening to five. Under this approach, the competence refers to the quality of participation of a part in a system. Whatever the perspective you look from is, the competence is a necessity in the first place, both, part and the system, want a quality participation. If those three performance laws (Zaffron, S., Logan, D.) are veridical (and we have no reason to doubt that), then the perspective on competence proposed in this work would be fundamental for a new language which would help companies and public institutions to move towards a superior cultural stage. This transition whould then be a real basis, tangible, in what EU aims -‐ the highest level of competitivity.
7 References Vlașin, Ioan (2013). Competența, participarea de calitate la îndemâna oricui (Competence, quality participation for everyone). Alba Iulia, Romania: Unirea Eisler, Riane, (2002). The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life. Novato, California: New World Library Pink, Daniel (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books. Logan, D., King, J., Fischer-‐Wright, H. (Eds.) (2011). Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. New York: Harper Business Zaffron, S., Logan, D. (2009) The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life. San Francisco: Jossey-‐Bass Rosenberg, Marshall (Eds.) (2003) Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Encinitas, CA :PuddleDancer Press
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Gallwey, W. Timothy (2001) The Inner Game of Work. New York: Random House Publishing Group Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The 'what' and 'why' of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-‐determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-‐268
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