Functional Competencies for

high impact in your Profession

DR HK SARDANA
IIIT RAICHUR
Competence defined

 The underlying
 Knowledge, experiences, attitudes and values
 Behaviours and skills
 Well-being and integration (psychological, emotional, spiritual and physical
 Work habits and routines
 that are causally related to effective deployment and performance
 • Integrative
• High time/space
• Process focused
• High Impact
• Complex

Superior

Standard
The
Competence
Threshold Continuum
• Specialised
• Low time/space
• Content focused
• Lower impact
• Less complex
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C1: Personal mastery (Who  Thinking skills and
you are) intelligences
 What you stand for, your  Inter-active skills
capacity to renew and
remain connected to the  Diagnostic skills
realities of self and those
around you - ultimately to  Learning skills
function and deploy
effectively at a personal
level
Overview of professional competence
framework

Competency
 C2: Cognitive and thinking  Intelligences
(How you think)
 Strategic thinking skills
 Your sheer ‘brain power'
 Analytical and conceptual
and the degree to which
you can use it to develop  Systemic perspective
insight, meaning and
comprehension
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C3: Analytical, diagnostic
and problem-solving
 Diagnostic skills
(How you understand and
resolve things)  Problem-solving skills
 The processes you use and  Risk management skills
apply to gather
information, extract
meaning and reach
conclusion upon which you
and others can act
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C4: Interpersonal,  Presentation skills
communication and
presentation  Interactive skills
(How you relate, interact and
project)  Communication skills
 Group skills
 Your capacity to establish  Conflict handling and
credibility, predict the impact resolution skills
of your behaviour and adjust
your behaviour for differing
situations
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C5: Managing  Planning, organising and
(How you create structure,
controlling skills
process and system)  Process engineering and re-
 Your capacity to determine engineering skills
what needs to be done,  Systems design skills
setting up the structure(s) to
get it done and ensuring
completion
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C6: Collaboration and  Venturing and
teamwork intrapreneurship’ skills
(How you add value in  Team leading skills
groups)
 Project management skills
 Your capacity to create
 Meeting skills
synergy with others
 Facilitation skills
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C7: Creativity and
innovation (How you
 Idea generation and
generate and convert
spotting skills
ideas to realities)
 Analytical and conceptual
skills
 Planning and
implementation skills
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C8: Functional and  Science disciplines such as
technical expertise (What physics, chemistry, biology,
you know about and can bio-genetics, genetic
engineering,
contribute to the scientific
nanotechnologies and
and technical disciplines) medicine
 Technical disciplines such
as finance, administration,
business development and
human resources
Overview of professional competence
framework

Primary underlying
Competency capacities
 C9: Industrial organisation  Applied knowledge and
and environment standing in respect of
India's national priorities,
 Your insights, expertise and
institute’s role in delivering
'street-smarts'
to those priorities within the
 about your 'playing fields'
 National Science and
Technology framework and
the capacity to work with
and within this system
Functional
Competency
 1. Evolution; Pathways and Transformations of
energy and matter
2. Information flow, exchange, and storage
3. Structure and function; Systems

10 Skills and 4. The process of science

5. The interdisciplinary nature of the new
Competencies biology

for an S&T 6. How science is closely integrated within

society
Professional 7. Communication and collaboration
8. A certain level of quantitative competency
9. A basic ability to understand and interpret
data
10. Vision and Change
Functional Competencies

Balance of technical
knowledge with
interpersonal skills, Ability to communicate Develop good working
including the ability to effectively and work relationships with
communicate technical collaboratively in a team. customers and staff.
information to non-
technical people. (29%)
  Command of the basics: write, communicate,
summarize, and report, including the ability to
maintain confidential material. (18%)
 “Ability to collect, record, and report data
accurately.”
 “Ability to gather and process data, draw
appropriate conclusions, and communicate those
Functional conclusions in a cogent presentation.”
“Sadly, an area that is greatly lacking has become
Competencies

verbal and written communication skills. We have
encountered Ivy League graduates with awful
grammar and spelling errors on their resumes. We
pay people to deal with the highest levels of the
Armed Forces, the DOD and other Federal
agencies. When they can’t even write a proper
sentence or address a letter to one of these
women or men, it is embarrassing and hurtful to our
business.”
  Genuine mastery of their discipline of study,
allowing them to contribute educated opinions.
(16%)
 “High level of achievement in their field and a
strong quantitative background.”
 “Often students are trained to regurgitate
information they’ve read elsewhere, but the highly
qualified students are those that can analyze,
Functional digest and produce original insight.”

Competencies  Experience: have professional training which can

include internships, cooperative education,
undergraduate research projects, and summer
work engagements in professional settings before
entering the workplace. (15%)
 “Appropriate training, credentials.”
 “Experience with multiple lab tests and types of
equipment, following protocols, test methods,
procedures.”
Functional Competencies

 Ability to adapt knowledge to different contexts. (14%)

 “Practical application of their academic knowledge.”
 Diverse skills in problem solving and scientific method with a strong
analytical mind. (14%)
 “Ability to think on feet, problem solve.”
 “We need the new hire to have critical thinking skills, be able to apply
research findings, write clearly, be a flexible problem solver.”
 “Highly analytical thinking with demonstrated talent for identifying,
scrutinizing, improving, and streamlining complex work processes.”
  Ability to adapt to the professional
business environment. (12%)
 “Ability to hit the ground running.”
 “Understand the regulations and their
application to different businesses.”
 “They need to be able to see the big
picture. They need to be able to multi-
task, deal with conflict, be organized and
project orientated.”
Functional
 Having skills in several diverse science
Competencies backgrounds. (11%)
 A strong knowledge of technology,
including the ability to use various
computer programs. (11%)
 Clinical and laboratory skills, as well as an
ability to conduct field work. (7%)
 “Good thesis work, including familiarity
with laboratory procedures, equipment,
and protocols.”