“Competencies” is a buzz word today. When I started working in the world of business competencies were unheard of. They existed of course, but we hadn’t given them a name and we certainly didn’t divide them and subdivide them in the way that we do today. A competency is a personal characteristic that describes what you do well – and usually – what you do better than everyone around you. Everybody is good at something so everybody has competencies. What’s important is how we use them – both at a business level and as individuals. Um, businesses exist to make money. The goal of people who run businesses is to increase productivity and make more money. Over recent years organisations have seen the benefits of using competencies for Human Resource management purposes. In the past we used to focus on whether or not a worker was successfully completing his or her work activities. If the answer was “yes” then everything was ok. But sometimes a worker will successfully complete his activities without affecting outputs or results at all. What’s the point in that? Where’s that going to get the company? – Or the employee for that matter! Organisations need to give their clients or customers exactly want they want. They need results.