Does {X} Get You Hired?

In the past year to eighteen months I have been a member of many dialogues about the value of something educational – a degree, a certificate, a course, volunteering – in terms of getting the participant hired or promoted.  This seems to be the current hot topic in performance improvement.

… And it implies a line of demarcation and a rite of passage across that line… that is, you in or are you out?

Is that good or bad?  To be determined.  Let's consider the following…

A friend and mentor of mine, Judy Hale of Hale Associates has worked with accreditations and certifications for years and has written one of the field’s go-to books on the topic, Performance-Based Certification: How to design a valid, defensible, cost-effective program.  In recent meeting discussions about emerging certifications at ISPI, she has mentioned meeting with the Department of Labor, which now is requesting (requiring?) a new criterion for their accepted certifications.  The criterion?  Does having this certification make a difference in hiring?  That is, will people with this certification get hired over those without it? 

In one way, this is great progress; while in another way is it is just another kind of a short cut.   Employability as the validation may be just as wonky as the learning objectives that have been dumbed down to little more than a list of topics (but that's another blog). 

Look at this way.  Last year one of my clients was a community college developing programs that they wanted to promoted as certifications, where mostly they were certifying course attendance and passing both knowledge and hands-on tests.  However, their goal was to provide courses to the unemployed.  The courses were the easy part.  The tough part was determining whether any of their programs made a difference in hiring.  Well, some roles are synonymous with their certification (Certified Nursing Assistants, for example) – one must have the training program and certificate in order to get hired for the role.  Besides that program has been around a long time and well validated. 

However, a direct correlation may be more about completing than doing the work. 

The veterinary equivalent, the veterinary assistants, are just now beginning to be certified; in fact, all veterinary assistants in the United States (not just my area) were uncertified as late as 2010 and only a small fraction of one percent certified in 2011.  A new program and certificate may, in fact, be improving the work of the untrained employees who are already doing the work and using a certificate as a stepping stone.  It may also improve the chance of that individuals who are currently unemployeed will get work.  Both are likely.  However, there is no data about the baseline and no way to track progress after completing a program, so how can we measure its effectiveness?  In ten years, the situation will be like the CNA, where you can't get hired without a 6-week certificate program under your belt. 

Is employability the criterion here?  One certification can show a tight correlation between certification and job, while the other cannot merely because it’s too new to have data and has a history of employing the untrained.  Which program is better at preparing the learner for the role? 

Okay, another example.  Last week I received a call from a local journalist who was working on an article about the value of volunteering and the way that businesses were using it to promote  -- themselves both internally with their employees and externally with their clients.  We might consider this an item on the third line of the triple bottom line -- the corporate social responsibility -- with the other two being the top line (revenue) and the bottom line (net profit after taxes and expenses).   Here the social responsibility factors include work-life balance of employees, giving back to the community, receiving awards for work done, receiving publicity for work done, etc.  That employees who participate might keep their job when others are laid off, those who had volunteer work in their resume made it through the hire process or got a promotion -- those are the open questions for this journals. The conversation started around a volunteer project that I had headed up as volunteer with a professional society.  Did it get any of us a job or promotion?  No.  As a professional society, we did get promote the project that created a lot of interest among our members.  However, when members asked about participating in similar projects, they were unwilling to commit the time required.  In the end, the journalist and I talked about the value of volunteering with a professional society as one way that I provide a ‘gut check’ for my clients about whether my certification by that society is valid and valuable.  That is, having a certification might not get me hired but having volunteer work with the organization providing it might validate the certification.   

Let's try a different look at employability measures.  Not too many months ago, the key indicator of getting hired as an instructional designer was whether you had 3-5 years of Flash and Photoshop experience -- another X variable.  For many organizations the requirement to have that experience was obviously less than astute because of the rest of the position description wandered; it wasn’t clear that they had the ability to put someone with 5 years of high-tech instructional design and development experience to work using that experience. 

It’s still an open question.  Does having {X} – degree, certificate, course, volunteer experience, or specific tool experience – make one more employable? Maybe we should also ask whether those individuals with X produce a work with higher quality, quantity, speed and flexibility… and whether that is what the employer really wants.  Our line of defense for these solution sets wobbles with openly visible gaps in the line.

Actually, the most needed question is whether ‘employability’ is the best test of a {X}.  Employability may be only one part of the story and the measure of whether one is “in” or “out” may need to be more complex than do you have {X}? Line between ‘in’ and ‘out’ gets a bit convoluted when we zoom in to look closely at whether we have the right performance measures at all.  

Let's talk.  What examples do you have of validating a program or accreditation?  How effective are the measures in demonstrating the success of that program/accreditation?  

Photographs by Sharon Gander © Jan 2012

Where do we go from here?

In early October, I was part of a team that brought in an internationally known speaker for a one-day professional workshop on knowledge management and learning and social media, a relatively new topic in my geography though it has been around a long, long time... Long enough that I worked on some of these topics five and ten years ago.   The good news is that the event was great and the positive feedback wonderful.  However, one reoccurring question from participant after the session has bothered me...

Where do we go from here? 



Yes, we need dialogue in order to create change.  However, part of the reason that this my particular geographic areas gets a reputation for being slow to change is embodied in the question.  

And, while we sit around waiting for someone else to organize our actions, we lose the impetus to charge into change.  

So, I'm dying to ask back, "What do YOU want to do next?  And, why?" 

And I'm dying to say, "Go explore these new opportunities.  Try things out and see what happens.  Then tell the rest of us about your experience.  These are the skills that got us here, today.  Apply them again to this new perspective on our field." 

So, try something new today regardless of your age, your solid position in the community or profession or your own personal preference for the status quo... go try something new and see what happens. 

From Here to There… and Beyond

If you don’t measure it, you can’t change it!
If you don’t know what your goal is, any path will take you there.

Today everyone measures this, that and the other thing. We track mileage, checking account status, minutes to the store, website traffic, hours worked, days until… We measure, measure measure.

However, many of our measures are not focused on a goal. Tracking mileage is only useful when applied to a goal such as decreasing gallons of gas per mile.

As I work with various organizations developing learning solutions, I ask them about their goals. What do you want to accomplish with this learning solution? What will change in your organization, if we implement this? How will you determine whether this project was successful or not? These questions open the dialogue about both goals and measures.

Amazingly, many businesses do not really know what their goal is or how to measure it. They are measuring and measuring but not measuring the indicators that will guide them toward improved goal-states.

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Where's the improvment? (A Case Study)

Like many organizations with training or learning functions measure, XYZ Corp tracks the number of learners they serve, the number of hours per learning event, and the learner-satisfaction rating for their learning solutions. When asked what they wanted to accomplish with a new employee orientation program, they were uncertain how to answer the question. Literature says that new employee orientation improves employee satisfaction, increases their longevity with the organization, increases their loyalty to the organization and increases customer satisfaction. However, other than customer complaints, XYZ was not measuring any of the other factors. They just felt that new employee orientation would be a good idea.
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It’s endemic. Measurements abound, while visionary goals remain unmeasured.

As the seasons turn and your goals shift with them. Consider the way you measure your success. Are you growing roses because the rose bush was there when you bought the house? Is it enough to plant a garden full of vegetables only to let them wither on the vine because you don’t have time to can them or the knowledge to freeze them? If you plant, tend, harvest and store this year’s crop, how will you know whether the effort saved you money or not? How will you know whether your crops are lower in pesticides and higher in nutrition than the same products sold in your local grocery? Is feeling good about harvesting your own produce enough for you to measure?

Don’t get me wrong. Feeling good about an end-product or even about the process of getting somewhere is a valid measure of success. It may be the only measure of the creative process involved. However, feeling good about an end-product is not a performance improvement measure.

In fact, performance improvement only comes when we can measure the input and output of a process (growing vegetables or roses, for example) and show that doing something differently changed the result in the desired direction (the goal.) That is, do we get more tomatoes (bigger roses) this year by going pesticide-free or did the lack of pesticides actually decrease our crop? We may be fine with the trade-off… or may need to continue our improvement project.

As the seasons change, as our economy changes, as we age and our families changes, as new technologies emerge... in this change of seasons and season of change, what is it that you want to accomplish (your goal) and how will you measure it?

Teachable Moment

Remember back to the last time you realized that you were lacking a specific skill. Perhaps you were tackling a software… or a career skill important for your job… or a life-skill like cooking or home maintenance… or a hobby-skill. When someone realizes that they need to learn something, a teachable moment has occurred.

There are several essential elements to this moment:

1. The learner (you/me/anyone) has received feedback that creates an ah-ha moment when it is clear that something key is missing.
2. For the moment to be a teachable moment, the gap must be clear.
3. Resources are available to allow the learner to move forward.

Let’s look at that again.

Feedback is important. Without feedback there is no information that says to the learner “you need to change.” Without a need to change, there is no motivation to learn. The more important the desired change, the greater the personal motivation to “learn.”

Either the feedback itself or the learner’s reflection on that feedback must lead to a clear picture of the gap and what is needed in order to cross that gap. That is learners need to see clearly their current skill level as well as seeing the desired skill level. Skills gaps that appear to be attainable are more motivating than those that appear unattainable. However, some individuals are very motivated by the apparently unattainable, while others are very de-motivated by even the smallest degree of challenge in that skills gap.

Between feedback and awareness of need come a cascade of emotions. For many, any awareness that they are less than perfect feels punitive – is hurtful or creates a sense of losing face or losing authority. At times, the specific skill gap involved brings up deep seated feelings of pain. Individuals who say that they “love to learn” often embrace the feeling of having a void and dig deep for the feeling of success derived from previous teachable moments and learning actions. Dealing with the feelings may need to be part of the learning involved.

This is when resources come into play. Resources can help learners organize the steps to learning, making the learning more attainable. Resources can run a wide range of options; they might include another person (a teacher), a job aid (step-by-step guides, process charts, checklists, etc.), or just a library of possible options. Without resources, there is no “teach” in the teachable. Resources are the source of the information about successfully bridging the skill gap.

And, resources may be the feedback that drives out the need for the next level of change. Around we go to more learning.
Now try identifying three or four times when you experienced a teachable moment as the learner. Can you identify what caused the ah-ha moment (the feedback), what you felt during that cascade of emotions that came with the ah-ha, and the resources that gave you courage to cross the gap to learn?

Can you identify one time when the resources you needed were not available? What happened when you were aware of a need but could not act on it? How did you feel? What action (or inaction) did you take?

Now try it from the other side. Identify three or four times when you were the present at someone else’s teachable moment. You might have provided the feedback that caused them to realize that they had a gap or you might have provided some of the resources or both. What actions or behaviors told you that this person had just moved from unmotivated to learn to very motivated to learn?

Watch for teachable moments. They happen to all of us regardless of age, gender, race, religion, ability/disability, job title, wealth, or any other classification we could invent. Teachable moments are part of our humanity.

Proficiency = Efficiency and Effectiveness

Dad and I worked years on a model airplane (not this one). We had fun doing this but proficiency -- that is speed, flexibility, quality and quantity were not high. As seen here, detailed attention did get us quality... but at a price -- a long time, and much painstaking rework.

As mentioned earlier, proficiency is not well understood. We tend to know it when we see it… and we know lack of proficiency when we see it.

Speed, quantity, quality, and flexibility are the hallmarks of proficiency. These we can measure, so why don’t we? Well… those who know the measures and are capable of doing the measuring are too busy doing the work. They have a personal scorecard in their head and they are constantly working to best their previous best by increasing the challenge. Everyone else is trying to catch up.

If that’s true, then only those who are proficient can actually evaluate proficiency – only a master knows another master. If only masters can define proficiency in their field and their too busy doing the work, how do we know what to train the next generation of masters?

There’s actually as simple tool, the proficiency indicator scale. This is a method for taking any complex task and defining the difference in proficiency based on experience level of the individual.

Try it for yourself. Think of a complex task where you either want to improve your performance. (Start with something you know well – it could be cooking a special dish, submitting a quarterly report, resolving a specific type of technical issue or anything that you are proud that you eventually mastered.)

Level 1: Awareness – describe the moment of awareness an individual realizes and truly internalizes the need to build skill. Educators call this “the teachable moment.” Learners at this level might say:

Level 2: Attempts– list one or two key action that exemplifies someone who is trying to do the work but is still struggling with the basics. Typically these statements will include the fact that the learner chooses the wrong tools, uses tools incorrectly, and has difficulty putting concepts to work.

Level 3: Semi-Independent – after completing a course or working with someone more experienced, we try tackling the work on our own only to find that we missed something key. Perhaps we did not really “get” the connection between basics and actions or perhaps we did not get enough practices to really integrate skills with real work. Regardless, at the semi-independent stage, we still need help, coaching, guidance, and someone to bail us out. We make mistakes and do a lot of rework. Quantity and quality are both low. Speed is still slow. We have a limited number of ways that we can work out problems (i.e., we’re not very flexible).

Notice that most training courses leave us at this level when we exit the course. In order to make our new skills work, we have to go through many days and weeks of working with limited skills. If our coaching and guidance systems are good, we move forward. If not, we stay stuck at this level and may even quit trying the new skills.

Level 4: Independent – at some point, we have done enough rounds of execution that we are comfortable with the skills in our work setting. We have acquired enough experience to need little coaching, redirection or “bailing out.” We know where to find the documentation and how to read it and apply it, but we don’t need it much. We have become independent.

Independent is the level that most employers want for all their employees. Anything beyond this level is gravy. In addition, an employee who attains this level in their specific role but shows specific skills in leadership often moves up to leadership with moving to the next there three (3) levels, which does irritate those who are not chosen for leadership roles and who do continue to hone their professional skills by moving to the next level.

Level 5: Fluent – over time and with much practice, we build add new skills, build speed, improve our quality and start increasing our output quantities. Around now, we become influential in working with others both within our work units and outside of them. We coach those coming up behind us, answer others questions, resolve problems, document work processes. If our particular work pays bonuses or commissions for quantity and quality measures, we are the top earners in our class.

People working at the Fluent level make great subject experts because they not only know what they are doing, how to do it and why they are doing or choosing to do certain steps, but they can explain it in ways that make sense to less experienced people. People at this level may become trainers or may begin making presentations at conferences about their company’s process, tools, or techniques.

Level 6: Natural – eventually, we have done the tasks so many times and in so many different situations that we do this complex work with our own artistic flair. Others say, “…but you’re a natural at this…” However, we probably still see ourselves as learners with much left to learn. We might (privately) note that many of our junior peers struggle with work that we find simple and basic. When others complement us on our work, we have difficulty accepting that complement because we see the flaws and imperfections that they do not see.

Not every makes it to the Natural level for all tasks. Nor is Natural the level that employers desire for all employees.

Note, also, that people at the Natural level are often tagged to be subject experts to develop training. However, they are not good subject experts because they simply jump to the solution for a problem and frequently are unable to explain why or how they chose that solution. Their own inability to explain it and someone else’s inability to understand frustrate them.

Level 7: Novel – Skills in one area blend with skills in other areas to create new and novel approaches, techniques, solutions to problems, innovative ideas and methods. We begin recreating the work tasks, work process, work tools… and, eventually, the field. At this level, we openly share our ideas, methods, and processes not only within our organizations but externally with our field. People at this level are writing the papers and making presentations at conferences.

Strangely, individuals at the Novel level can either become internal resources tightly focused on internal improvements or they become ambassadors for ‘new way’ (based on their improvements). In the ambassador mode, they may be great presenters and trainers.

Now, the question of mastery and proficiency becomes one of degrees of mastery or degrees of proficiency”. Since the advanced levels of proficiency require time and practice, the key performance development (training) question becomes, “what degree of performance and mastery is need and why is that level needed?”

What proficiency are you addressing today?

Retained and Sustainable Value

The colors in the picture above are surreal due to the photo enhancement software used to transform a dark photo into one that highlights the details of this art deco arch over a doorway in Vancouver Canada. There’s something about art deco and craftsman work that has retained its value over time. During that period craftsmen’s tools were limited and this kind of workmanship took time, talent and experience. Today, I have no information about whether this work of art in both wood and metals was a single person’s contribution or a team contribution. However, it is a massive installation over a huge double doorway and has withstood the test of time and weather. It has retained and even increased its value.

Our tools have changed since the days when pieces like this were created. New tools allow us to work faster. However, working fast sometimes forces the craftsman in us to skip over the details that would create art out of work… forcing us to leave out the retained value that could be demonstrated through our work.

Interestingly, the performance improvement field is beginning to address sustainability and retained value. New work in the triple bottom line or TBL is looking at not only financial sustainability of organization but at social and ecological sustainability as well. (Check out these TBL visuals, as well... look at lots of them to get a real sense of this direction). It is an interesting way to look beyond making some individuals filthy rich to making sure that the work of an organization is sustainable.

However, on the front-line, most of us involved in performance improvement work are still tied to pettifogging tools that measure transactions rather than value. What do I mean by “measure transactions rather than value”? Well, consider the learning objective, one of the world’s most ubiquitous tools for measuring individual change (learning). Do follow that link. It’s amazing. Wikipedia, the new standard for dictionaries, does not include a definition of the term “learning objective” but references them in a dozen different ways. And, as might be expected, Blooms Taxonomy is the first one listed. There is no mention of the other taxonomies developed. Most people are unaware that there are taxonomies for the affective domain (social/emotional), fine motor and gross motor. Bloom’s taxonomy is all about knowledge and thought. In its way, it is a limiting to an organization as is the old-fashioned bottom-line accounting… and as complex. However, unlike accounting learning and performance improvement have not embraced the specialization required of complexity, we have simplified to the point of dumbing down the learning objective. Objectives have moved us into a mode where the single transaction is all that is important and any degree of integration between transactions is devalued.

Consider a very typical scenario, the service-oriented call center. Here a low-paid employee answers an incoming call. To answer the call they have to select the right combination of keys on a keyboard, listen through a headset, imagine a person on the other end of their phone line, decipher the problem the person is presenting, collect a variety of data elements such as name, address, phone number, and account number, validate that thy have understood the problem definition correctly, negotiate changes in that definition until the customer is happy that the problem is defined correctly, propose a solution or set of solutions, get the customer to agree to those solution actions and take those actions. In the case of a technical solution like a computer problem, this may also require that the call center employee walk the customer through steps to solve their own problem without being able to see the customers’ computer screen, keystrokes, or results of their actions. Whether or not the interaction resulted in a favorable outcome, the employee still has to document the end result, whether follow-up is needed, whether the event is closed or left open, the customer’s satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with it, and then end the call on a positive note. For this complex set of tasks, the typical call center employee is allowed three minutes and the event is called a transaction.

That is a very complex set of skills that include greeting, data gathering, active listening, paraphrasing, negotiating agreements, decision-making, parsing out specific details, asking questions, visualizing a person that one can not see, visualizing the other person’s actions, acquiring verbal feedback from the other person about their actions (i.e., interviewing the caller about their actions), summarizing actions and results, and closing the call. The call center employee must then translate that information in to data that is entered into their computer system and they must complete the call within a timed period such as 3 minutes, which is also data automatically handled by the call management computer system. It is the data that lasts long after the call has ended.

When we get a call center employee who can execute this dance, we judge the company as being successful. When we get one who can not execute it, we judge the company as unsuccessful and question whether to continue our business with and through that company. Getting this dance right is or should be very important for companies using call centers. So their learning objectives and job descriptions tend to look like this:

• Demonstrate effective communications skills
• Demonstrate effective time management
• Able to describe the call response process
• Identify various classes or types of customer problems
• Demonstrate the ability to resolve customer issues to customers’ satisfaction by receiving a 4.0 or higher rating average
• Know how to handle angry or abusive callers
• Enter data accurately

These learning/work objectives leave out the complexity of the dance and narrow the work down to it lowest common denominator. It leaves out the art, artistry and sustainable value of the work. No wonder few call centers actually get the value that they need to get from this service. We can chalk it up to pay but the real culprit is work definition.

What’s the alternative?

Well, what might happen if we admitted that our work is complex enough to be an art form? If we start out to create works of art with sustainable value, might we define the work differently? Might we take a page out of the triple bottom line and define work based on finances, people and ecological impact? Might we look for integration points as the real learning issues knowing that we can build skills in any one skill set but that integrated skill sets require more sophisticated learning? Might we consider learning to be our opus work of art (or OPIS)?

Who Decides Who The “Master” Is?

Eons ago in the days of guilds and somewhat more recently in the heyday of unions, workers were identified by experience rankings such as apprentice, journeyman and master. A master artist with vision and technique created this art deco window from the 1940s that I found in Vancouver. The artists are still with us and, yes, they still become masters of their craft. How about the employee in non-artistic businesses? Is there vision, skill, technique or craft in his or her work?

We’ve done away with the apprentice/journeyman/master designations in favor competency-based job descriptions (another rant, but I’ll leave it alone today) and longevity-based wage scales. Skill designations appeared to create a kind of prejudice and, even, a kind of an entitlement viewpoint where employees feel that they are entitled to jobs and living wages in return for years of experience, increasing knowledge and expertise... and that managers who no longer do the work may be of less value (which merely about not seeing the craft inherent in management but raises hackles anyway.)

In the switch over we lost track of the master craftsman among us. Who and what constitutes a master in your field? Is this the person with a PhD and 30 years of experience but no “field” experience? Someone with 10 years of field experience but no degree? Or is there a better way to get at the underlying differences that makes someone a master of their craft.

Consider proficiency. In HR terms 'proficient' means that the person can do the job well with little supervision (i.e., with little or no intervention by a supervisor, team lead or more experienced worker).

Dictionary.com defines proficiency as: A noun -- the state of being proficient; skill; expertness: proficiency in music.

I thought that the idea of a definition was to use words OTHER THAN the one you are defining. How can we define proficiency by saying it is the state of being “proficient”. This begs the question. Skill an expertise don’t help much either.

Merriam Webster.com defines proficiency as: 1: advancement in knowledge or skill: PROGRESS 2: the quality or state of being proficient.

We’re making progress here aren’t we? Does that mean we’re becoming (moving into the state of being) more proficient? I think not. ‘Advancement of knowledge and skill’ misses the point by a mile. One can be advancing their knowledge and skill and still not be proficient. One can also be proficient and continue to advance their knowledge and skill.

Wikipedia references definitions for ‘expert’, ‘progress’, ‘skill’ and ‘proficiency testing’ but has no definition for proficient or proficiency.

It would appear that we have a real and basic human issue with defining proficiency – we don’t know how to define it.

If we don’t know how to define it how we judge whether someone is proficient or not?

What do we know about proficiency?
1. Time and experience are highly related to proficiency -- that which we do frequently and in all the possible variations in work methods, tools, designs, and artistic intents, eventually leads most of us toward some degree of proficiency (if not mastery). However, this proficiency can be lost when tools change or the culture (or business demand) around us change leaving us with a proficiency in something of lower value (a whole ‘nother issue but worth mentioning here.)
2. Repetition is highly related to proficiency – drill and practice can provide enough iterations that we can develop proficiency in a short period of time and than might have been expected without it. This is why elementary schools still use worksheets… and why physical therapist and physical trainers give us specific exercises to do in order to build our muscle capacity, balance, and agility.
3. Innate talent can speed up the process of gaining proficiency and even allow individuals to “jump” over their peers and teachers allowing them to become more proficient more quickly than others.
4. Lack of proficiency is visible. It’s always easy to see someone who is not proficient. Even if we do not know much about the field, we can look at someone who is not proficient and recognize their distress.

Okay, let’s go with that for now. Consider #4, that proficiency is visible. If it’s visible, then we should be able to agree on the characteristics of someone who is not proficient.
• Awkward movements (lacks agility)
• Signs of stress and distress (fear, pain, anxiety, tears)
• Makes mistakes
• Takes a long time to complete a relatively simple task
• Has to stop and think hard about the next step
• Frequently asks for help or bogs down (freezes) and is unable to work until help is available
• Has difficulty figuring out how to correct the problems he or she created when making a mistake
• The product that is being produced is obviously flawed both during the process of creating and at the end of the process

Why can we describe lack of proficiency but not proficiency? Is this really about a much more ancient talent that humans have – finding prey. We recognize these behaviors as being those of the inexperience (the young) or ill and either feel the need to nurture or attack based on our own pre-dispositions for such things.

So, knowing what signals lack of mastery and lack of proficiency, can we flip them around to create proficiency? Probably. Let's think about having something preying on us. What characteristics would be watching for?

I would propose that proficiency includes these characteristics:
• Agility – fluid movement between discrete parts of the task and the ability to adjust to changes in the environment
• Flexibility – being able to execute under different circumstances, with different tools and different environmental conditions and being able to change approaches and tools based on feedback from the environment.
• Speed – execution in shorter than standard periods; the ability to change directions or actions with little or no apparent thought
• Quality – produces work that has few if any flaws; produces results that are acclaimed by other experts in the field and by those receiving their work output
• Accurate problem identification – quickly and accurately defines problems with very small amounts of data indicating that a problem might exist
• Creative problem-solving – quickly reconfigures available skills and resources to solve new problems for which he or she does not yet have experience but where the problems exhibit characteristics of similar problems that he or she has experienced
• Joy and passion – loves the work getting strength and pleasure from executing it and from getting better and better at it
• Self-challenging – drives oneself for continuous life-long learning
• Confidence – willing to back their work and commit to their product’s quality

Confidence may be the one area where we can judge our own proficiency. Think about it. What work products are you willing to back with your personal commitment to their quality? Would others judge you as proficient? As a master of that field?