Competency Studies and Competency Models

In the year 1973 David C. McClelland, a well know Psychologist and authority on Achievement Motivation published a paper in the Harvard Business Review entitled “Testing for Competence rather than Intelligence” which has been credited for launching the competency movement. This paper was the culmination of a research undertaken by McClelland and his associates at the McBer and Company for the US Department that selects and places Foreign Service Information Officers across locations in countries abroad in United State Information Service Bureau.

The State Department had a very specific problem – the performance in the Foreign Service Information Officer examination and the scores on the FSIO General Aptitude Test Battery did not predict success as a FSIO, as observed later from the actual on-the-job performance.

Sharad Sakorkar