A Competence Leader’s Look at Operating

Let’s say you’re the most senior Data Architect in your consulting company. You’ve done your share of client work and continue to enjoy it. However, as your Data team has grown, you’re now responsible for the competence & culture development of people like you – and the more junior people who want to be more like you. The team is not necessarily working together much, but they’re doing more or less similar things in different client environments.

You share the competence – you used to be a practicioner of the craft, now you lead and enable others

• guiding less experienced people to focus: go deeper in the skills they already have, or gain completely new skills?
• make sense of why upcoming client work may be the best learning experience, frame the challenge at hand as an opportunity to grow
• connect them with others, who might be better mentors than you are: after all, your time is limited and you don’t want to gate-keep
  

Working with recruitment / talent acquisition teams:

• help them understand which skills to look for
• showcase comparable professional profiles from your current team: what makes Alice or Bob a great consultant
• high level scheduling: setting hiring goals and fine-tuning start dates so that there’s minimal waste of time
  

Working with staffing managers:

• share the vocabulary on which profiles and seniorities matter for which work
• balance the experts allocation to the most interesting (and impactful) work and optimising their utilisation (and profit)
• help your consultants showcase their skills and interests so clearly that a positive staffing decision can be made in a minute, with the right information at hand
  

Holding one-to-ones and development discussions

• make sure you have the facts: what have they been working on, plans and actuals.
• are they able to deliver what was intended? if not, what’s getting in their way?
• leveling up in skills: what is the path of least resistance to the next level? When focusing on impactful client work, what else are they gaining in terms of skillset and seniority?
  

You continue to be passionate about the craft. You’re not turning into a salesperson or a financial controller, but you need to keep the business in mind. With transparency, honesty and fairness, you’re going to do great. From all of the conversations you’re having, patterns start to emerge and you’re able to lead with confidence in the long term. And at any time, when tactical questions come your way, you pull up the People Timeline in Operating and see who’s working on what right now, next week and next month.