Competency Matrix, Competency Mapping, Gap Analysis and Competency Building The model to build up your hard and

soft skills/competencies and gain excellence in them, in a focused manner, is a four stage model: 1. Developing your competency matrix: By your self analysis and taking help of others (your friends, spouse, parents, brothers & sisters, professional associates, bosses etc), find out the hard and soft skills/competencies you should possess in order to be successful in your professional and family roles. Write them down. 2. Map your own competencies against the competency matrix requirements: Check out if you have those required skills/competencies and are they at the desired level of proficiencies. 3. Analyse the competency gaps: By doing steps 1 & 2, you will come to know your skill/competency gaps. Which are the skills/competencies that are totally absent in you and you should pick them up fast because they are critical to your success. You will also know the skills/competencies which you already have but not at the desired levels of proficiency. Pull up there. Do not worry about other skills/competencies outside of your competency matrix (step 1). Write down these gaps. 4. Bridge the competency gaps: Now is the time to act on the identified gaps (step 3) in skills/competencies. For each skill/competency that you need to improve, you should work out a clear cut time line based action plan. Look out for the sources & resources and ways & means to pick up and pull up your skills/competencies found as gaps. Try to reach the desired levels of proficiency in a well defined time span. Implementation and practice are the essential aspects of building skills/competencies as emphasized in my earlier write-ups. So, go ahead, follow the above-mentioned SOP (model) and become the highly skilled/competent person in your chosen roles and become successful in life- professional, personal, family and social. Do not bother to look at those skills/competencies which are not appearing in your competency matrix (step 1) though they may look good or your friends may be good at them. Don't waste your energy and time in picking them up or improving them. If you work on them, you will reach only to a mediocre level from your existing poor level. However, if you concentrate on your competency matrix (step 1), you will go from strength to strength and in the same period of time, you will reach to excellence level. So, don't attempt to become mediocre in the skills/competencies not required by you for your success but become excellent in all the skills/competencies required by you for your success. You will have to work on this model quite frequently, say once or twice

every year of your life. There will be changes in profile of jobs, techology, social activities, business practices and many other things and that will impact on your competency matrix.