Business Core · Core Competencies · Module
Building
Closing a capability gap, and choosing between building, hiring, partnering or acquiring. Each has a different cost, speed and permanence.
The idea
How it works
Four routes close a gap and they differ on every dimension that matters. Building is slow, cheap and permanent; hiring is faster and less permanent; partnering is fastest and never becomes yours; acquiring is fast, expensive and complicated.
The question underneath is whether the capability needs to be owned. Anything genuinely core should be built or acquired, because partnering for a core competency means renting the thing that makes you distinctive.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Decide whether it must be owned
If it is core, partnering is not really an option. If it is not core, building it is usually a waste.
- 02
Compare on time as well as cost
A capability arriving two years late is often worth less than a more expensive one arriving now.
- 03
Check the absorption capacity
Hiring or acquiring capability the organisation cannot absorb produces expensive people who leave.
- 04
Stage where possible
Partner first to learn, then build. It is slower on paper and often faster in practice.
One level in
The components of building
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Partnering for a core competency means renting the thing that makes you distinctive. It is sometimes right and never comfortable.
The other modules in core competencies
Identification
Listing what the organisation genuinely does well, drawn from evidence rather than from self-image.
LearnTesting for advantage
Putting each candidate through a structured test — valuable, rare, hard to imitate, and organised to exploit. Most candidates fail on rarity.
LearnProtecting
Keeping a competency from eroding through departures, imitation or neglect. A competency held by three people is not organisational.
Learn