Business Core · Core Competencies · Module
Identification
Listing what the organisation genuinely does well, drawn from evidence rather than from self-image.
The idea
How it works
Self-assessment produces a list of things the organisation is proud of, which overlaps only partly with what it is actually distinctive at. Evidence produces a shorter and more useful list.
The best sources are behavioural: why customers chose you over an alternative, what they say when asked to compare, and what competitors have failed to copy despite trying.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Start from wins, not from opinions
Look at recent competitive wins and ask what actually decided them. The answer is often not what the company thinks.
- 02
Ask customers directly
“Why us rather than them” produces better data than any internal workshop.
- 03
Check what has been copied
Anything competitors matched within a year was not a competency. That is useful information, not a criticism.
- 04
Write candidates, not conclusions
This module produces a list to be tested, not a list to be published.
One level in
The components of identification
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The evidence file
What supports each candidate — win reasons, customer statements, competitor failures to copy.
Learn
The gap between what an organisation believes it is good at and what customers say decided the sale is usually the most useful output here.
The other modules in core competencies
Testing for advantage
Putting each candidate through a structured test — valuable, rare, hard to imitate, and organised to exploit. Most candidates fail on rarity.
LearnBuilding
Closing a capability gap, and choosing between building, hiring, partnering or acquiring. Each has a different cost, speed and permanence.
LearnProtecting
Keeping a competency from eroding through departures, imitation or neglect. A competency held by three people is not organisational.
Learn