Once Upon a Time There Was a Mechanic

Credit: Paul Matthews is the founder of People Alchemy and expert in workplace learning, especially informal learning, as well as management development and employee performance improvement. He is the author of “Informal Learning at Work: How to Boost Performance in Tough Times” and “Capability at Work: How to Solve the Performance Puzzle”. For further information please visit www.peoplealchemy.co.uk.

Once upon a time there was a mechanic...

Once upon a time there was a mechanic. He was a very good mechanic. Indeed, he was so good that people said he was magic, and knew exactly what to do with any car that needed fixing.

So of course, that is where you take your car for any needed repairs, to the magic mechanic.

One sunny spring day you are setting off on a journey to take a seven-year-old boy, Sam, to an amusement park. This is a long promised reward, and he is very, very excited, bouncing in the seat next to you. He talks excitedly about the rides he is going to go on, and how brave he will be on the big rollercoaster.

In a moment of quiet when Sam stops talking and you are waiting at the traffic lights, you hear an unusual noise from under the bonnet. You rev the engine slightly, and the noise gets louder. That is not good, so you decide to drop by and see your magic mechanic on the way.

With reassurances to Sam that this will only take a minute, you drive into the garage and ask the mechanic to listen to the noise, half expecting the worst. Engine noises can be very expensive things to fix. True to his magic reputation, the mechanic knows immediately what is wrong and says that there is a small part on the engine that is cracked and needs replacement. This can be done in a few minutes, and he can actually do it straight away for you.

You breathe a sigh of relief, and you reassure Sam that you will be on your way in a few minutes and you will arrive at the amusement park in plenty of time.

The mechanic comes back empty-handed, and a very apologetic look on his face. He says that they do not have the spare part in stock, and so he is unable to fix your car right now. The part will need to be ordered in and will arrive tomorrow. In the meantime, he suggests that it really is not safe to continue driving the car because if that faulty part completely fails, it would result in serious engine damage.

He is clearly unhappy about this, and offers to come and fix your car for free on your driveway the following day as soon as he gets the spare part. He recommends that you drive your car straight home and not use it again until it is fixed.

You get back in your car to drive it home, somewhat relieved that you caught the fault in time. However as you drive away Sam does not share your relief, because you are going in the opposite direction to the amusement park.

I have a question for you as you drive home...

Was the mechanic capable of fixing your car? Yes or no?

What is your answer?

If I was to ask Sam, now sulking in the backseat, the same question, how would he respond? Yes or no?

If your reaction was to answer ‘Yes’, and yet Sam would answer ‘No’, what’s the difference?

When people answer ‘Yes, the mechanic was capable’, they are actually answering a different question. They are answering the question ‘Was the mechanic competent?’ or in other words, ‘Could he fix the car if he had the spare part?’

And many people do answer ‘Yes’. Most commonly these are people who work in training and development, and tend to treat competence and capability as though they mean the same thing. They are not the same thing. In our story above the mechanic was definitely competent, but in the moment when he was asked to do a repair, he was not capable of doing it.

Competence is made up of a mixture of skills, knowledge, attitude, intuition, physical ability and other things that are intrinsic within a person. But competence as a concept is isolated from the context within which it is being applied.

Capability, on the other hand, is dependent on the environment and context within which someone is working. Competence is a crucial part of capability but there are many factors that can stop someone who is competent from being capable in the moment at the point of work.

Good performance is based on people being capable at the point of work. If people are underperforming, too often their competence is called into question and they are sent on a training course when in reality they are underperforming because they are rendered incapable by something outside of themselves.

The secret to managing capability, and therefore performance, is to look beyond competence and realise there may be other barriers to capability at the point of work.