SO, HOW HAVE YOU BEEN SPENDING YOUR COVID-19 HOLIDAY?

BY AZUH ARINZE

These, no doubt, are interesting times. But besides eating, sleeping, reading, exercising and perhaps getting to know your spouse better, especially if you are married, what else have you been doing in this compulsory COVID-19 holiday?

How have you been maximising or even optimising your time? Well, for me, it's been a totally and radically new experience. Other than devouring five special books that's been with me for almost eternity, I've also daily kept myself busy and engaged with nearly all the splendid webinars being organised for free by the Lagos Business School (LBS).

In fact, I have become so addicted that I had to pay for some. And sincerely, it's been a beautiful, fruitful and wonderful experience.

Energised and again emboldened by this new knowledge acquisition, I have equally been savouring Pastor Sam Adeyemi's, especially the one of Thursday, April 23, 2020, which centred on reinventing yourself and your career post COVID-19.

But beyond all of those, my major takeaway is this - please, never, never forget to plan and always prepare ahead. Don't just wait for a time like this before you begin, and I will tell you why.

Until recently, I was totally useless when it comes to IT. But then something happened one day and I was left with no other option than to learn and very quickly too.

I had visited a powerful person in government. This gentleman, who is also one of my mentors, got a brief from his principal who wanted him to issue a statement immediately over an incident.

Having been privileged to some of the things they discussed, I asked if I could break the story and he gave me the go-ahead.

Now, while he was still writing his statement, I quickly completed mine, although very brief and of course not as detailed as his. And started working my phones, trying to reach one of my IT guys to help upload the exclusive story. You won't believe it - this happened on a Saturday, and between that Saturday and Monday, I couldn't reach any of them till Monday morning when they resumed for the new week, sometime around 9am.

As would be expected, I was mad, I was furious and almost hysterical. But that was all I could do, because let's face facts, those were supposed to be their off days.

Anyway, when I eventually calmed down, and upon their resumption that Monday morning, I told them to forget whatever they were supposed to do that day, and from morning till 6pm when we dispersed, all they did was ME.

Yes, me! They stayed with me all through, teaching me how to upload stories and so on. In fact, that was the first day I got the password to our website and other social media handles - which hitherto I paid scant attention to.

On getting home, also, at the close of work, I remained awake all night trying to perfect my skills.

Yeah, I am still learning, but one thing that hasn't left my mind since coronavirus suddenly arrested and detained all of us at home is: 'How would you have coped, Azuh if you hadn't taken that drastic action that day? '

I mean, all alone now with my family, sleeping, reading and eating, the only other thing I do has been writing and uploading stories on our website, www.theyesng.com.

And guess what? I've been posting more stories than those who taught me and also pay at the end of every month in this lockdown.

Lastly, dear friends, I want to advise that you learn that new skill, even if you don't exactly need it now. Trust me, it will come handy some day, somewhere and somehow. Just like it happened to me.

Thanks so much for reading and do have a sumptuous weekend.

Azuh Arinze is the publisher of YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine and bestselling author of The CEO's Bible. His two new books, Success Is Not Served A La Carte and Encounters - Lessons From My Journalism Career, will be out immediately after the lockdown.

... AND SUDDENLY, WE LOST GLORIA

BY VWEDE OVERAH
Just like yesterday, I vividly remember April 9, 2019.
On this day Catherine and Dafinone went out with other schoolmates on excursion to a fish farm and returned home with two ornamental fish. Fish were given to the over 20 pupils that made the trip. Their arrival was somewhat celebrated by the duo and other siblings. There was excitement allover. It was actually their first time seeing live fish in aquarium.
I returned from work late in the evening and witnessed, with amazement, the great delight the coming of these fish brought to my kids and their mother. They were happy. I was so glad they were happy, and I didn't hide my feelings. Their fine bulgy eyes and colourful glittering bodies swimming round the mini aquarium were a beauty to behold.
Catherine, the most infected by this new development, quickly told me that her fish’s was Gloria, while Dafinone, simply called his Silver. They were in separate jar-like aquariums, so distinguishing them wasn’t a problem. Unlike his sister, and perhaps all other pupils, Dafinone showed great nonchalance to his fish’s wellbeing. Days turned into weeks; and weeks turned into months. While Cathy expressed great love and dedication to Gloria’s upkeep, Silver and all other fish given out to schoolmates didn’t make it to three months.
Sadly, exactly nine months and one day after coming home, we lost Gloria.
I was at my Laptop, January 10th working on a presentation when I noticed Catherine swiftly walked into the sitting room. She whispered something to her brother and both quickly ran into her room. They came out in few seconds looking gloomy.
Sensing that something nasty must have taken place, I sprang up and asked what the matter was. Dafinone informed me his sister didn’t find Gloria in the aquarium shortly after changing her water. Remembering I once had a similar experience with the fish, I rushed into Cathy’s room. I put my hand in the jar, emptied it and behold we saw Gloria lifeless under the sand. She may have been ‘suffocated’ by the sand resulting from rough handling of water changing process.
So sad! She was exactly 9 months and 1 day old.
How would I forget Gloria?!
I learn quite some new things when she came in. It was always my job to buy her flakes. I remember surfing the internet, running around and making phone calls looking for fish flakes when her initial ration got exhausted. I saw ornament fish flakes for the first time and was made to pay expensively for it. I remember going back online to know alternative meals when flakes delivery was delayed by almost a week. I discovered oat as alternative. I remember how Catherine cringed with fear as I sprinkled the oat crumbs into the water.
How would I forget how i like watching Gloria swim up, down and in between tiny shrub and sometimes hitting sand surface? It was fun watching her, especially when mom and kids go on short trips or vacation leaving daddy home alone. On those days, I remember getting phone calls from Catherine and mom either reminding me to feed Gloria or change her water regularly. Wow! It was fun.
As I stared at the dead fish, I still sensed the kids were still behind me. Somehow, I found it difficult to turn around. I could imagine their countenance. When I eventually did, I saw the expected. Tears. Quiet tears. Cathy could not hold back. O My God! It was only a small fish na! I struggled to keep this thought within.
A firm promise to replace Gloria with two or three others in a bigger aquarium somehow did the trick as tears gradually dried up leaving only grief and sadness that also disappeared within 24 hours.

PARENTING: TALE OF THE GENTLE WHISTLE

BY VWEDE OVERAH

My two years old baby surprised me with her level of reasoning yesterday evening.

While other family members were busy with school homework and different chores, Vickie and I were in the sitting room. She sat on the rug watching cartoon while I, about three meters away from her, got myself busy browsing and responding to some social media messages.

I soon realize I needed to let out some air. I quickly took a quick glance around me. But for Vickie who was so glued to the TV, nobody was closed by. Besides the fluffy rug under my buttock would suppress any sound, I thought. With this assurance, I went ahead to do the thing. Still on my computer, I slightly bent my waist to the right and tried to release the air quietly. But something went wrong.

It was accompanied by a gentle whistle. I prayed she didn’t notice anything. I stole a look at her and discovered she was looking my direction with surprise written all over her face. The gentle whistle wasn’t gentle enough to keep Victoria glued to her cartoon. Ah! Crisis.

I had to manage this one well. I pretended nothing happened. My girl wouldn’t let it pass just like that.

Victoria: Daddy, did you fart?

Me: Did you hear anything?

Victoria: Yes! Bhuumm!!!

Me: Oh! Excuse me. I am sorry.

Victoria: Okay

She then returned to her cartoon.

I had mixed feelings. A bit embarrassed, naturally and somewhat happy because my girl could now express herself. I will not be the only one that will know about this. I quick went to the kitchen and narrated the incident to my wife. She laughed as she made me know that the baby has been on that level for a while now.

Victoria is my fourth child. She is doing well in pre-school.

Still excited by the experience, I narrated same to some colleagues. It provoked a lot of laughter and surprises about the contemporary toddlers and their ways. But one of them was astonished that I apologized to Vickie. I don’t regard the apology as too much or belittling, after all I was the offending party. Besides, we always teach our children to show remorse and tender apologies whenever they are in the wrong.

No matter the age, status, gender, race, religion, I believe every human being deserve respect.  As parents, we should teach our children respect and go a step farther by leading by example. This is one of the easiest and fastest ways they learn.

SEVEN NATURAL WAYS TO FIGHT DEPRESSION

BY Jesusegun Alagbe

At the height of his battling depression, Mr Olakunle Oladejo (not real name) said he could literally hear voices whispering to his ears to jump into the lagoon on the Third Mainland Bridge.

For months, Oladejo, a mechanical engineer at one of the engineering firms at Lekki, Lagos, said he battled to suppress the voices telling him that all was over and to commit suicide.

If he had not got support from family and friends, as well as church members, the 43-year-old father of two said he might have succumbed to the pressure weighing him down.

It all started sometime in 2016 when Oladejo was introduced into an oil and gas importation business by two friends. Obviously, the business initiative by his friends was captivating and the mechanical engineer could not resist investing in it. Together, they were to raise N150m for the new venture.

Oladejo said, “I practically emptied my bank account to get N10m. Then, I borrowed N40m from the bank, friends and family members to realise my own part of the capital, which was N50m.

“My friends were in Port Harcourt and they were quite familiar with the Niger Delta terrain; they were to raise the remaining N100m. When I got my N50m, I sent it to them.”

That day when he reached home in the Ogudu area of Lagos, Oladejo said he was already anticipating that within two weeks, they would have invested in the business and within six months, he would get a profit of at least 150 per cent from it.

“I was already showing my wife the new BMW car and a house I would buy from the profit. I was expecting her to be happy, but she struggled to be. She simply told me to let the profit be realised first,” he said.

As if his wife had a premonition that the business would flop, Oladejo said he waited endlessly in vain to get feedback from his friends two weeks after sending N50m.

To his amazement, the phone numbers of his friends no longer went through. Emails were not responded to. Also, contacts could not be made on social media. Oladejo was getting unsettled.

By the time he knew what was going on, the mechanical engineer realised he had been “scammed” by his friends. It was after involving the police in the matter that his friends said they invested the money in the business but it flopped.

“They explained they were swindled, too. I had to travel frequently to the state during the crisis, but all my efforts were to no avail,” Oladejo said.

Two years after the incident, the engineer said it got to a point he was driving to and fro work via the Third Mainland Bridge and would be contemplating suicide.

He said, “The voices telling me to jump into the lagoon became stronger towards the end of 2018. I would hear words like, ‘Dejo, you owe N40m, you can’t repay it. Jump into the lagoon and end it all. You can’t pay back when dead.’

“I used to cry every time this occurred. It was like I was losing myself. The thought of turning my wife to a widow and my children to fatherless kids probably helped. In addition, I later sought help from professional counsellors.

“Although I am still in debt, I am hopeful I will pay all. I have already pleaded with my lenders, including those who threatened to arrest me and seize some of my assets, to be patient with me. I am paying back gradually.”

From Oladejo’s conversation with our correspondent, it was evident he had been able to suppress the voices telling him to commit suicide.

“I just want to be strong for my family’s sake. It’s not the end of life,” he added.

Depression in Nigeria

According to an April 2018 study by the Mind, Behaviour and Development Unit of the World Bank, about 22 per cent of Nigerians, amounting to 40 million people, are chronically depressed.

The study looked at the first nationally representative estimates of chronic depression in the country to shed light on how it might be linked to economic outcomes.

The Washington, DC, United States-based institution said depression was associated with factors such as conflict and socioeconomic factors.

It added that depression, especially at the chronic stage, could have negative consequences.

Battling depression naturally

According to the Harvard Medical School, depression is not only hard to endure, it is also a risk factor for heart disease and dementia – which is why persons going through it should seek help to come out of it.

“Depressive symptoms can occur in adults for many reasons. If you are experiencing mood or cognitive changes that last more than a few weeks, it’s a good idea to bring this up with your doctor or consult a mental health specialist to help sort out possible causes,” an instructor in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, Dr Nancy Donovan, said.

Speaking to Saturday PUNCH, a clinical psychologist and lecturer at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Mr Oladotun Adeyemo, identified some natural ways of coping with depression.

1.      Try to have fun

Adeyemo said, “Depression is characterised by sadness and makes people lose interest in what gives them pleasure. Still, one of the things a depressed person can do is to schedule pleasurable activities for themselves.

“If they love going to the movies, watching live bands, visiting people, attending religious programmes and so on, they should try to still go for such pleasurable activities. This is a way out of depression when it is at a mild stage.”

Also, in an article posted on healthline.com, a psychiatrist and director of the Depression Research and Clinic Programme at the University of California, Los Angeles, US, Dr Ian Cook, said depressed people should make time for things they enjoy.

“When you’re depressed, you can lose the knack for enjoying life. You have to relearn how to do it. In time, fun things really will feel fun again,” he said.

2.      Move your body

Adeyemo said, “Physical activities like exercise can also help a depressed person feel good. This can be termed ‘feel-good’ therapy. It is important.”

Cook also said, “Exercise temporarily boosts feel-good chemicals called endorphins. Regular exercise seems to encourage the brain to rewire itself in positive ways. You don’t need to run marathons to get a benefit. Just walking a few times a week can help.”

3.      Meditate

American psychiatrist who researches into natural treatments for depression, Dr Lissa Rankin, advised depressed people to engage in meditation, saying it could help shift the mood from negativity to positivity.

“Meditation’s effects on mood are well-documented. Settling your mind can lift your mood, in addition to a whole host of other health benefits,” she wrote in Psychology Today.

Also, Adeyemo said, “There are mind relaxation techniques for depressed persons like just closing their eyes and having a deep breath. This can bring a whole lot of relief.”

4.      Set daily routine and goals

According to Cook, setting a daily routine and goals can help depressed people have their lives back.

He said, “Setting a daily schedule can help you get back on track.

“When you’re depressed, you may feel like you can’t accomplish anything. That makes you feel worse about yourself. To push back, set daily goals for yourself.”

5.      Don’t skip meals

Losing appetite and skipping meals are all the results of depression, but experts said skipping meals could reduce blood sugar level which could have serious health implications.

Cook and Rankin advised people with depression to eat healthy foods, especially serotonin-enhancing foods because they act as anti-depressants.

“Although it’s not definitive, there’s evidence that foods with omega-3 fatty acids (such as salmon, herring, mackerel and tuna) and folic acid (such as spinach and avocado) could help ease depression,” Cook said.

Meanwhile, Rankin cautioned depressed people against taking caffeine because “it reduces serotonin levels.”

6.      Challenge negative thoughts

Cook said, “In your fight against depression, a lot of the work is mental – changing how you think. When you’re depressed, you leap to the worst possible conclusions.

“The next time you’re feeling terrible about yourself, use logic as a natural depression treatment. It takes practice, but in time you can beat back those negative thoughts before they get out of control.”

7.      Seek counsel

Rankin advised depressed people to see a therapist, psychiatrist or life coach to express how they feel.

“Sometimes, just finding someone you trust who will help you work through your feelings can make all the difference in the world,” she said.

Buttressing the point, Adeyemo said when it got to a level when a depressed person was losing sleep and not interacting with people as they used to, they should seek professional help.

He also cautioned against stigmatisation of people in depression.

He said, “Imagine people asking someone in depression, ‘Are you the only one facing problems?’ Of course, the person can be the only one because their coping mechanism might be different from others.”

Also, Adeyemo said people in depression should seek help from professionals and not just from anyone.

He said, “There is a difference between what a professional will do and what a pastor or imam will do. A cleric will probably counsel and pray while a professional will employ scientific techniques.

“We as a people should also understand depression symptoms so as to assist depressed people. People are battling with depression and we can help by reaching out to them before they totally break down.”

Source: https://punchng.com/seven-natural-ways-to-fight-depression/

WHAT’S YOUR VITALITY PLAN?

By Kay Van Norman 

Building financial security and maintaining health are consistently listed as top aging concerns for adults over 55. Most of us know creating a financial portfolio (make a plan, balance assets, make regular deposits) is important to ensure lifelong financial security. But what about your vitality?  Do you have a plan? Have you considered what “assets” you need to support lifelong vitality?

Using the familiar structure of a financial portfolio, the Vitality Portfolio® strategy encourages you to create a practical roadmap for lifelong health:

Make a Vitality Plan

Balance Vitality Assets (function, core and wellness)

Make Regular Deposits

               vitality

Making a Plan

How long do you expect to live?  I ask this question during keynote speeches and people always seem to have a number in their head. In future blog posts (Aging – It’s a Family Affair) we’ll explore how people come up with it, but for now consider your number -- and more important, consider what you want to be able to do through your 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and 100’s! Making a vitality plan helps you set, track, and reach your goals.

Functional Assets

Strength, mobility and endurance are “mission critical” assets for maintaining independence; yet optimizing function through physical activity is the most underused healthy aging strategy available today! It’s easy to disregard functional changes that happen gradually, so here’s some food for thought.

Statistics don’t motivate action unless they’re personally relevant. For example: Strength declines approximately 1-1 ½% per year after about age 30. That doesn’t sound like a lot until you do the math.  If you’re not regularly challenging your strength – you’re losing it – on average about 60% by age 70 and 75% by age 80. Imagine going about your daily life carrying a backpack filled with your body weight (i.e. ½ the strength requires double the effort). Consider how difficult daily tasks would become and how many activities you would have to give up.  

Physical frailty IS common and predictable with age, but it’s NOT due to age or inevitable! Studies show even 90+ year olds can prevent and reverse loss of muscle mass and strength with resistance training.

Take charge! If you get fatigued while walking – walk more! If you’re having trouble rising from a chair, do it more; every time you sit down, stand up and sit down 3 more times. See how many knee lifts you can do during TV commercial breaks or commit to standing up and sitting down 5-10 times during each commercial break.  

To maintain the gift of mobility gently stretch and move your muscles and joints through every range of motion. Embrace cardiovascular exercise to help your heart, lungs, and blood vessels deliver oxygenated blood throughout the body. Endurance activities bathe your brain in oxygenated blood so are also closely linked to brain health! Get out and move briskly every day; walk, swim, dance, or even do seated exercises that elevate your heart rate – toe touches, heel presses, knee lifts, low kicks, marching in place all with arm swings. 

Age is not a diagnosis so confront functional challenges with physical therapy intervention.  Consciously invest in lifelong functional independence.

Core Assets: Ageless Thinking and Resilience

Attitudes and expectations directly impact aging. Engage Ageless Thinking by consciously rejecting negative expectations of aging. Activate Resilience by embracing adaptive strategies to overcome challenges - regardless of age.

Thirty years ago people with disabilities were often institutionalized with no expectations or opportunities; and outcomes were bleak. The disability movement changed attitudes and expectations and literally transformed lives. Now young people with profound disabilities are given resources, tools, and encouragement to overcome and live fully in spite of challenges, and they accomplish astonishing things!  

Unfortunately, attitudes haven’t changed much for adults who face physical or cognitive disabilities later in life. They most often receive resources, tools, and support to cope with disabilities.  There’s a profound difference in mindset between coping and overcoming – resulting in profoundly different outcomes. If you’re facing a challenge take age out of the equation, embrace adaptive strategies, and insist on pursuing the fullest recovery possible.    

Wellness Assets

Visualize the six dimensions of health: physical, social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and vocational as spokes on a wagon wheel. Consider how many deposits you regularly make into each dimension (spoke) and then draw your Wellness Wheel. Are some “spokes” large (carrying most of the load) while others barely exist? Are you missing an entire “spoke”?  It takes conscious effort to balance wellness assets across the body, mind, and spirit.   

Don’t leave your vitality to chance!  Make a plan, balance your assets, and make regular deposits into lifelong vitality.

Source: https://blog.silvernest.com/whats-vitality-plan

HOW TO DESIGN AN INTERVIEW PROCESS THAT PREDICTS PERFORMANCE

By Omer Molad

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Traditional interviews  don't actually predict performance. Rather, the best way to predict performance is to test job-related skills in context. Nevertheless, there is a place for interviews in the hiring process. Interviews are a useful tool to build rapport, and even start a relationship, with candidates after their skills have been validated. They can, and should, also be used to answer unanswered questions from the hiring process. 

Interviewing is often used as a synonym for candidate selection, but it shouldn’t. Interviews should only comprise a small part of the candidate selection process. In fact, if an “interview process”, a.k.a. a selection process, is designed properly then traditional interviews only need to play a minor role.

Rather than dealing with hypotheticals, I’m going to share a real blow-by-blow story about a recent hire we made. The process included a recruitment agency, marketing, online skills assessment using our own platform, interviews and reference checks. I’ll explain how each step worked and why we did things in a very deliberate order.

Role Definition

This is arguably the most important step. If you don’t define the role correctly the entire process will be flawed because nobody will have clarity about the kind of person you’re looking for.

A helpful starting place is thinking about the purpose of the role. Why does it exist? We wanted to hire someone who could help our largest customers get maximum value from their investment in Vervoe. That was our “why” for this role.

We wanted someone who had expertise in assessment and I/O psychology, was a natural with enterprise customers and would thrive in a startup. 

Recruitment Agency Appointment

We don’t usually use agencies and I’m not advocating for, or against, the use of agencies. It depends on the situation. In this case we were looking for a candidate with a very specific skill set and we were almost certain that we needed to attract passive candidates. The people who met our criteria weren’t necessarily looking and, more importantly, they were probably working with a big company and therefore not looking for roles with startups.  

So we wanted an agency to help with candidate sourcing, particularly market mapping ad outreach. In other words, we wanted the agency to find people and convince them it was an exciting opportunity.

First Contact

This fact we were tapping passive candidates on the shoulder influenced the rest of the process. We had to convince candidates to talk to us rather than the other way around. So throwing them into an assessment wasn’t going to work. We had to sell to them. 

So the agency approached them and had an informal conversation. After that the hiring manager met the candidates. Is this the most efficient use of time? No. But it was necessary given the calibre of people we were trying to attract. This wasn’t a high volume situation.  

The purpose of the conversation with the hiring manager wasn’t to determine whether candidates can do the job. It was to sell to the candidate, get a feel for their motivation and give them visibility over the remainder of the process. It was about buy-in. 

Skills Assessment

After speaking to the hiring manager candidates were invited to complete an online skills assessment, known as a Talent Trial. They had to opt into this stage.

We positioned the skills assessment stage as a two-way street. An opportunity for us to see how they perform job-related tasks, and an opportunity for them to get a realistic feel for the role and the product they’ll be working on.

It made sense. Every single candidate we invited to this stage successfully completed their skills assessment.

The Interview

Then came the interview. It was a discussion with me and I only interviewed one person, whom we ultimately hired.

I didn’t focus on skills because I already had evidence the preferred candidate could do the job. She performed very well in the skills assessment, which was carefully crafted to reflect the role.

We discussed how we’d work together, including her preferred working style, how we can invest in her, some of the quirks of our team and what she can expect if she joins. It was lighthearted and fun, at least for me.

Reference Checks

I’m a big believer in reference checking, but not for the reasons you might expect. References are almost always positive. It’s a rigged game. But, if done correctly, reference checks can be very effective in setting candidates up for success. They help understand what it would be like to work with the candidate, how we can support them and how we can get the best out of them. 

They’re an employee onboarding tool of sorts.

We asked the recruitment agency to conduct two reference checks and send us detailed notes.

Meeting the Team

We wanted one more conversation with the hiring manager and the team. At a startup it’s really important to bring existing team members into the process. In fact, I believe it’s important in any company. It increases the chance that existing team members will welcome the new hire, and gives the preferred candidate an opportunity to see who they’ll be working with. It reduces the risk for everybody. 

The Offer

A quick offer is a good offer. We didn’t make the offer after the final discussion with the hiring manager and team. We made it during that discussion. After meeting the team, and after everyone gave the thumbs up, the candidate spoke to the hiring manager privately and got the good news. She accepted.

Source: vervoe.com/blog/how-to-design-an-interview-process-that-predicts-performance/

HIRING: COMPETENCE IS CONTEXT-DEPENDENT

By Omer Molad

The same, but different

Is a graphic designer at a major accounting firm the same job as a graphic designer at an early-stage startup? There is an obvious overlap is functional skills, but that’s where the similarity ends. 

A designer at startup will have limited resources and even less time. They’ll be required to “ship fast” because the clock is ticking and everything is an experiment. Management will have a relatively high tolerance for mistakes, and decisions will be made on the spot. 

Conversely, a large accounting firm will be far less tolerant of risk, decisions are made by committee, perfection will be prioritized over speed and autonomy will likely be low. 

How similar do these roles sound now?

While the fundamental craft is essentially the same, the context is entirely different. Success is measured differently, and the respective operating environments have very little in common.

Context is everything

It follows that the best person to do the job at the accounting firm is probably not the best person to do the job at the startup. In come cases the same person might be able to excel at both roles, but they’ll need to apply themselves and behave quite differently. 

This means that competence is dependent on context, something James Clear emphasizes in his book  Atomic Habits. 

There is no such thing is a “good graphic designer”. Rather, there is a good graphic designer in your particular context. That context might be unique to your company, or it might be broadly applicable to companies in your industry or of a similar size, for example.   

This is a departure from the way many companies, and indeed many talent acquisition professionals, think about competency frameworks. It’s easy to associate competence with job titles in a generic sense. However, given people’s performance will depend on the context in which they operate, all notions of competence should take context into account.

How to Build Context into your Recruitment Process

When filling a role, it’s important to think of what it takes to be successful in that role at your company. It’s helpful to divide the requirements into two components. The first is the skills that are specific to the role itself and would likely be required in any context. In other words, what does the person in the role need to achieve? The second component is the skills that are unique to your context. In other words, how do you expect the person to approach their role? This can include cultural aspects, attitude, behavior and so on.

The next step is to come up with a way to test candidates for those skills. Following this logic, a generic “graphic designer test” doesn’t make much sense because it only addresses the first component. In order to  identify someone who will excel in a role in your context, the test must take into account both components. It must be context-dependent because competence is dependent on context. 

Thinking about candidate selection in this way will help you identify people who are more likely to be successful in your environment. This makes sense because it’s also unlikely that the people who want to work at a startup will also want to work at major accounting firms, and visa versa.

Source: vervoe.com/blog/competence-is-context-dependent/