This is an excerpt from Competency Assessment Field Guide: A Real World Guide for Implementation and Application. To purchase a copy of the book click here.

When mistakes and errors occur in our organizations, it is our obligation to analyze these problems and assess the reason or reasons they occurred. These problems have many different names: sentinel events, incidents, near misses. When these errors occur, we often form a task force or committee to examine the situation, discuss it, diagram the reasons it occurred, and so on. The action of reflecting on the events is valuable and important. Where we often get stuck in our efforts to make things better is that our typical leadership response to an isolated error is to institute a house-wide mandatory competency for everyone.

This approach of "spraying" education and/or a competency requirement on everyone throughout the organization in hopes of improving things is what I call the "spray and pray" approach. We spray the education on everyone and pray that it improves outcomes.

Most people say, "Well, education can't hurt." But I beg to differ. It can actually do a great deal of harm. If we use educational strategies to address anything other than an education deficit, we send the inappropriate and even damaging message to our employees that they are not knowledgeable enough or smart enough to carry out the work. That message, when sent too often or at inappropriate times, can create an attitude of "Who cares?" or "Why try?" If an area of the organiza­tion works hard to improve, but another area makes a mistake, applying education across the board can actually hurt our overall outcomes.

It also happens often that our broadly applied efforts to improve the skills in which a few people are falling short can make the people who are excelling feel unseen and unappreciated. With a spray and pray approach, the excellers have to do the mandatory activity in spite of their excellent outcomes. They start to ques­tion why they're asked to track their outcomes at all. They wonder why they try to improve and be proactive when their efforts are never really acknowledged. I have seen organizations that use too many educational responses or mandatory compe­tencies to solve problems turn good teams into mediocre teams, which inevitably turns good organizations into mediocre organizations. The teams and groups do not see why they should try to be proactive if it is never recognized.

Of course education is valuable, but much like a hammer, it is more valuable for some things than others. Use education only when there is a clear indication that a lack of knowledge or skill was the reason for the error. When analyzing an event, make sure the analysis includes all areas of possible deficit:

• System problems
• Availability of tools
• Departmental barriers
• Communication barriers
• Attitudinal issues
• Individual performance patterns
• Any other barriers that hinder people from taking the right actions

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