Prof. Sndor Klein, Dr. Sc.

Managing director; SHL Hungary Ltd.

The future of the competencies 1
Summary
The competency-movement, started about 25 years ago emphasises that effective
and/or superior performance depends not only on abilities, but also on motives, traits,
self-concept, etc. The movement is divided into two parties: one which concentrates on
the specific knowledge, skills etc. required to perform a specific job, and the other which
tries to identify the generic high-level competencies.
Although these were not new thoughts, they opened up new possibilities. They:
emphasised the importance of finding casual relationships between human
characteristics and performance,
showed the importance of valid measurements,
provided a language which is understandable to both the social scientists and the line
manager
put the question of who is the best fit person? into a wider context of how to
improve the quality of life?, how can we find or create meaningful work?, what
kind of behaviour helps mankind survive?
SHL is in the forefront of research and practice in the field of competencies: it is quite
natural, since SHLs methodology (the aptitude tests, personality questionnaires etc.)
were always directed towards assessing work-related and at the same time basic
characteristics. Further theoretical and practical work is needed to find the basic
elements of human characteristics, and the functions, which determine competent
behaviour in the different roles.
Introduction
Since the time when human beings divided the different jobs necessary to their survival
it was probably apparent that some people are performing better in some tasks while
others in other.
For the theoretically inclined this simple fact poses a lot of difficult, basic questions:
Are we born (genetically determined) with this basic differences or is it a result of
external factors (as early family environment, education, society or others like
nutrition etc.)?
Can we find some basic elements in the human nature along which we differ and from
which we can build up a model of the behaviour of human beings (like thinking,
emotion and motivation)? Etc.
For those who are more practically oriented another set of questions came out of this
observation:
Where is the optimal place for the individual in the world of work?
(What kind of profession should I choose?) and
Who is the best person for this task?
(How can I identify and attract the person who ensures the best results?)
1

Paper prepared for the IIIrd International Seminar, Lisbon organised by SHL Portugal 19 th
Nov. 1997: Competencies for the future

We should emphasise though, that the difference between theoretical and practical
is fairly arbitrary and changing in time and space. Many times one cant find a good
practical solution without having a proper theory and many theories try to explain
practical problems.
In this paper Ill try to find a good balance between my theoretical interest and the
practical usefulness.
The definition of the term competencies
Competencies proved to be one of the most useful concepts in the Human Resource
Management Practice (Fig.1). But although it is wildly used in the field of testing,
selection and training, debate continues over what competencies really are and how
they can or should be measured.
According to A Simplified Model (Russ-Eft 1995) Competencies may be thought of as
the core elements in a periodic table of human behaviour. The atoms in such a model
are behavioural indicators. These behavioural indicators can be grouped into
competencies, or elements. Finally, several competencies can be combined to form
other competencies, or molecules. As Spencer and Spencer (1993, p.9) say A
competency is an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to
criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation. 2
In a recent brochure (SHL 1997) SHL defines competencies as sets of related
behaviours, arising from underlying aspects of the individual, which are
determinants of job success.
The latter two definitions are strikingly similar. Even in the small details:
underlying characteristics (or sets of related behaviours, arising from underlying
aspects of the individual) is referring to a fairly deep and enduring part of a persons
personality (motives, traits, self-concept, knowledge, skill),
causally related (or determinants) is referring to the theory that a competency
causes or determines behaviour, and
criterion-referenced (or job success) is referring to the theory that competency
actually predicts who does well or poorly at something.
2

The Spencer and Spencer book was spent to me by John Raven after I asked him to
send me some literature which would clarify this popular but not easy-to-grasp notion for
me. When I wrote back to him that after reading this basic book I still dont understand
what competency is he invited several outstanding researchers of the field to meet in
York (England) for a one day conference. I must admit that even after this conference
there were quiet a few questions left open at least for me. At the end of the conference
the participants decided to put together a book on the main issues of competencies. I
am very grateful to John Raven that in order to help me in writing this paper he shared
with me some of the manuscripts from this future book.

From these definitions it is transparent that any good that has been done in developing
reliable and valid methodology in selection, is also a step toward developing
competency models.
However there is a basic difference between the traditional and the competency based
approach hidden in the above definitions. If we take seriously that we are not merely
interested to find good predictors of job success but we are looking for determinants
and causes you can see that the competency based model is more interested in
finding answers to the question Why?.
Unfortunately when talking about Competency-models much of the competencymovement is only paying a lip-service to theory: most of the times the so called
competency model is simply a set of personality factors presented by cluster
(Spencer and Spencer 1993, p.153).
We will be justified to talk about competency models only if we will be able to identify
not only the basic elements of the successful behaviour but also their relationship to
each other or putting it another way: the ways successful people achieve their success.
It seems that there are two different use of the term competency:
One is referring to specific knowledge and skills required to specific jobs.
Competency defined this way is the interaction between a specific task (or role) and
a person. The difficulty with this definition partly comes from the fact that they both
keep changing. The competent worker is like Graetzky, the great hockey-player, who according to his own words- became famous, because he never tries to get where the
pack is, but where it will be.
The other definition of competency says that competency is the ability to carry out
valued activities effectively. Researchers who adopt this definition usually talk
about generic high-level competencies. The problem with this is that they are hard
to identify difficult to nurture, and still harder to assess using conventional
psychometric methods (Raven 1996).
The beginnings
Although the title of this presentation promises some thoughts on the future of the
competency movement, it is probably justifiable to begin with some short notes about
the past and present: how it started and what it is all about.
It is usually David McClelland, who is credited or blamed for launching the competency
movement in psychology, about 25 years ago, with his paper on Testing for
Competence Rather Than Intelligence. As he recently said: In this paper, I reviewed

studies indicating that traditional academic aptitude and knowledge content tests, as
well as school grades and credentials:

1.

Did not predict job performance or success in life,

2.

Were often biased against minorities, women, and persons from lower socioeconomic strata.

There is nothing really new in this. Perhaps the first personnel psychologist - at least by
inclination if not by action - was Plato. Plato identified an important role for testing in
the ideal state in his dialogue with Socrates, saying: no two persons are born exactly
alike, but each differs from each in natural endowments, one being suited for one
occupation and another for another.
Now I dont think that when speaking about these natural endowments Plato was
merely referring to aptitude or knowledge.
To make a big jump in the history Hugo Mnsterberg (1914) before World War I wrote,
that The one psychological problem which seems most significant ...., is the mutual
adjustment of mental personality and practical work. The individual needs the place
for which his mental dispositions make him fit, and the work demands the individual
whose abilities secure his success. (P. 415; italics added)
Although he finished this sentence with mentioning only the abilities, the expression of
mental personality and mental disposition indicates a broader view: the
acknowledgement of the relative contributions of ability and motivation to job success.
It was the success of the intelligence testing during the First World War (the Army Alpha
test could be administered to groups as large as 500 in less than 50 minutes), and of the
specific aptitude tests (e.g. for mechanical aptitude or eye-hand co-ordination)
before and after World War II, which gave the impression, that by using these specific
tasks, psychology can measure something important about future employees.
As Landy and Trumbo (1980, p.55) write: Industry was ready to accept testing as the
answer. Unfortunately, no one had taken the time to ask the question.
So McClelland was actually reminding us, that to predict job success takes much more
than testing aptitude and knowledge content. Attitudes, styles, motivations etc. could
play at least or even more important role.
It reminds me to the history of the creativity movement, for which Guilford is
credited or blamed because of his 1959 paper on Testing for Creativity rather than
Intelligence. 3
Now it is easy to point out that long before Guilford the Gestalt psychologists between
the two world wars or even back in the ancient times people did realise that to create
something new it is not enough to be clever, but it does not change the fact that
3

The real title of the article is: Three faces of intellect

Guilford said something important at the right time in the right place with a convincing
way, and thus started a movement which gave enough work for thousands of
psychologist around the world for 30 years 4.
From aptitude testing to the assessment of character
Our challenge was - says McClelland about their first competency study on selecting
junior Foreign Service Information Officers for the US State Department - to answer the
question: If traditional aptitude measures dont predict job performance, what does?
By now every first grade psychology student could suggest some improvement to the
traditional process of testing knowledge: by adding for example work related
questionnaires on the interest, motivation and personality structure of the applicants,
putting him/her in a simulated situation in an Assessment Centre, conducting
appropriate structured interview. Of course all of the above procedures would be based
on thorough analysis of the job in question.
McClellands greatest contribution to this change was to emphasise that success in life
depends much less on narrowly defined skills, and much more on the kind of person we
are than people may commonly think.
If this is the case the question is than how could we assess and facilitate the process,
what Carl Rogers called On becoming a person?
Rogers himself gives some good advice in his book called Freedom To Learn for the
80s (1983, pp.142):
Those men who surrounded Kennedy and Johnson were all gifted, talented people. As
Halberstam says (in his book on The Best and Brightest): If those years had any central
theme, if there was anything that bound these people, it was the belief that sheer
intelligence and rationality could answer and solve anything. This complete reliance
on the cognitive and intellectual caused this brilliant group to lead us little by little into
the incredible quagmire of the Vietnam war. The computers omitted from their
calculations the feelings, the emotional commitment of little people in black pyjamas
who had little equipment and no air force, but who were fighting for something they
believed in. This omission proved fatal. The human factor was not put into the
computers because the best and the brightest had no place in their computations for
the feeling life, the emotional life of individuals.
Covey (1990), the well-known American author on management training goes one step
further pointing out that it is not the personality but the character what counts,
emphasising the importance of the integrity of the person.
4

I cant resist mentioning my own paper (Klein 1983a) on Testing for Learning Potential
rather than Intelligence (the real title is: Intelligence and Learning Potential - Theory
and practice). I was one of those researcher who tried to replace intelligence with a
more dynamic notion of learning potential, but although I still maintain that it is easier
to define and measure the letter I admit that most of the problems connected with
intelligence reappear again with learning potential (e.g. can we find general learning
tasks to measure general learning potential?).

So McClellands suggestion to go out of the narrowly defined predictors of job success is

a major step in the good direction, but not something which is characteristic only to the
competency movement. But than what is?
From the personality questionnaires to the Behaviour Event Interview
(Methods of Identifying Competencies)
According to McClelland (1997) those psychologists who were interested in identifying
the personality traits associated with executive leadership have usually first selected a
self-report questionnaire which has been carefully worked out in the psychometric
tradition so that it was known to be reliable and to yield pure factor scales and hoped
that such psychometrically sound tools can predict e.g. the managerial success in a
certain organisation.
The competency approach starts the other way around - writes McClelland. It begins
with the problem and works back to discovering what human characteristics contribute
to solving it.
Again, I think this is nothing else, but a sound critic of the praxis in the industrial
psychology: although every basic textbook emphasise that nobody should carry out any
selection process without a proper job analysis, in practice people quite often shoot
blindly into the woods and than are surprised that they missed the target.
A traditional selection model suggest
a) a careful study of the job in order to create hypothesis about what is necessary to be
successful in the job (realising that there are several roads leading to Rome),
b) identifying how can we assess these characteristics or behavioural tendencies in
different people and
c) verify, that using this assessment tools we can predict success.
This could be just as well a description of how to arrive to a competency model 5. The
difference than must lie in the how (the methods of identifying the elements of the
selection model or the competencies):
how to analyse the job (job focus),
how to assess the person (competency focus) and
how to verify the success of prediction.
At this point I will only make a few notes on the first two elements.
Assessment of the job - Job Analysis

Not exactly. When Spencer and Spencer, p.241 describes the steps in developing a
competency-based selection system, he refers to the Validation of the Selection
System as optional but desirable.

McClelland recently writes about one of his first competency project the following:
When it came to assessing managerial competencies, it proved impractical to make onthe-job observations and in any case we were interested in what executives were
thinking as well as in what we could see them doing. So we employed an intensive
interviewing technique - the Behavioural Event Interview or BEI - which was designed to
discover just what executives were thinking and doing as they went about their work.
It seems e. g. from the work of Spencer and Spencer that there is good evidence, that
BEI is a useful tool to analyse what is essential in different jobs. But it doesnt seem to be
the only possible solutions: direct observation (mentioned also by McClelland),
participation, questionnaires, document analysis etc. could also give useful information.
What SHL is suggesting here, is a good combination of detailed analyses and deep
insights into the essence of successful work: a unique combination of using expert
knowledge and the fresh look of outsiders to uncover not only what is the job, but also
what it could be.

Assessment of the person - Competencies

The new things in this field - beside again BEI - are the Competency Inventories.
Competency Inventories mainly differ from Personality Questionnaires in that they
consist of statements strongly related to behaviour at the workplace.
According to several authors (e.g. McClelland 1994, 1997, Barrett and Depinet 1991)
competency testing has not been a success - so far.
As Donald A. Schn (1992) in a classic paper writes: Practitioners may become
selectively inattentive to data incongruent with their theories, as some educators
preserve their confidence in competency-testing by ignoring the kinds of competence
that competency-testing fails to detect.
On the other hand our experience with the SHL competency tests are very positive:
they are not only easy to administer, very informative but also easy to communicate
their results to line manager. It is true though, that because SHLs personality
questionnaire (the OPQ) is also intended to measure behavioural disposition at the
workplace, the results of the two questionnaires are quite interrelated.
Other valuable sources of information are the Assessment Centres, that provide
simulation exercises - usually in a situation with other people - requiring the participants
to generate the kind of behaviour they would display at the workplace. Based on this
behaviour the assessors can make judgements on the competencies the person
possesses out of those they believe to be necessary for successful work performance.
Again with SHLs wide variety of Assessment Centre exercises one can fairly well
simulate a whole integrated day of a manager, for example. Assessment Centre seem to
be the best methodology today to assess competencies, although not without problems.

Discussion of competence-based assessment often imply e.g. that assessor judgement

is only a minor issue because the assessment criteria could be so minutely and clearly
specified that one is well down towards the more mechanistic end of the spectrum.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Human behaviour varies hugely: thus any
assessment process is complex, incremental and - above all - judgmental. The way one
persons playing of a piano is by definition not exactly the same as someone else would
do and cannot be judged mechanistically by either a written list of criteria, or to an
exemplar (Wolf 1996).
Another warning that we should take seriously comes from McClelland (1997) again: I
cannot overemphasise the importance of recognising that there are alternative
combinations of characteristics that lead to success in a particular job. Too many
consultants and companies operate on the assumption that what we need to discover is
the one best set of competencies that leads to success. We are acting like cookiecutters. We are trying if we can pick or shape individuals to fit . Yet everyone who has
been in a business for any length of time has observed instances in which the same job
has been performed very well by two people who appear to have quite different
characteristics. The fact is that often various combinations of competencies lead to
success.
Diversity in unity
Although most of the time I was talking about the competencies of a man, we are
usually looking for a competent man (Boyatzis 1982). This is the very old and general
problem of science and reality: in principle science must methodologically disregard
the full complexity of reality. Science must treat man the same way. But it has to do it
with a full consciousness that a specific methodological approach has been chosen,
otherwise it can completely lead us astray (Frankl 1973, p. 134)
This simplified approach to reality could be called Model. The competency model used
by the Hay group is the Iceberg Model (Fig 2). It tries to illustrate, that knowledge and
skill competencies tend to be visible, and relatively surface characteristics of people
while self-concept, trait and motive competencies are more hidden, deeper and central
to personality (Spencer and Spencer 1993, p. 11.). Actually this is a modification of the
well-known onion-model: which pictures man as an onion with many layers, retaining
the question, whether there is a core - e.g. the real personality - under all these
layers.
Research conducted by SHL on the competency models of over 100 organisations led
to the development of the unique SHL Competency Map (Fig 3), giving an overview of
the different competencies required in roles throughout an organisation. The SHL
Competency Map provides a flexible conceptual framework for competency model

development, ensuring that the competencies for any specific role can be viewed in the
context of your entire organisation (Fig 4 and 5). Used as part of the competency
development process, the Competency Map forms a powerful tool for exploring both the
current organisational situation and the ways in which the pattern of competencies
across the organisation will change in response to future business priorities and changes
in the competitive environments. (SHL 1997).
But of course these are not the only ways we can conceptualise the relationship between
the parts (competencies) and the whole (competent).
John Raven is using the chemistry analogy for organising and combining
competencies. As he says, if we add copper and sulphur together the outcome
coppersulphid has non of the properties of the original elements.
Viktor E. Frankl is suggesting the use of dimensional ontology, not to disrupt the
wholeness and unity of man and still be able to study scientifically:
Wherever we open the book of reality, we find it full of contradictions; reality is
portrayed differently on each page. Let me illustrate this by an optical image. Here are a
rectangle and a triangle set side by side (Fig 6). Even when we turn the page so that the
two figures are superimposed, they remain incongruous (Fig 7). Only when we include
the next higher dimension and set the page with the triangle upright so that it is
perpendicular to the page with the rectangle do the contradictions resolve themselves
(Fig 8). For we see that these two figures represents two different planes of the projection
of a pyramid (Fig 9).
The role of psychology: helping to improve the quality of life
Twenty-three hundred years ago Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men
and women seek happiness. - So begins Mihly Cskszentmihlyi his book about FLOW
- the psychology of optional experience. Contrary to what we usually believe - he says the best moments usually occur when a persons body or mind is stretched to its limits in
a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience
is thus something that we make happen.
On the individual level psychology has the very satisfying task to help people function
more often on this optimal level. On the organisational level, it is easier to make an
organisation function on optimal level if its members function on optimal level. On a
global level: we have a better chance to survive if organisations function on optimal
level (Raven 1995).
How can work affect the quality of life? With our competency language we could say:
if we are really using our competencies.
Cskszentmihlyi cites a writing of the Taoist scholar Chuang Tzu, who 2300 years ago
described, how Ting a butcher of Lord Hui of Wei prepared the meat:

Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of
his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! - He slithered
the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing
the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shon music.
I think we can agree that this is an excellent example of a competent worker. But is it
only because he is so skilled? Not only. When Lord Wen-hui complimented Ting on his
great skill, he saying that it was a matter of skill, he answered: What I care about is the
Way, which goes beyond skill.
Then he described how he had achieved his superb performance: a sort of mystical,
intuitive understanding of the anatomy of the ox, which allowed him to slice it to pieces
with what appeared to be automatic ease: Perception and understanding have come to
a stop and spirit moves where it wants.
Which illustrates to me, that a competent worker is the one, who is present at the
workplace in his totality, in his spirit.
But it is not the whole story. A competent worker is always ready to face new challenges,
to acquire new skills. Chuang Tzu explain us how he achieved this transcendental
experience and spiritual playfulness: However, whenever I come to a complicated
place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on
what Im doing, work very slowly, and move my knife with the greatest of subtlety, until flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand
there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to
move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away..
Competency - a unique combination of skill, motivation, self, a unity of task and
personality.
Competency and Productivity
Erich Fromm (1979) in his book on To have or to be clearly differentiates between
alienated and non-alieneted activities. In alienated activity I do not experience
myself as the acting subject of my activity; rather, I experience the outcome of my
activity - and that as something over there, separated from me and standing above and
against me. In alienated activity I do not really act; I am acted upon by external or
internal forces.
In non-alienated activity, I experience myself as the subject of my activity. Non-alienated
activity is a process of giving birth to something, of producing something and remaining
related to what I produce.
This latter is what Fromm also calls productive activity (p.95):
Productivness is a character orientation all human beings are capable of, to the extent
that they are not emotionally crippled. Productive persons animate whatever they touch.
They give birth to their own faculties and bring life to other persons and to things.

10

Competency in this sense is the ability to find meaningful work, or meaning in the
work. The problem of subjectively meaningless, alienated, purely routinised work could
hardly arise for free Athenian - says Fromm. Their freedom implied precisely that
because they were not slaves, their activity was productive and meaningful to them.
Aristotle, Thomas Aquinos, Master Eckhart all agree - says later - that activity is
wholesome only when it is rooted in and express the ultimate ethical and spiritual
demands (p. 96.)
E. Mayos classics experiment has shown that even work which in itself is boring
becomes interesting if the workers know that they are participating in an experiment
conducted by an alive and gifted person who has the capacity to arouse their curiosity
and their participation. The same has been shown in a number of factories in Europe and
in the United States. The managers stereotype of the workers is: workers are not really
interested in active participation; all they want are higher wages, hence profit sharing
might be an incentive for higher work productivity, but not the workers participation.
While the managers are right as far as the work methods they offer are concerned,
experience has shown - and has convinced not few managers - that if the workers can be
truly active, responsible, and knowledgeable in their work role, the formerly uninterested
ones change considerably and show a remarkable degree of inventiveness, activity,
imagination and satisfaction. (Fromm 1979)
The future of competency movement
Spady (1977) already long time ago called the competency movement a bandwagon in
search of a definition. At the 1996 International Competencies Conference (which was
co-sponsored by SHL Europe) 450 delegates from Europe and the USA met to discuss
their development and use of competency models. At the end of the Conference
Professor Paul Evans of the London Business School summed up the current situation as
follows:
Over the last 15 years our understanding of competencies has become increasingly
complex. A lot of time and money has been spent on building more and more
sophisticated competency models. Competencies are in danger of becoming a
meaningless buzz-word, the new TQM. Unless companies can see a clear picture of the
business benefits to be gained from this approach, it will become discredited. (SHL
1997)
Others, like Raven (1994) and Barrett and Depinet (1991) are strongly advocating, that
the movement should concentrate on identifying, nurturing and assessing the so called
generic high-level competencies, as initiative, problem-solving ability and the
ability to build up ones own understanding of how the organisation and society in which
one works and lives operates and therefore intervene effectively in it.

11

Probably we could agree, that if the competency movement will continue to concentrate
exclusively on the specific knowledge and skills required to be a competent travel clerk,
train driver, teacher or psychologist it will miss its target - since they are easily acquired,
rapidly outdated and contribute little to the difference between competent and
incompetent performance in an occupational role (Raven, 1996).
Alison Wolf in a recent paper writes in a similar mood about the Competence-based
assessment and education in the UK: The idea of competence has become almost
inextricably linked, in the UK, with a particular assessment philosophy, promoted by the
National Council for Vocational Qualifications. This organisation has regarded
assessment as an extremely powerful weapon, capable on its own guaranteeing quality,
promoting a truly competence-based approach to training and learning, and increasing
the skill level of the population. While they are certainly right about the powerful effect
of assessment on practice, their own approach has, unfortunately, had results quite at
odds with the ideals of those first promoting a competence-based approach. Lead
industry bodies made up detailed descriptions of needed competencies which in time
became part of the national school system. In tern, schools were forced to teach these
well defined and easy to measure competencies instead of those more difficult to
measure but much more useful high level ones such as initiative or problem-solving
ability.6
Finally
I hope I could make it clear that it is not enough to attach the words competencyoriented to the tools and procedures, which are already at hand to identify, nurture, and
test qualities previously described as knowledge, skills, aptitudes or personality. There
are two faces of the notion competency: from the point of view of the employee
competencies are the things one has to do in order to lead a successful life, while from
the point of view of the employer competencies are those things that differentiate
between more and less effective workers. Both opinion can be important but the most
important thing is to be aware of which point of view one takes. We hope, the
competency movement in the future will develop in both of these directions: building a
model about human competencies and defining the basic competencies required to
perform different types of occupational role effectively.
We are living in a rapidly changing world, so we have to face the future - which is scary
for most of us. It is in our human nature to want to deny inevitabilities and say that
6

I agree with the Hungarian born mathematics educator Zoltn Dienes, that knowing
something does not consist of giving certain so-called correct answers to certain
questions, but in being able to think in terms of models which have strong links with our
experience of reality (Klein 1980, p.13). This was leading Dienes to construct learning
environments where these high level competencies could be fostered and myself
trying to construct assessment tools to measure childrens attitude towards productivity,
ambiguous problems, etc. (Klein 1993b, c).

12

wont happen in our lifetimes. But it could happen this year or next, and when it does, it
will be a cataclysmic change for the industry and the way we do business (Champy,
1996).
More than ever the key to global competitiveness will be the widespread capability of
institutions around the world to continuously transform. (Tichy - Devanna, 1986)
The competent manager is more and more the transformational leader who is able to
keep his/her integrity while ready to reengineer the organisation.
Let me conclude this paper with a favourite American saying used equally by the
Alcoholics Anonymous in their prayers and the OD experts to underline the importance
of proactively, with the illustration taken from Kurt Vonnegut:

13

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pp.285-287
McClelland, D.C. (1973) Testing for competence rather than intelligence. American
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