13 core competencies identified as predictors of success — mapped across four career stages.
What stage are my professional disciplines?
Best-in-class performance is a mandate, and it changes in scope as you scale. Open any competency for definitions, stage-by-stage behaviors, hiring signals, and coaching moves.
Rating as
Competency scorecard
Where you stand, stage by stage.
SelfPeer / managerBar length = Stage I–IV
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About the model
What best-in-class looks like — and how it changes as you grow.
What is a competency?
A competency is the knowledge, skill, ability, or personal characteristic that enables excellent performance. Competence is demonstrated through behavior — what a person actually does, observably, at work.
Why these competencies?
This model is built from the competencies shared by the most successful people in high-performing organizations. They distinguish themselves by focusing on a handful of things and doing them very well. Each competency here was identified as a predictor of success and excellence in performance — not a list of nice-to-haves.
The core competencies are only part of what a role requires. Your business unit, your function, your job, and the people you lead each add competencies of their own, and everything rests on two tickets to entry: integrity and trust, and domain expertise. The Competency Pyramid under The Model shows how these layers fit together.
How the model is used
The competencies run through every people process in an organization, and through every Efficient-Work engagement:
What is expected of you changes as your career progresses. Early on, you learn the ropes, show what you can do, and absorb the culture. With experience you are expected to make significant contributions on your own. As your scope grows, you make your impact by working through others rather than contributing individually — and eventually by setting direction for the organization. Those shifts are the four stages of contribution, and every competency in this model is described stage by stage so you can see exactly what it looks like at your level and at the next one.
About 5%
Of all successful people, only about one in twenty progresses to Stage IV — and not everyone is expected to reach Stage IV, or even Stage III. Organizations need strong people in all four stages to succeed. The question is never "which stage am I supposed to be in?" but "am I best-in-class at the stage I'm in?"
Derived from the Career Architect® program developed by Robert W. Eichinger and Michael M. Lombardo for Lominger Limited, Inc. Prepared for Efficient-Work clients — confidential; please do not redistribute.
