More on the Principle of Competence and the Process of Commitment

It requires a great deal of competency for a Scanlon organization to be successful. Initially management competency was stressed, but in the last 20 years Scanlon leaders have recognized that everyone in the organization must strive for competency. Today, Scanlon organizations invest a tremendous amount in their people. We were among the first organizations to practice the ideas of "Learning Organizations."

We believe people are an asset to be developed and not a cost to be reduced. Motorola (a Scanlon influenced organization) is benchmarked worldwide for their training and development program which spent over 50 million per year (1990) to provide 28 different curriculums from basic math and reading skills to advanced engineering training. Sears (a more recent Scanlon organization) established Sears University. Each Scanlon organization develops programs to increase the competency of everyone in the organization.

Competency Results: Three separate audits by outside firms found Motorola received a $30 return for each dollar they invested in training and development.

Competency requires both an organizational and individual commitment to succeed. A poet once wrote:

Three men went down a road as down a road went he, the man he was, the man they saw, the man he wanted to be.

For each of us to become the man or women we "want to be" we must make a personal commitment to change and improve. Scanlon practitioners strive for competency in three areas;
1) personal
2) professional (job)
3) organizational

In addition, Scanlon practitioners believe: No person, profession or organization is perfect. No person, profession or organization stays the same for long. They are either getting better or getting worse. Every person, profession, and organization is "in a state of becoming."