Dr. Abiola Salami

Because the truth is, I don’t need four more reasons for people to call me “Dr.”

I need are four more reasons to be useful and perhaps that is a conversation we need to have about professional qualifications generally.

Africa Has No Shortage Of Letters
We have BSc., MBA, MSc., PhD, ACA, ACCA, FCIPM, FCIPD, ACIB, FCIB, FNIM and many more.

Our professionals are qualified.Our CVs are impressive.Our LinkedIn profiles are increasingly decorated with badges, certificates, fellowships and post-nominal letters.Some email signatures now require a small table of contents.We have the letters; lots of letters.

But the uncomfortable question is What are the letters producing?Are they producing better decisions, better leaders, better organisations, better customer experiences, better governance, better businesses, better institutions or better outcomes?

Because if a professional qualification increases what I know but does not improve what I contribute, we have to ask whether the qualification has completed its journey.

A Qualification Is Not The Destination
Professional qualifications matter.They should matter.They represent learning, standards, discipline and a commitment to professional excellence.But a qualification is not the same thing as competence; and competence is not the same thing as performance.

You can know the rules and still make poor decisions.You can understand strategy and still execute badly.You can be highly qualified and still struggle to lead people.You can understand emotional intelligence and still be terrible at difficult conversations.You can study ethics and still compromise when money or power enters the room.You can have ten certificates and still leave an organisation no better than you found it.That is why I increasingly think about professional development through the lens of conversion.

Knowledge should become capability, Capability should become behaviour, Behaviour should become execution, Execution should produce outcomes and Outcomes should create value.If the chain stops at the certificate, we have celebrated the input and forgotten thepurpose.

My Four Letters AreFour Responsibilities
Interestingly, my four recent professional recognitions touch different aspects of the work I do.FNIM speaks to management and institutional leadership.CIPD deepens my understanding of people, capability and the future of work.FCIPM represents professional depth in people management and organisational practice.ACIB connects me more deeply to banking and financial services.

On paper, they are four qualifications or professional recognitions but I don’t want to look at them as four additions to my name.I want to look at them as four additions to my responsibility.

More knowledge should mean better judgement.More expertise should mean better solutions.More professional recognition should mean greater accountability.More letters should mean more value.That is the standard I want to hold myself to.

The Qualification-to-Performance Gap
For nearly 2 decades, I have had the privilege of coaching leaders from entry-level to board-level and I continue to observe the distance between what a professional has been certified to know and the measurable value that professional consistently creates through the application of that knowledge.This is what I call the Qualification-to-Performance Gap.

This gap matters because becoming a professional is expensive.Individuals invest years of their lives.Families make sacrifices.Employers pay for courses and development.Professional bodies invest in standards and examinations.Organisations release employees to attend programmes. Society ultimately trusts professionals with significant responsibilities.The return on all that investment cannot simply be another certificate.The return should be better performance.

Imagine Two bankers
They both have professional qualifications, both understand banking regulations, both understand credit, both understand risk, both understand financial analysis and both can probably answer the examination questions.

Then a major customer walks in.The numbers are worrying.The relationship is commercially important.There is pressure from senior management.The customer wants an exception.

Banker A says“Let’s see how we can make this work.” But Banker B says“Let’s see how we can make this work without compromising the standard.”

That difference is not about who passed the examination.It is about judgement.And judgement is where professional knowledge becomes professional value.

Read the full article on www.tppafrica.com

About Dr. Abiola Salami
Dr. Abiola Salami is the Principal Performance Strategist at CHAMP – a full scale professional services firm trusted by high performing business leaders for providing Executive Coaching, Workforce Development & Advisory Services to improve performance.He is the Convener of Dr Abiola Salami International Leadership Bootcamp ; The Peak PerformerTM FestivalMade4More Accelerator Program and The New Year Kickoff Summit. You can reach his team on [email protected] and connect with him @abiolachamp on all social media platforms.