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What do I use the understanding of competences for?
What competences are relevant?
How do I identify skills that need to be developed?
Where can I learn transition competences?
Which roles are essential in a team?
What personal characteristics do professionals have?

What do I use the understanding of competences for?

You can use your understanding of the competences required for a transition project to:

develop the skills you and/or your employees need to carry out a transition project
assemble a team or sounding board: make sure that as many transition competences are represented as possible
selection and recruitment: use the profiles when drafting a job profile and use the rules of behaviour as a checklist in the selection procedure.

What competences are relevant?

Experience shows that three basic competences are needed for transition work:

Communication skills
Networking skills
Persuasiveness.

Six groups

These three basic competences are covered by six groups of competences that are important for transition work (see the table). A person does not have to possess all of these competences since you will generally be working in a team.

Competence group	Competences
Recognising patterns	integrated thinking questioning with an open mind analytical thinking conceptual thinking
Reorientation	visionary and inspirational possessing courage and the will to change creative historical sense
Experimentation	mobilising skills organisational talent second-order learning
Anchoring	anticipatory skills entrepreneurial skills powers of persuasion networking and lobbying
Monitoring	observational skills reflective skills self-aware and independent
Transition management	systems thinking insight, helicopter view and a sense of timing ability to balance substance, process and results

Connection with clusters

The six competence groups are connected as follows to the clusters in this website:

The competence groups ‘recognising patterns' and ‘reorientation' relate to the cluster ‘Creating a vision/reorientation'
The competence group ‘Experimenting' is important for the work that commences with ‘Producing an action plan'
The competence groups ‘Anchoring' and ‘Monitoring' apply for the eponymous clusters
Finally, the competence group ‘Transition management' covers an overarching group of competences relating to the art of guiding the stakeholders, which applies mainly when a programme is being implemented after the vision has been formulated.

Changing needs

The competences required can change in the course of a programme. You should therefore incorporate sufficient flexibility in the organisation of a project or a programme to allow you to switch people and competences if necessary.

How do I identify skills that need to be developed?

You can do the competence test - start page of this website - or do a more specific test for an intermediary, director, board member, or the monitor function or function of a project leader. Your work may not fall into any of these categories. If so, you may want to adapt the scan. Proceed as follows:

Start by making a selection from the 22 competences in the general competence profile, appropriate to your job, or adapt the existing scans using the general competence profile
If you want to keep the scan short, distil four rules of behaviour from the competence profile for each competence
Award 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 points for each of the rules of behaviour.

You can also use the scan for 360 degree feedback by asking colleagues, customers, clients and managers to give scores for you on the list of questions. You can then compare and discuss the results.

Where can I learn transition competences?

See for general courses and training programmes, see 'Education'. You can also investigate whether there is a community of practice or establish one.

Which roles are essential in a team?

The following roles should be represented if a transition team is to be effective:

The researcher
The manager
The group worker
The networker
The innovator.

In terms of the roles, therefore, transition teams are like any other team but with the noteworthy addition of the role of networker. This is a crucial role because a transition professional must have networks at various levels.

What personal characteristics do professionals have?

Many transition professionals are idealists. Their ambition is to create a more sustainable world and have the drive to achieve the necessary changes. Perseverance and a certain optimism are other common personal characteristics. These traits help transition professionals to deal with opposition and cope with lengthy change processes.

Open working style

Transition professionals have a feel for the group of people they need to bring together to achieve something and have an open working style. They are motivated by the attainment of short-term results or by the connections they make between people and organisations. They are not seeking power in the sense of wanting to win and gain control over situations and others. First and foremost, transition professionals want to achieve transitions.