BEI was originally developed by JC Flanagan (1954, The Critical Incident Technique in Psychological Bulletin, 51 (4), 327-358). Later, David McClelland (1981, Interviewing for Competence, Boston, McBer) designed a regular method to identify competencies through administration of in-depth interviews.
The original model’s objective was to ask the best performers of a job or task to describe three situations in which they had outstanding performance, and three incidents in which performance was poor. The description was very detailed. The aim was to get a clear picture about the outstanding performances; what they have done, and what happened. After analyzing the stories, researchers identified patterns and what competencies were at play in these critical events.
The Model: Mentor Coaches Competencies
It is important to clarify that:
Competencies are integrated, holistic and complex: they include the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to meet the demands of a mentor coach task.
Competencies are not synonymous with ‘skills’ or ‘abilities’.
Competencies are performance-based and inferred from the actions, behaviors and choices.
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Rey Carr
November 12, 2015 at 8:05 pm
The authors present a thorough model. But, lo and behold, why do they even include the term “mentor”? Read the article again and everytime the word mentor appears, either take it out or replace it with the word coach.
This is the problem with the ICF’s approach to mentoring. It’s not aligned with any other viewpoint expressed by experts on mentoring. This model has little to do with mentoring and mostly to do with coaching. If the article makes just as much sense when the word mentor is removed, then the authors have really set up an unnecessary variant of coaches looking after their own professional development.