The Ecology of Insurance Competence: Educating the Holistic Professional

The Ecology of
Insurance Competence:
Educating the Holistic
Professional
EIET October 2014
Tony Culley, Richard Cotter
Summary
In essence, what are we going to say? From a theoretically informed
practice perspective – four things:
1. Insurance has evolved and is evolving; so too is business and the world of work
generally
2. This requires a fresh and honest look at professional competence and how this is
cultivated by all the stakeholders involved
3. Competence itself needs to be viewed more ecologically and so do the pedagogical
approaches deployed to develop it
4. Local organizational cultures are key in terms of making competence cohere: formal
education alone is not enough: ultimately context is decisive in terms of how education
translates into practice (Davis, 2009) and whether competence develops successfully
into expertise (see Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 2005; Sternberg, 2005)
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Insurance
Evolution
Professional Education is saturated with a Compliance Paradigm!
Does that model adequately meet this ‘new normal’?
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Business
and work
evolution
Everything is changing? Mintzberg’s buttons:
“Attend some speech on management. It is likely to begin with the claim that ‘we live in
times of great change’. As you hear this look down at the clothes you are wearing.
Notice the buttons and ask yourself, ‘if we really live in times of great change, how
come we are still buttoning buttons?’” (Mintzberg, 2009, p.13)
Maybe not quite everything, then, but change is always occurring and no matter what,
it is always new and occurring in different contexts to different people…
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Business
1. Insurance
evolving
cont.
“Self-service”
“Distribution
revolution”
Work
Technology
Technology
(again)
Freeing up
knowledge
workers
/ Automation,
deskilling
Customer
Tenure
Tenure shortening
Roles changing
Geopolitical
balance of power
Ethics
Lifelong
learning
Regulation
New
expectations
Business’ ‘brand’
The great “rebureaucratisation”?
Eager or retired
learners?
Me, me, me?
(Too harsh!)
Wouldn’t it be strange if in the midst of all this change, methods of professional
education didn’t need to change too? It would, so they are…but how?
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Current
Approaches
Current
approach
Competence Development
• Depends on your entry point – Are you destined for greatness? Or is
everyone equal at point of entry?
• Typically you ‘hang tough’ take the exams, do the CPD, do a bit of ‘Sitting by
Nelly’ and pray that serendipity and timing will coalesce to propel you forward
• Along the way you also learn to adapt to culture and the various levers that
will and won’t advance your career.
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Current
Approaches
Current
approach
Competence Development cont.
• The contrarian entry level 21 year old V The ‘wise’ 35 year old
• Some questions in consequence:
 Is the educational ‘medicine’ appropriate
 Perhaps educationalists have it right? Stick to the knitting, give them the
curriculum and CPD and the boxes are ticked
 Do / should employers have any say in how this stuff is designed or delivered?
 Perhaps employers need to take a harder look at cause and effect: culture and
motivation are critical
This brings us to our main theme: competence as an ecology which requires an
ecological approach …
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Ecologies of
competence
In what sense are we using the term ecology?
We use it to mean that professional practice is a ‘living thing’ (Kemmis et al.,
2012) and all the various elements that go into making up the competence to
practice interact:
“The novice works towards competence and then expertise through
deliberate practice [which] requires an interaction between five
elements” (Sternberg, 2005, p.19)
Let’s take a look at these elements…
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5 elements of
5 Elements
competence
of
Competence
For us, ecology of competence means that
learning to become an insurance professional
is more than one thing - it is many things
interacting together which can be more or
less in harmony

“Although it is convenient to separate these
five elements, they are fully interactive”
(Sternberg, 2005, p.19) – an implicit warning
that the good is the enemy of the best?

This ecological principle is not just an
abstract philosophical point: if we are serious
about developing competence it must have
actual pedagogical implications

These implications are for all the
stakeholders involved – a matching ecology
of development accountability

Motivation is key: without it all other
elements remain inert. Context is also vital: it
shapes and is shaped by each element
Metacognitive
skills
Learning
skills
Knowledge

Thinking
skills
Motivation
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An
ecological
take
An ecological take on competency development
• Broadly speaking, books, exams, Lectures, even case studies = knowing
that. Practice, mentoring, coaching, experience, and reflection in a feedbackfused context = knowing how (see Ryle, 2000)
• To put it another way: practice can be messy, uncertain and complex so the
application of one type of knowledge (knowledge that) often requires another
form (knowledge of how)
• Ultimately, we learn to become reflexively competent in time and space (see
Cotter, 2014) with others mimetically (Lave, 1996) and socially within
‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 2000)
• We don’t make ourselves competent alone by ‘knowing stuff’ ; ultimately it is
a relational endeavour – this is true even for minimum competency roles
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An
ecological
take
An ecological take on competency development cont.
• Businesses and customers want /need rounded professionals, so indirectly
they too are demanding ecological models of competence development
• Education is a building block only, albeit an important one – you don’t know,
what you don’t know. The point, however, is not a hierarchy of forms of
knowledge but an interactive and mutually interdependent approach, i.e. an
ecological one
• “Knowing-doing” gaps (Pffefer, 2000) arise when the various elements of
competency development are not ecologically connected and supported by
‘structures that reflect’ (Nicolini et al., 2004)
• Educational Institutes and Organizations need to work more closely together
to ensure professionals are both compliant and competent
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Take
Aways
What can companies do?
• Make sure stakeholders understand competency ecologically and champion
it’s development in this way
• Demand more of your HRD professionals
• Don’t mistake being compliant with developing (full) competence
• Expand your idea of what learning is to encompass ‘other-than-education’
elements
• Arguably, context is decisive in terms of how competency develops and is
practiced: remember that contexts can be shaped to become more rather
than less supportive
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Endnotes
•
Thank you for your attention
•
References used in this presentation are available on request*
•
Question for you:
What are you doing to develop professional competence ecologically in
your organization?
*richard.cotter@allianz.ie
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