Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Skill and will
The first diagnostic question about underperformance is whether the person cannot or will not, because the right responses are entirely different. This standard adds a third branch, the conditions gap.
Where the standard develops it
- PL-4Performance managementExpectations, support, honest consequences, and fair process.
Related terms
- Accountability without fear
- Clear ownership and honest consequences for patterns of unaccountability, combined with real safety for honest error.
- Brilliant jerk
- A high performer whose behaviour breaches the team's values.
- Calibration
- Aligning evaluation standards across interviewers, managers or organisations so that the same capability or performance earns the same judgment.
- Conditions gap
- Underperformance caused by what the person was not given (clear requirements, access, time, a functioning team) rather than by a lack of skill or will.
- Fair process
- A decision people accept even when it goes against them, because they were heard, the reasoning was explained, and what is expected next is unambiguous.
- Improvement plan
- A formal, time-boxed, supported chance to meet a stated bar, with the outcome at the end defined when the plan is set.
- Managerial leverage
- Grove's framing that a manager's output is the output of the organisation under them, and that activities differ in how much output they produce per hour spent.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Skill and will. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.skill-and-will). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/skill-and-will