Why competence needs a shared language — and how that language is translated into concrete work
Few broad competences — many expressions. The map has to be small enough to remember, strong enough to guide, and flexible enough to translate.
1. The problem: too many words for competence
Working life uses a great many words about people and competence: collaborative, reliable, flexible, solution-oriented, structured, professionally skilled, proactive. The words are not wrong. The problem is that everyone uses them slightly differently.
On top of that, we routinely mix three entirely different things:
• how a person is — personal preferences and traits
• what the person has learned — education, courses, formal documentation
• what the person can actually do at work — competence in use
When these three blur together, competence conversations lose precision. Two managers can both say “good at collaboration” about the same person and mean completely different things. And we can end up assessing personality while believing we are assessing competence.
Put simply: MIRA gives us a shared language for what people can do — and a way of translating that language into what they actually do at work.
2. Why not simply write a longer list?
The obvious answer is to describe more. But if every sector, company and job describes competence in its own way, the number of concepts explodes. The same competence gets several names, and different competences become so similar that the distinction disappears.
| Too many competences produce | Few broad competences produce |
|---|---|
| Overlapping concepts | A recognisable language |
| Unclear assessments | Simpler progression |
| Harder learning design | Better comparison |
| Less shared language | Clearer prioritisation |
| Weaker link to job roles | Room for context |
When everything becomes a competence, the concept loses its power to guide anything. A framework should help us see patterns, not name every individual action. MIRA therefore rests on one simple principle: few broad competences — many expressions.
3. Why not just describe the tasks — or just the general concepts?
One could ask whether we need the competences at all. Why not simply list the tasks? Because tasks vary enormously. Describe only tasks and it becomes impossible to see what recurs across settings. Two people can do completely different work and still draw on the same competence: an early childhood care worker and an industrial operator both display responsibility, collaboration, problem solving and the ability to learn.
The opposite fails too. Say only “collaboration”, “responsibility”, “communication” and “problem solving” and it stays unclear what we actually mean. What does good collaboration look like right here? How does responsibility show up in this role? What is the person supposed to do?
We need both: the general, so competence can be recognised and compared, and the concrete, so it can be learned, performed and assessed. In MIRA the generic description must be clear enough to give direction, yet open enough to survive different working contexts.
4. Think of MIRA as a map
A map does not show every tree, stone and footprint. It shows the main structures, so we can orient ourselves. MIRA works the same way.
- The broad competences are the map.
- The workplace is the terrain.
- What the person actually does is the footprints.
The map gives overview. The terrain gives the competence meaning. The footprints show how the competence is expressed. Almost all confusion in this field comes from collapsing these three layers into a single sentence.
Figure 1: The three layers. The map is stable, the terrain varies, the footprints are what we can observe.
5. Three main domains
MIRA distinguishes three main domains. They are connected, but they describe different sides of functioning at work.
| Domain | What it describes | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| Transversal skills | Skills that can be used across many subjects, roles and sectors. | Digital competence · intercultural competence · communication and interaction · critical and analytical thinking · learning and development · organisational and personal leadership · collaboration and teamwork |
| Personal effectiveness | How the person makes themselves function well at work. | Learning and adaptation · reliability and interpersonal skills · professional integrity · self-development and growth |
| Workplace skills | What is required to carry out the work in a concrete professional setting. | Leadership and strategy · problem solving and innovation · collaboration and communication · technical expertise — down to the specific skills a given job requires |
Transversal skills travel with us across working and learning situations. A person needs communication in healthcare, industry, schools, offices and services alike — but what good communication looks like varies from place to place.
Personal effectiveness is about how we manage and regulate ourselves at work. The crucial point is that this can be developed. I may have particular personal preferences and at the same time learn strategies that let me function well at work. This is precisely the line between personality and competence.
Workplace skills are what it takes to get the actual job done. This domain can be closely tied to professional knowledge, methods and technology within an occupation — and it is here that the most tool- and field-specific skills belong.
FIGURE 07
Three Domains
MiRA separates three sides of functioning at work.
| 01 | 02 | 03 |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-disciplinary skills | Personal effectiveness | Workplace skills |
| Usable across many fields, roles and sectors. | How a person makes themselves work well at work. | What it takes to get the actual work done in a professional setting. |
| Digital competence | Learning and adaptation | Leadership and strategy |
| Intercultural competence | Reliability and interpersonal skills | Problem solving and innovation |
| Communication and interaction | Professional integrity | Collaboration and communication |
| Critical and analytical thinking | Self-development and growth | Technical expertise |
| Learning and development | ||
| Organisational and personal leadership | ||
| Collaboration and teamwork |
The domains connect, but describe different things: what transfers, how you run yourself, and what the job requires.
Figure 2: The three main domains and their subcategories.
6. One competence can look entirely different
Take collaboration. The core is the same everywhere: contributing constructively with others to solve tasks and reach shared goals. The expression is not:
- Early childhood care: sharing observations, coordinating activities and supporting colleagues.
- Industry: coordinating operations, communicating about risk and securing clean handovers.
- Office work: sharing information, clarifying responsibility and coordinating deliverables.
The core is stable. The expression is contextual. This is why MIRA does not turn every single work task into its own competence — the framework would then grow with the variation of working life and lose all comparability.
FIGURE 08
One Competence, Three Contexts
The core is stable. The expression is contextual.
- Collaboration: Contributing constructively towards shared goals
- Early childhood care: Sharing observations, coordinating activities and supporting colleagues through the day.
- Industry: Coordinating operations, communicating risk and securing solid handovers between shifts.
- Office work: Sharing information, clarifying who does what and coordinating deliveries.
This is why MIRA does not turn every task into its own competence — the same core surfaces differently.
Figure 3: Same core, three expressions. The competence is recognised across settings but assessed locally.
7. The anatomy of a generic competence description
For this to work in practice, the generic descriptions need a fixed shape: precise enough to give direction, open enough to hold different contexts.
| Element | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Core | What the competence is about across sectors |
| Purpose | Why it matters in work and learning |
| Indicators | What typically shows the competence in use |
| Progression | How it develops from foundational to advanced |
| Context questions | What must be clarified before local assessment |
Equally important is what must stay out. The generic text should not contain sector-specific routines, tools or job requirements. Those belong to the next layer — the specific skills.
8. The translation chain: from competence to concrete work
MIRA works as a translation chain from shared language to concrete practice. Five steps, each adding context without changing the core.
- Broad MIRA competence — shared term and definition.
- Sector expression — what the competence looks like in this kind of work.
- Company practice — local routines, standards and expectations.
- Tasks and actions — what the person actually does in the situation.
- Signs of mastery — what can be observed, documented and given feedback on.
FIGURE 09
The Translation Chain
From a shared concept to something you can actually observe.
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broad MIRA competence | Sector expression | Company practice | Tasks and actions | Signs of mastery |
| Shared term and definition. | What the competence looks like in this kind of work. | Local routines, standards and expectations. | What the person actually does in the situation. | What can be observed, documented and given feedback on. |
Example: Collaboration → early childhood care → this centre's routines → the cloakroom before going outside → shares information, clarifies roles, adjusts effort.
Each step adds context without changing the core. The generic wording stays free of local tools and routines.
Figure 4: The translation chain in five steps.
A concrete example: collaboration in early childhood care
| Broad competence | Concrete practice |
|---|---|
| Collaboration: contributing constructively with others to solve tasks and reach shared goals. Sector: early childhood care. Situation: the cloakroom before the children go outside. | The employee shares the necessary information, clarifies who does what, helps colleagues when needed and adjusts their own effort to the situation. |
We have now moved from a general concept to something we can actually see. That is the whole point of the chain: the generic definition cannot be observed, but the last column can.
The same logic applies to job roles. A role should be understood from the tasks it actually consists of, while still being linked to a generic job family. Roles are built from the bottom up; comparability comes from the top down. That is what resolves the tension between the local and the generic.
9. Progression: the six MIRA levels
Competence is not on or off. MIRA defines six levels describing progression in autonomy, responsibility and complexity. Every competence has its own ladder of six steps; below are the general level descriptions.
| Level | EQF | Autonomy | Responsibility | Complexity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Basic understanding | 2 | Guided | Own task | Familiar |
| 2 Developed skills | 3 | Within boundaries | Own work | Some variation |
| 3 Competence | 4-5 | Independent | Shared result | Compound |
| 4 Advanced expertise | 6 | Developing | Development and quality | Complex |
| 5 Leadership and strategy | 7 | Direction-setting | Strategic area | Strategically complex |
| 6 Visionary leadership | 8 | Pioneering | Systemic development | Novel and systemic |
What matters is that the levels do not simply mean “better and better”. Three parallel movements take place:
| Autonomy | Responsibility | Complexity |
|---|---|---|
| Guided → within set limits → independent → improving practice → setting direction → innovating | Own task → own work → shared result → development and quality → strategic area → systemic development | Familiar → somewhat varied → composite → complex → strategically complex → novel and systemic |
FIGURE 05
Three Parallel Movements
Rising through the levels is not simply "getting better" — three things shift at once.
| LEVEL 1 | LEVEL 2 | LEVEL 3 | LEVEL 4 | LEVEL 5 | LEVEL 6 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AUTONOMY | guided | within limits | independent | developing | directing | pioneering |
| RESPONSIBILITY | own task | own work | shared result | quality & growth | strategic area | systemic change |
| COMPLEXITY | familiar | some variety | composite | complex | strategically complex | new & systemic |
The same six levels, read three ways. A level is a combination of all three — not a score.
MIRA · THE DEPTH AXIS 05 / 06
Figure 5: The three parallel movements through levels 1 to 6.
The six MIRA levels are mapped to the EQF, the European Qualifications Framework, which has eight levels: MIRA 1 to EQF 2, MIRA 2 to EQF 3, MIRA 3 to EQF 4–5, MIRA 4 to EQF 6, MIRA 5 to EQF 7 and MIRA 6 to EQF 8. An organisation can choose whether to use MIRA or EQF as its reference — the descriptions are the same, only the outer scale differs.
10. Why this can be done technically: semantic matching
A framework with few, well-described competences and six clear steps is not only pedagogically tidy — it is also machine-readable. This is why competence proposals can be automated without becoming mechanical.
Selection happens in four main steps:
- The job description is ready. Description, work functions and tasks are complete and approved as the data basis. Only then are proposals unlocked.
- Semantic matching. The engine compares meaning, not words. “Keep the team informed” and “internal communication” count as close even without shared vocabulary.
- Choosing competence and level. All competences are ranked per domain; the top five per domain are selected, at most two per subcategory. Then a level is chosen per competence and the level descriptions are generated.
- You choose and save. Proposals appear grouped by domain with level and level description — and it is the consultant or HR adviser who reviews, edits and adds.
The level proposal is read from three elements side by side — not as an average, but as an interpretation an experienced HR adviser would make: the job's tasks, the competence ladder, and the reading of which step the job actually describes. The proposal also shows which tasks it rests on, so you can see why it landed on step 4 rather than 3 or 5.
FIGURE 10
From Job Description to Level
Meaning is matched against the ladder — not words against words.
- 1. The job's tasks
"Ensure good internal communication, knowledge sharing and collaboration across teams, functions and locations."
- 2. The competence ladder
Six steps for this specific competence, describing autonomy, responsibility and complexity.
- Semantic matching
Compares meaning, not words. "Keep the team informed" and "internal communication" read as close.
- 3. The reading
LEVEL 6
LEVEL 5
LEVEL 4 proposed
LEVEL 3
LEVEL 2
LEVEL 1
The system proposes; the adviser decides. Every text, level and competence remains editable.
Figure 6: From job description to level. The system proposes, the human decides.
| The system proposes | You decide |
|---|---|
| Which competences fit | Whether the competence enters the profile |
| Which step the job appears to require | The level, in the same dropdown as before |
| One sentence on what is expected in practice | The sentence, in the same editable field |
| Which tasks the proposal rests on | “Why it matters”, with or without help |
11. The essential point
MIRA has to hold several things together at once:
- A shared language, so competence can be recognised across settings.
- Context, so competence has meaning in the actual job.
- Concrete skills and actions, so competence can be learned and observed.
- A line between personal traits and competence, so we do not confuse how someone is with what they can learn and master.
MIRA should therefore be small enough to remember, strong enough to guide, and flexible enough to translate.
12. The next document: transferability and level
This document explains what MIRA is and why few broad competences work. The second document in the series, “The Transferability Axis” (v5), addresses how a single skill is placed: how broadly it applies (0–100) and how deeply it sits (level 1–6). Together the two documents give both the structure and the way to read it.