Natural Ability in organisational behaviour

Ability can be defined as ‘The quality of being able to do something, especially the physical, mental, financial, or legal power to accomplish something. (1) It relates specifically to a natural or acquired skill’. Ability includes both the natural aptitudes and the learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task. It is very important to have an understanding of ability in Organisational Behaviour because having this knowledge allows management, team leaders and employees to ‘understand, influence and predict behaviour’. (2) It also generally allows Management to match employees with certain tasks the organisation has to complete. However, the real question surrounding the topic of ability and its relation to the workplace is the differences in aptitudes (natural talents) and Leaned capabilities and what is best suited for organisations.
The Moraine Park Technical College identifies seven core abilities being ‘Working productively, Learning effectively, communicating clearly, Working co-operatively, acting responsibly, valuing self positively and lastly, thinking critically and creatively. (3) All these characteristics can be either one of the two types of ability. The types of ability are aptitudes or learned capabilities. ‘Aptitudes are the natural talents, special abilities for doing, or to do, certain kinds of things easily and quickly’. (4) This definition clearly states that aptitudes are the fundamental aspects that contribute to a ways in completing a task through natural talents. Aptitudes usually are created from genetics and or developed through early stages of an individual’s life. Examples of aptitudes are seen a lot in artistic and expressive contexts. The ability to sing, paint and play a musical instrument are all examples of aptitudes that can be adopted by an individual from family members. Learned capabilities can be defined as the ‘skills and knowledge that an individual may possess’. (5) Unlike aptitudes, learned