Regardless of the standard, the criteria put in place make clear to everyone just what is important and what they should be focused on. It does little good to identify a strategy and associated employee competencies needed to achieve a competitive advantage if these competencies are not translated into performance criteria. Unfortunately, task performance and productivity can be short-term concerns for which operational measures are handy and routinely used. Staying with these criteria can mean that a new strategic direction never takes hold and becomes reality. An important management issue is whether employee competencies have been driven down into the level of operational criteria.