009 - The Future is Skills Powered! Will You Be?
Letā€™s explore the importance of becoming Skills Powered, both for organizations and individuals. So whether you are focused on your career or company, stick with me to learn where business is heading.
Where we sit today, we collectively understand that Generative AI is a really big deal, on the same level, or perhaps exceeding the importance of the birth of the Internet. Although we get that AI is here to stay and is changing the world of work fundamentally, we seem to be all desperately seeking clarity in the age of AI in varying degrees of either anticipation or desperation.
Several factors are working together to rapidly change how business gets done. In HR circles, terms such as Skills First hiring, and Skills Based Organizations are trending as solutions to the persistent skills gap quandary most businesses are stuck in.
Simply put, the work of now and next requires vastly different skills than what was needed even a few years ago. In a growing number of fields, a college degree is fading from its mantle as a cherished bastion of accomplishment to an overpriced piece of paper that is simply irrelevant - while the degree holder can signal they can complete a program or course of action, it doesnā€™t necessarily translate to the most efficient path to being prepared for real work at the ground level of an emerging industrial revolution of massive change.
This new approach of skills first hiring is to focus on employees' actual abilities, or tangible, measurable and verifiable skills over previously more traditional criteria such as degrees and job titles.
This skills-powered approach broadens and promotes a more diverse talent pool, enabling a more fluid use of talent in getting work done at the ground level. Skills-based organizations prioritize flexibility, allowing employees to contribute based on their skills, which fosters continuous learning and better adaptation to market changes.
Businesses are finally embracing the idea of not caring how work gets done, or even by whom in many cases, as long as it gets done in the most efficient means possible. Key hallmarks that forward thinking decision makers filter through are locating force multipliers, both in the arena of people, but also of the tasks those doers do as well.
A force multiplier is anywhere multiple things can be accomplished in the context of a single task or work item. On both sides of the hiring equation, whether the individual or the organization, advantages are sought after relentlessly. This advantage seeking is true in any competitive context, even beyond the business realm. Anywhere competition is found, whether sports, chess, politics, business or careers, those that take their areas of interest seriously seek out and exploit advantages.
And now with the pattern recognition powerhouse of AI and its ability to train on past performance data, you can start building your own advantage framework, one prompt at a time. And remember that this can work for the individual and for the organization. The innovative and early adopters among us will enjoy exponential advantages due to getting there early, while the fast followers, the mainstream and the laggards eventually figure this out.
The fact is that many are dragging their feet on the AI advantages that are within reach. But thereā€™s also advantages in other realms, well beyond the domain of AI. And many of these advantage frameworks are converging right now.
In the next episode, I am going to dive into the Durable Skills Advantage Framework. See you then!