Skills as a System

I think the way we use job roles to talk about, organise and design skills is prone to bias, blocks innovation, and slows down organisations.

What if we had a better way to talk about skills, that removes the bias inherent in those discussions, helping leaders take decisions right away, but still plan for change?

I'd like to share a model that's helped me talk about skills with leaders; it combines recent thinking on organising skills and work [1], with a strategy model popular in tech companies [2], that can help us think about skills as a system.

The problem with Job Roles 

Here’s a super simplified example of some skills and expertise used in Marketing [3]:

When things change; a new way of working emerges, techniques are replaced, or a new business model introduced, we respond by identifying new skills and expertise to deliver this new value.

And we typically do this by redesigning job roles: 

I think this is a problem, because job roles come with a huge amount of bias built into them.

Job roles are how we define ourselves, and our value. Job roles are how we get paid. Job roles aggregate to teams, teams to departments, and departments represent organisational power. Trying to introduce new skills via job role redefinitions triggers status quo bias at multiple points in an organisation.

And trying to remove skills that no longer contribute new value amplifies the bias, making change even harder.

We shouldn't be surprised when changes to job roles are actively resisted (or at least heavily negotiated); calcifying organisations, slowing innovation, and reducing the ability – and agility – to unlock value from new opportunities. 

We forget to talk about enablers

Enablers are the things (data, tech, money, platforms, partnerships…) organisations provide people with skills and experience to get stuff done.

In my experience when Leaders think about strategy, they think about how to create or unlock value by deploying their organisation's ‘components’; experienced, skilled people, and enablers.

But enablers aren't part of job role definitions, so we limit the way we're able to talk with Leaders about how skills, expertise and enablers combine to deliver value. 

Not only do we not talk about enablers, we also don't plan for how quickly enablers change; tech gets upgraded, platforms become cheaper, and partnerships get replaced.

When I saw how the absence of enablers combines with the bias that's present when we talk about changes to job roles, I realised why job roles were such an ineffective way to talk about value, strategy, and change with Leaders.

Activities – how companies create value

So how could we talk to Leaders about skills and change? 

I think we need a simpler model and vocabulary that supports conversations about skills, expertise and enablers, avoids bias and embraces change.

I think this simple model can be created by breaking down how companies create or unlock new value by defining Activities – the things teams do. 

Activities [3] can be executed at the unit of a team or individual, or combined into complex models, but Activities always require combinations of skills, expertise and enablers.

If we use this model to look at a set of Activities in Marketing, we can show – simply and quickly – how different combinations of skills, expertise and enablers support value-creating Activities in an organisation.

This might look familiar – its a bit like a simplified competency model, combined with McKinsey's 'Helix' concept [1], but – and I think this is a critical addition – it includes enablers. 

I've found this simple model helped me show how skills, expertise and enablers combine to deliver value creating or unlocking Activities. 

As a result, I've found it easier to start conversations with Leaders, go deeper and talk more broadly about their strategy and needs, and not get stuck as we do when looking at the same opportunity through the lens of a job role.

Organising Activities 

I find making lists of 'things' during conversations useful, and then turning those lists into diagrams, charts, and other ways to visually organise [4], doubly so.

As I started talking to Leaders about the skills, expertise and enablers combinations needed to enable Activities, I tried different ways of visually representing Activities. 

First I organised lists of skills, expertise and enablers using a classic '2x2':

It was more interesting than a list, but not really that useful; I needed a way that showed how Activity sets of skills, expertise and enablers linked to, and needed each other.

So I tried grouping things, and showing how they were linked:

These 'value chains' were definitely more useful in supporting conversations – it is easy to see the value of connecting skills, expertise and enablers together as Activities.

Mapping Activities 

But where I really saw a breakthrough in conversations about how Activities and combinations of skills, expertise and enablers 'components' can change, was when I starting using Wardley Maps [2].

Wardley Maps are a way to map situations, business models and strategy as value chains of components, organised by their value and how they are – or should be – invented, custom-built, bought or rented, appropriate to their availability and value. 

Mapping Activities immediately changed how I was able talk to Leaders about skills, expertise and enablers:

Now we could look together at whether a skill really was 'emerging' and justified being supported by custom-built interventions, or whether it had already become 'good practice' and we should look for more cost effective, 'off the shelf' ways to support those skills.

Together we now understood the crucial role of enablers and how they combined with skills and expertise – even enablers that are 'commodities' – to support the execution of strategic, value-creating Activities.

What about change?

But the most useful thing I found from using Wardley Maps was being able to talk about which, and how Activities change over time.

Wardley Maps are designed to show change as 'evolution'; the inevitable shift as inventions get adopted, emerge elsewhere, get adopted as good practice and ultimately become commoditised. 

This evolutionary cycle happens to everything; from business models, to technology, fashion, culture, and of course, skills, enablers, and even expertise (albeit more slowly) that combine as Activities. 

Adding the value of each stage (in red, below) helped understand where a component really belonged – and how the value it provides changes as it evolves from novel to commodity.

Understanding how the value chains of an Activity move is incredibly useful; helping predict the way skills, enablers and expertise change in value over time.

Then the really interesting conversations with Leaders started happening – as we explored how value chains still provide value as they evolve:

Activities, not job roles, support strategic decisions

I’d learnt the way we used job roles to think and talk about skills and expertise was too rigid – they're built for yesterday’s understanding of what created value, and calcify our conversation and decision making when we try to plan for change with leaders.

Look at how redundant (pun not intended) a job role becomes as skills become commoditised: 

In contrast, mapping Activities instead of job roles enabled me to have low bias, high information, strategic conversations with leaders about how to invest in – and potentially dispose of – skills, expertise and enablers as they evolved in the value they contribute to an Activity.

Thinking, talking and mapping Activities with leaders, helps them understand the value and opportunities from talent marketplaces, providing an accessible way to review and redefine value-creating Activities as distinct from job roles; identifying new skills, enablers and expertise, redefining or removing old ones.

Activities are fast to define, imagine change and create bias-free conversations about re-deployable, even disposable skills, expertise and enablers, without impacting people’s self-identity – or employment status.

We should extend these conversations beyond leaders – talking about and mapping Activities with employees would help them understand where their own value chains exist, predict where changes to the value of their current skills might occur, and how their expertise is highly strategic to the companies they work in.

Thanks for reading 🙌

I hope you've found this useful – let me know in comments; I'd love to talk about 'Skills as a System' 🤓

Notes

[1] McKinsey's Helix model splits the management and execution of work (how work gets done, vs. what works gets done), and is a powerful way to think about value creating activities, and an organisation model that could fix the bias inherent in trying to redefine work through job role changes.

[2] Wardley Maps is Simon Wardley's deep-dive on mapping, leadership, doctrine, and strategic thinking. It's brilliant, and I've never got to the end. Yet. Get started quickly with Ben Mosier's Learn Wardley Mapping. Ben taught us how to map.

[3] I profess absolutely no expertise in marketing; I chose an area of work that's subject to rapid change, that I felt illustrated the model effectively.

[4] After writing this, I of course then remember Porter’s 5 Forces…plus ça change 🤓

[4] I usually present this as semi-filled out Excalidraw images in slides to create readable diagrams and then draw labels, connectors and annotations over a screenshare. I wanted to see if animating some elements (nothing fancy, just a screen recording of annotated Keynote...) added explanatory impact to the article. I'm not sure it does, but it was sort of fun to try this approach in an article. 🤓

Thanks 🙌

I've been thinking about this for a while, and talked with lots of people who've given me super feedback, ideas and encouragement.

While I definitely don't think this article warrants an Oscar-style speech, I did want to recognise Ben Mosier for teaching me (and others) about how to think about Wardley Maps. And my fellow 'Thinking Club' members, especially Tara McGrath, Edward Oakeley, Patrick O'Donnell, Tim McArthur and Jeni Gray for their collaboration, weekly patience and brilliant feedback (I told you I'd write this bloody thing eventually! :).

And many colleagues and peers across various organisations that have listened to various stages of this idea - thank you!