Essential New Read: The Skills-Powered Organization

My friend Ravin Jesuthasan is a leading voice on skills-based employment. His latest book, The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to the Next-Generation Enterprise, which he cowrote with Tanuj Kapilashrami, is an essential read for leaders who are in the difficult spot of touting the importance of skills without fully understanding how to shape their organization accordingly. This Q&A with Ravin captures some of the highlights, and I hope you’ll pick up a copy for a deeper dive.

Ravin, now did you come to collaborate with your co-author?

Tanuj and I have known each other for about 4 years. We both sit on a couple of committees at the World Economic Forum and have long had a common interest in how skills can unlock significantly greater productivity, agility and engagement. My interest and the ideas in this book stem from and build on the four books I have written with my good friend John Boudreau. Perhaps most importantly, we wanted to write a practitioner’s guide. A book that was rigorous with research and frameworks AND clearly demonstrated how leaders can make these changes in their organizations

Can you share why you have focused your content on skills?

The growing volatility and velocity of change in the world necessitates a different set of building blocks for work. The IMF estimates that uncertainty over the last 3 years is up 2.5X over the previous 30 years. For companies, crisis is no longer a one-off event, but a recurring one. Think of the 4 shocks we are experiencing today: 

• The climate crisis
• The energy impact from the invasion of Ukraine.
• Geopolitical issues with China and the Middle East
• The technology shock and especially AI

All independent events but with massive feedback loops. Each of these 4 shocks is world shaking, but cumulatively happening in a 18 month period, puts us in unprecedented times. In Work Without Jobs, John Boudreau and I introduced the concept of a new work operating model and this books builds on an extends that idea with a deep dive into why skills need to be the currency of work; in order to enable organization to respond (and thrive) in this rapidly changing world of ours

What does this journey look like for a typical organization?

In our research we identified 3 core capabilities of the skills-powered organization. The capability of work design is essential to understanding the true demand for skills and how they can best be connected to work. Talent development is pivotal to ensuring skills are acquired in a timely and efficient manner based on the demand signals from work design. Last, talent deployment is the critical capability of enabling the expression of the demanded skills across a variety of work engagements with optimal efficiency, effectiveness, and impact

How did Standard Chartered Bank get started and what can its experience teach us?

As I mentioned, the thing that was attractive to me about partnering with Tanuj was to tell the story of a progressive organization that was bringing these ideas to life and fruition. Standard Chartered is a 170-year-old, leading international banking group with a rich history and legacy.

For Standard Chartered, the skills-powered journey started with transitioning the narrative from jobs to skills. It began with a commercial business case based on its own strategic workforce planning analysis, highlighting the jobs and skills within the organization that would soon no longer be relevant (which it refers to as “sunset” roles). This might be due to changing client expectations or the evolution of technology and automation of tasks. New jobs and skills would also be created and demanded as a result (“sunrise” roles). The strategic workforce plan (SWP) also highlighted the broader impact of the changing demand for skills—the disproportionate displacement of junior roles and the resulting cost implications as the organization shifted from a pyramid to a diamond shape.

Additionally, it highlighted the potential impact on gender diversity due to the higher number of women currently employed in sunset roles and with many sunrise roles being currently more male dominated. The tangible economics of “build” versus buy versus borrow versus bot,” and the far-reaching impact of decisions related to upskilling and reskilling, created a compelling foundation for the board and the global management team who made skills a critical element of the overall strategic plan.

What do you believe leaders who want to build a skills-based organization should do first?

As we often say, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time. There are 3 things we defined as being pivotal to this journey:

1. Establish a North Star to anchor your journey: So, what do we mean by a North Star? It is a clear statement about your vision to guide your direction and program of work to becoming a skills-powered organization. A North Star is simple and enduring—it is your touchstone to ensure you remain on track and is clearly aligned to addressing specific business needs.
2. Experiment, experiment, experiment: We have seen through the Standard Chartered examples the power of prototypes and experiments in enabling the shift in mindset, skill set, and toolset. Experiments are critical for testing and applying the design principles underpinning the skills-powered organization before they are deployed across the organization
3. Focus on the key enablers of success: Too often organizations believe the answer to any problem is to throw technology at the problem. We define 8 critical enablers for this journey (including AI and technology):

•  Leadership (where every change journey starts)
•  Governance
• Employee engagement in the journey
• Culture and change management
• The HR function and its role
• Functional processes, such as finance, IT, and legal
• Technology and AI
• Foundational enablers (e.g., skills taxonomy and data)

Thanks, Ravin!