What does competence look like when the work is changing
Amy explained how to find a path forward (sensemaking anyone) to design work when we don’t know what it looks like (hint: you can’t do this alone OR in a silo).
I have been ponding a different angle of this same question. How do we build capability for work we don’t understand.
I started my HCM journey at Saba Software (now part of Cornerstone) an early innovator in the world of Learning and Development (L&D) back when eLearning was a new thing, Josh Bersin was about to launch his first eponymous company and the dot-com bubble was expanding (and ultimately bursting), simpler times…
I think it is because my early HCM customers were L&D focused and because I am wired to maximize potential this function has always been important to me.
In the 25 years (wait.., what?!) since I started with Saba, the skills conversation had the same talking points, (the skill shelf life is shrinking), always true, but somehow always worse than we expected.
Today, we have officially reached peak skill gap (yay??) where everyone recognizes this problem is impossible to solve and we have no choice but to hope someone else figures it out.
Of course, there are still great companies doing great things in the world of L&D (both vendors and practitioners) but the belief that your L&D group will be able to equip your workforce to meet the emerging AI moment is [rightly] over.
Unlike the Recruiting teams, who lean into the waves of change, often with more confidence than wisdom, Learning groups and skills initiatives have gone mostly quiet, keeping their heads down and their hands engaged on the more durable needs (can I get a hallelujah for compliance training).
Back in June, I made the recommendation, L&D should to focus on creating content about organizational context and business model clarity. I stand by that recommendation. Workers informed on the first principles of the business, will be better equipped to identify and contribute to the future needs whatever happens next.
But recently, I have had a few conversations that have expanded my thinking and created a few new convergences. Finally got a moment to get this put together - yay for accountability partners.
The Broken Rung
A burning question for many today is how do we build a career maps when we don’t know what work looks like in the future and how do we develop early talent if agents take away all the entry level work.
This has some parallel to Amy’s post about the future of Product Management. The reality is that we all need to expand our thinking and unlearn some things, to find the path forward.
The reality is that it’s not just a early talent, broken rung problem - it’s a work problem.
How to do we train for an unknown future?
In June, I had a lovely catch up with Usman who always amazes me with his systems and framework thinking. We covered several topics, but I was captivated by his framing of the role of people leadership (HR) as talent builders.
I loved this, as it gave me a sense that there is a new opportunity for L&D to expand their value in this liminal space for work.
He pointed me to some great source material for how professional services teams are leaning into simulations to fill the gap that used to be managed by junior staffing on client engagements. At the time I made a mental note and then set it aside.
Side note: He also mentioned one of his portfolio companies Centaurian AI who has a cool assessment on how you can use AI to amplify your unique cognitive strengths1 .
From capabilities to systems integration
Then in early September, Gautam posted a similar story but with a deeper HR systems/organization lens - bringing in KM, L&D, coaching and role design to a shared context.
This crystalized for me the reality, that HR roles are converging like what we are seeing for Design + Product Management + Engineering [Builders] and Sales + Marketing + Customer Success [Not yet named AFAIK].
This is interesting and important, and aligns with my belief that organization design is the real gap. Aligning operating models to the future will be very hard without organization clarity (Amy and I have a hot take coming soon on Conway’s law).
Skill building is about practice
Gautam’s share had this nugget in it as well
“We’ve got to give people the experiences in a simulated way quickly,” says Josh Bronstein, the bank’s head of global talent, “so that they have the judgment that they otherwise would have gained by doing some of those tasks in their first year or two, that now, or soon, AI or other technology can do.
This aligns with my own belief that skill building requires practice more than instruction or study. The L&D function is not designed to focus on task assignments or function specific skills/practice. That has traditionally been the role of the line manager3.
These new simulation frameworks are creating better ways and systems to practice. All goodness, and I expect we will see more of this as we progress.
What work remains with humans anyway?
This is another vector many are pondering - what are humans best equipped to do and how does that change work?
In early September Vijay asked me to review his next book.2 I’m excited for that to be out in the world soon (in the meantime you should buy his book Migrating Scarcity), it got me thinking deeply on another vector4, how work will change.
Not just enablement and role shifts but the actual tasks. This is what we mean when we talk about workflows changing. When AI takes the “repetitive and well structured” work and humans work on things that are about “judgement and taste”, you can see a few byproducts that we need to think about now to avoid ending up in a place we deeply regret (and I’m not talking about AI end times).
I’m pondering how we prevent work #enshittification.
Where are the new risks for human work?
We can envision future human work including tasks that are:
High risk — jobs that increase failure and blame, while reducing praise
Contain less human interaction - ok this one isn’t all bad…
More context switching - your nervous system will recognize you are the bottleneck
More ambiguity - Not something most are trained to handle effectively
and that suggests that both skill development and leadership need to evolve to support humans diffferently.
The L&D opportunity
So my big idea for the CPO/CHRO leadership is
Design your HR Org model to migrate your L&D and Talent groups and create a talent builder function (take the bold step to expand the mission to address the future needs not the past organization or technology boundary conditions).
Educate every part of the organization on the business (mission, strategy and financials).
Build data and numeracy skills inside this group so that they have the tools and capabilities to see emerging bottlenecks and opportunities.
Role model cultural values of organizational agility and navigating ambiguity.
Build your cross functional teams to redesign work. - not just HR work - all work.
Identify and build experiences to develop talent (simulations, apprenticeships, mission teams, all the things at all the levels, not just early talent but sure, start there).
Elevate collective wisdom and shared accountability.
Recognize that this work will be ongoing, as every function is adapting, evolving and changing.
Your job is not to have all the answers, but to build the culture that will #InventTheFuture for your company. A future that doesn’t lean on organizational silos or soul crushing work, but that builds the components to maximize human potential and creates the opportunity for humans to thrive.
Lots to do, but I believe in us.
1 Super interesting, not completely aligned with the results but I can see how they are adjacent (specifically the social cooperation is less about wanting cohesion and more about my pro-social life mission and the fraud fear is less about imposter syndrome and more about the fatigue I have felt in my life being underestimated…but I digress).
2 I seem to be building a side line gig of book reviewer, and I’m coming to learn that my review process is a smidge more rigorous than most (who knew?!)
3 Yes, that same line manager who is getting more direct reports as organizations are being flattened in favor of agents.
4 Or should I say fractal [grin] - Really so many of my thoughts are fractals thus the need to write about convergences…
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** Typos and poor grammar either because I'm too lazy to edit properly, or to make you feel confident this was written by a flawed human and not AI generated.
