'Skills' still = 'Topics'

"What you see depends on what you thought before you looked."

Myron Tribus

Many organisations are running towards the 'Skills' gold rush. In reality these 'Skills' are still just a list of topics.

This is inevitable as the L&D status quo is built around providing non contextual resources and courses which are managed as a separate entity to people's 'real' work. (The status quo persists because it still suits all parties).

The missed opportunity when aligning around 'Skills' is to break these into tasks - what people will do better - when they can apply the 'Skill' in practice.

This opens the opportunity for the L&D team to refocus on enabling people to develop task competence that can improve their performance in context.

This approach also bridges the 'too busy working to go and learn!' stand off - as the shared focus (for L&D, managers, team members) is only on what's required to perform in the team members' role.

There's a second, arguably bigger challenge though: 

Enabling the reset of the line manager role required to align to a skills based model. There are four (mostly new?) expectations for every line manager in this system:

1. Create and reward time for colleagues to practice the tasks and processes that builds the skill(s)

2. Create time for ongoing, two-way feedback on progress and learning

3. Create time for regular reflection and safe conversation

4. Reset the expectation of performance - as task competence develops (e.g. new goals).