Attending properly to skills means attending to how work gets done. This means not just accepting truisms or convention, but actually paying attention to causal relationships. Building any kind of skills system then, takes real effort and resources. It is complex, political, and it will shift power in an organisation. This can be uncomfortable and will be contested.
Some organisational leaders may be feeling pressure to implement skills-based decision making, but may not want to expend the resources or political capital required to do it properly. Instead they go with skills theatre. This means looking like you are implementing a skills approach, but not doing the actual work so there is no real change or disruption.
Here are five ways you know your organisation is performing skills theatre:
Skills terms are vague and lack any depth or detailed definitions (keywords as skills)
Skills are lifted from external libraries without real consideration of whether or how they drive outcomes in the organisational context
Skills can’t be consistently or reliably measured/assessed, or used predictively
Skills systems are stand-alone or don’t integrate fully into key decision-making functions (talent acquisition, performance, promotion, workforce planning, operational planning, workflow)
Skills are used in Learning and Development systems, but not in decision making (see point four)
A skills technology platform is selected ahead of an actual skills strategy being developed
I should make it clear that I am not against skills theatre per se. I think we all know that a lot of theatre happens in organisations, and sometimes the appearance of doing something is exactly what is required.
My suggestion though, is that in situations where a whole-of-organisations skills agenda is actually too much to swallow…rather than performing skills theatre, consider looking for the burning platform where people are hungry for alternative approaches and political capital is not required to experiment with a true skills-based approach.
You may be able to have your skills lunch and eat it too!