323: Uncovering your True Capabilities

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:10]:

How do you know what your team is actually capable of? That’s a question I think a lot of people are trying to answer these days. I’ve attended lots of sessions recently, all about this idea of a skills-first workplace. And it’s something I cover in the Thriving Talent book as well. This is the Happier at Work podcast. I’m your host, Aoife O’Brien, and today we’re exploring this concept of how to know what your team is truly capable of. Oftentimes when we perceive that there’s some sort of a gap in the team or that we don’t have the necessary skills or capabilities, we look externally. So we feel like we need to bring someone else into the business in order to cover that gap. But what if the skill or the capability already exists within the organization, but you just don’t have visibility of it? And even beyond that, what are the reasons that you don’t have visibility? What are the reasons that you can’t see it or can’t access the capability that you have? And for me, I think this question is quite personal because if I think of my most recent corporate role, It’s one where, yeah, I did a good job, but when I am working, I want to do a really excellent job.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:29]:

And I did deliberately choose a role that brought me onto the senior leadership team, which was great, but it was doing something that didn’t really fully capitalize on the capabilities that I knew I had. And so when I started the role, I sort of felt like I could be doing so much more to be able to progress my career, to be able to do the fantastic job that I know I’m really capable of. Now, this had a direct impact on me and my confidence in my abilities, but also in what my boss saw in me, or rather didn’t see in me. Another definitely not scientific poll, but something I asked on LinkedIn a few years ago, which, I mean, the results even surprised me. So I asked, do you feel like you’re reaching your full potential at work? And 86%, there were around 200-something respondents, but 86% said no. And so this burning question is, if so many people feel like they’re not fulfilling their potential at work, and on the other side, we have organizations that are trying to fill roles, that are trying to understand the kind of skills and capabilities they have within their organizations, there’s something missing. There’s something not quite right going on here, especially in the age of AI. So especially when it comes to AI and how we’re using AI at work, and don’t get me started on how we’re trying to kind of backfill and mold AI into what we’re currently doing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:10]:

Like for me, we should be totally rethinking how we approach work from the ground up. That’s a story for another day. I want you to shift your thinking around what people are capable of because I think we often assume that what people are capable of is what they’re currently demonstrating in the role that they have. And as I shared in the example, my own personal example, I didn’t feel like I could fully demonstrate because I was within the limitations of the role that I was doing. And so there could be lots of different reasons that you’re not seeing someone’s capabilities as they really are. Are they doing something outside of work maybe that requires the capabilities that you are looking for within the business? Is someone being repeatedly overlooked or is there a consideration that they’re not ready? Is there genuinely a capability gap there or is it confidence? Or is it that there are no opportunities for someone to show what they’re really capable of? Is it the perception of the manager? Maybe they have some sort of a perception that this person is not really that good at the role, and maybe they’re right to say that, but also maybe they are not in the right role to really show their full capabilities. Have you created psychological safety so that someone feels that it’s okay, that there won’t be any repercussions if they speak up and say that they’re not particularly enjoying the role or that they don’t feel like they’re working to their full capabilities or their full potential? Is there an opportunity to actually share that kind of information? What if the work they’re doing doesn’t actually play to their strengths, as was the case in, in my situation? And I think from a leader’s perspective, it’s about shifting that perception that if you haven’t seen it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not there. I want you to think of a couple of different things.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:09]:

So on the one hand, we have capabilities, and I deliberately don’t use the term skills because I think skills is very isolated. It’s very kind of task-driven. I much prefer to use the term capabilities, and I see more and more people are starting to use this terminology. It’s what I named an entire section of the Thriving Talent book. So if you haven’t checked that out, definitely go and check it out, thrivingtalentbook.com for more information. But capability is about our strengths. It’s about the skills that we have. It’s about the knowledge, the experience, but also the confidence that we bring to the work that we do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:47]:

The conditions then, that is the environment that we find ourselves in. And when we can create the conditions for people to thrive, then naturally what they’re good at will come out from working in those conditions. When I talk about conditions, I talk about psychological safety, and that really means, does someone feel safe to speak up without fear of repercussions? And in this specific case, it’s about sharing what’s working, what’s not working, making suggestions without fear of retaliation. It’s also thinking about leadership. Are leaders able to spot the talent that they have in front of them? Do they give people the benefit of the doubt? Do they nurture that talent? Do they tell people when they’re succeeding and what they should do more of? But it’s also thinking about the opportunities that we create for people, whether that’s through mentoring, sponsorship, but also real job opportunities. Are there opportunities to stretch, to get involved in different projects? Is there an opportunity for someone to try something that maybe they’ve never tried before, but they think they have an inkling that they might be quite good at it. We also need to make sure that we’re satisfying people’s needs at work. Now, if this sounds familiar, this is— all of the conditions are related to the Thriving Talent Framework.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:12]:

And the needs that we need to make sure are satisfied at work are the need for autonomy. And it’s finding that balance. So are you giving someone enough guidance and also enough freedom to get the job done in the way that They like to do it. Are you giving them the clarity? Are you giving them opportunities for growth? Are you truly understanding what they need and what really motivates them to get out of bed in the morning and to do a fantastic job? Confidence is the kind of thing that sits between these 2 things. So on the one hand, you have the capabilities, and on the other hand, you have the conditions. If you have confidence, then you are willing and able to show up with those capabilities. in that environment that you’re in. So what you might ask instead of just labeling someone as they’re just not capable or they’re, they just can’t do the job, how about thinking about the conditions that you’ve created for them to be able to do their best work? For example, what if there’s someone who’s really brilliant at the day-to-day role, but they don’t actually ever speak up in meetings? That could be a psychological safety issue that they don’t feel safe speaking up, sharing their opinion because they fear, and maybe rightly or wrongly so, but they have a fear that if they speak up, there’s gonna be some negative consequences.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:31]:

How about the person who seems on paper ready for the next role, but they’re not willing to put themselves forward for that next opportunity? It could be a crisis of confidence. Maybe they need to receive feedback that what they’re doing is really working well for them. And making suggestions about these are potential opportunities that are in your future. How about the manager who’s the bottleneck? They’re the ones who are doing everything for the team. Is that really because the team is ineffective, or is it because the manager hasn’t created the conditions for the team to excel? They want to retain the control. As I mentioned earlier, you know, this is not an episode about AI, but It becomes much more important because we have AI, because AI can take some of those capabilities that we have. It can do things, but as humans, we need to know what we are uniquely capable of doing and be able to work alongside the AI as well. But the problem here is that we can’t legitimately think about the future capability and what we’re going to need in the future until we’ve properly mapped out what capability we currently have.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:45]:

Including the capability of AI. There’s a huge risk here of making talent decisions that are based on outdated information like job descriptions or the manager’s perception of someone, or who is the most visible or the most vocal or the most confident person on the team. So now I want to turn to you. Think about one person on your team, and you might feel a little bit uncomfortable about this. But I want you to picture this one person and I want you to think, what evidence am I using to judge what they’re capable of? Have I actually given them an opportunity to demonstrate more? Are they doing work that uses their strengths? Do they have enough clarity and autonomy? Is it safe to stretch, experiment, challenge, or fail? Or could confidence be masking their true capability? And what if what I’m seeing is partly a reflection of the conditions that I’ve created? So how do you know what your team is really capable of? If the answer is mostly to look at their current performance, look at what their manager says, look at their CV, look at their job title, or look how confidently they show up at work, then you probably don’t know what their full capability is. What are some other ways you can uncover what someone is really capable of? I think for me, You can do it at scale, but what if as a leader you have an honest conversation about where someone feels energized through the work that they do, where they’re feeling frustrated at work, where they feel they can add more value, get involved in projects. There are so many tools you can use online to, to help you to understand what someone’s strengths are and have a conversation about those things. Are they being deployed in the right way? This is something selfishly that I’m learning a lot more about myself because of the experiences that I’ve had at work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:42]:

And I want to make sure that I’m spending time on things that I am uniquely capable of doing, outsourcing things that I’m not uniquely capable of doing, and using AI and automations to help me with the rest and to speed up some of those processes. Not for the purpose of taking on more work, but really to speed up the processes I already have and to save time and to give me back more thinking time. This is the kind of work I’m increasingly being invited into organizations to do. So talking about capabilities, what capabilities will we need? How do we identify what those true capabilities actually are? How do you help individuals to articulate in a shared language what capabilities they actually have, and how do we document all of this stuff so that we can use it to make better decisions at work? I’d love to hear from you. What is one thing that you took away from today’s episode? Hopefully I’ve challenged you to think a little bit differently about capabilities and what capabilities we might need for the future. I would love to hear from you. As always, get in touch on podcast@happieratwork.ie.