For the past few years, employee development has seen a significant rise or focus unique to skills, skilling, and modernizing companies into a Skills-Based Organization, or SBO. The goal is to advance new methods to identify gaps in knowledge and ability, new approaches to fill skills gaps, and sustain at-scale programs to ensure gaps are addressed with some level of predictability.

 There is, however, a proportional dilemma. Developing skills is certainly a non-negotiable. This is mandatory to stay competitive and healthy and protect or future-proof individuals and enterprises. The dilemma regards an internal over-reliance on a skills-first mindset as a somewhat dominant charter. This is often fueled by external vendor influence, industry analysts, and, in some cases, propaganda or fear not to miss the skills boat.

What’s missing is acknowledging the proportional value of tasks, quantifiable tasks with the complementary value of skills, and qualified skills.