Skills are the way we intentionally channel our human energy
By Gregory Ronczewski, Director of Product Design at Ibbaka. See his skill profile.
When our son was born, we sent out an announcement to family and friends that read, "our new designer has arrived... operating manual was not included." I am sure many new parents can relate to this. Still, that was part of the experience - breathtaking, with or without the manual. Today, Steven Forth (here is the link to his skill profile on the Ibbaka Talio platform) forwarded a newsletter with an intriguing title: Next, What Are Your Skills? and a subtitle that read You probably don't have a "user manual of you." But you should. Sounds familiar. I mean the manual portion, right?
From the beginning of my relationship with the Ibbaka Talio platform (previously known as TeamFit), the idea of skill, what it is, and how to measure it, quantify or display it, has been front and central to my contribution. After all, Ibbaka Talio is a skill management platform. Actually, it is far more than that, but let's focus on skills for the moment.
Thinking about Talio, I have always imagined an archeological dig, where one can observe layer after layer the centuries-old deposits accumulated to form a timeline visualized in a cross-section, clearly showing changes. On close examination, a skilful archeologist can deduct all the details related to a specific area, time, level of craftsmanship, the use of materials, technology and many other variables that make the deposit so rich in information.
Can we do the same with skills? Of course, without the need to perform an autopsy. What should we expect to uncover in an exploration of skills? And the last question - archeology is about the past, but with skills, the genuine interest is in the "now state" and, even more, about the future.
For me, the biggest question has been, what exactly is a skill? Gary A. Bolles has declared, "...they (skills) are the way we intentionally channel our human energy." I like this a lot, but it is still pretty abstract. And let's not forget the other culprits - knowledge and talent. They tend to ride together. I found an old post from 2018 - It's time to find your talent, with a lovely pork roast placed at the top. I started this post with a quote from Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton's book Now, Discover Your Strength. : "Skills determine if you can do something, whereas talents reveal something more important: how well and how often you do it." The authors take us on a fascinating journey visiting three domains: talent, knowledge and skills. That's right - talent, knowledge and skills—our famous trio.
Talent
Let's start with talent - Merriam-Webster defines talent as
a special, often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude
general intelligence or mental power (or ability)
the natural endowments of a person
Sooner or later, everyone discovers what they are good at, which comes naturally, is effortless, and simultaneously provides a lot of satisfaction. However, how can we measure talent? Can we measure it at all? There are so-called "talent scans," and while HR professionals often claim they have a holistic understanding of talent, in reality, talent can't be fully measured. Talent scans measure: abilities, motivation, personality, competencies, motives and interests, and intelligence, to name just a few variables. The Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT) is the most used model for measuring talent. It looks at mental, physical, or social capabilities and performance which can be influenced by "the intra-personal, non-cognitive traits and environmental factors." Interestingly, in the DMGT model, Natural Abilities are separately listed from Talents, which are skills systematically developed from natural abilities or gifts. Also, it seems that performance can't be measured at all. I guess it is too subjective.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a little bit simpler to measure. According to a dictionary, knowledge is "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject." Interestingly, we have "skills" listed as one of the attributes in the same way Talents list "skills" further developed from gifts.
Merriam-Webster defines knowledge as
the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association
acquaintance with or understanding of science, art, or technique
the fact or condition of being aware of something
the range of one's information or understanding
the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning
the fact or condition of knowing or of being learned
the sum of what is known: the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind
Skills
Finally, let's look at skill - Merriam-Webster defines skill as
the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance
dexterity or coordination, especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability
How do talent, knowledge and skills work together?
I am already lost. Although a skill seems to exist as an independent entity, it is also used to define other personal traits. What is it, then? A measuring unit? An abstract container holding many other abstract concepts? Or is it a qualifier - Project Management and Project Management Skill?
We can dissect skill this way or the other, but there is nothing to examine without a list of skills, categorized or not. Whether for an individual, a team or a company, the list of existing and potential skills—potential, because skills are connected, they form packs, so finding one uncovers the other—is critical. The Ibbaka Talio platform is a perfect place to start collecting and organizing your skills. With suggestions from the platform or your peers, your skill map, which is the visual representation of your skills, will be ready almost instantly. Of course, it doesn't answer the question "what is a skill and how one can measure it," but without the inventory, there is nothing to name or to measure.
The takeaway from all the above - at least for me, the skill description as "the way we intentionally channel our human energy" is quite compelling. So I will continue to channel mine toward writing skills. Let's see where it will get me.
