Olivia: I came across a statistic that honestly kept me up last night. A report from the Burning Glass Institute found that 37% of the average job's skills have been replaced in just the last five years. Jackson: Hold on. Thirty-seven percent? That means over a third of what made someone qualified for their job back in 2019 is already obsolete. That’s… terrifying. My skills have an expiration date, and it’s coming up fast. Olivia: It feels that way, doesn't it? It’s like we're all in a race against obsolescence. And that's exactly why we're diving into the book The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to the Next-Generation Enterprise today. Jackson: A very timely title. Olivia: It is. And it's written by a fascinating duo: Ravin Jesuthasan, a leading futurist on work, and Tanuj Kapilashrami, who was the Chief People Officer at Standard Chartered Bank. So you get this perfect blend of high-level theory and boots-on-the-ground reality from someone who actually implemented these ideas at a massive global company. Jackson: Okay, I like that. A futurist and a practitioner. So, if my skills are expiring and my job is changing, what's actually breaking the old system?

Olivia: The book argues that the very concept of a "job" as a fixed box of tasks is the thing that's breaking. That model worked for the industrial era, for over 140 years, when things were predictable. But now, with AI, automation, and the sheer speed of change, a static job description is like a photograph of a river. It's outdated the second you take it. Jackson: That makes sense. Your job title might stay the same, but the actual work you do from month to month is completely different. Olivia: Precisely. The authors say we need to shift our thinking. The new currency of work isn't your job title or your years of experience. It's your skills. Jackson: But companies have been built on jobs for over a century. Is this really happening, or is it just a Silicon Valley trend that sounds good in a TED talk? Olivia: That’s the perfect question, and the book gives a powerful, real-world answer: IBM. In the mid-2010s, their CEO, Ginni Rometty, saw a massive skills gap in tech. There were hundreds of thousands of open jobs, but the talent pipeline was stuck on one thing: a four-year college degree. Jackson: The classic barrier to entry. Olivia: Exactly. So Rometty championed what she called "new collar jobs." These were roles that didn't require a traditional degree. Instead, they required specific, demonstrable skills. IBM started partnering with community colleges and vocational schools. They fundamentally changed their hiring. Jackson: Wow. So they just… stopped asking for degrees? Olivia: For a huge number of roles, yes. By 2017, over half of their positions in the US no longer required a four-year degree. Rometty famously said, "What matters most is that these employees... have relevant skills." They hired thousands of people with unconventional backgrounds, focusing on what they could do, not where they went to school. Jackson: So, my degree matters less than my ability to, say, learn a new AI tool? That's a huge mindset shift. Olivia: It is. And it's incredibly democratizing. The book talks about a group called "STARs"—Skilled Through Alternative Routes. These are the 71 million workers in the US who have valuable skills but no college degree. A skills-first approach opens the door for them. It’s a move away from pedigree and towards capability. Jackson: I can see how that would be a game-changer for individuals. But for a company, tearing down a system built on jobs sounds like chaos. How do you even begin to structure an organization around something as fluid as skills?

Olivia: You’re right, it can’t be chaos. And that’s where the book’s central framework comes in. It lays out an evolutionary path with three models for organizing work. Jackson: Okay, lay them on me. But please, no corporate jargon. Olivia: I'll do my best. Think of it as a journey. First, you have the Fixed model. That's the traditional world we all know. Hierarchies, job descriptions, career ladders. It’s built for stability and efficiency, like a classic factory assembly line. Jackson: Got it. My box, your box, everyone stays in their box. Olivia: Exactly. Then comes the Flexible model. This is a hybrid. The hierarchy still exists, but talent can be deployed more dynamically to projects. It’s a bit more agile, designed to handle some uncertainty. Many companies are here now, trying to be more "agile" within their old structures. Jackson: That sounds familiar. Lots of "cross-functional teams" and "special projects." Olivia: You nailed it. But the real destination, the truly skills-powered model, is what the authors call Flow. In a Flow model, there are no fixed jobs. There is just work to be done—projects, gigs, assignments—and a pool of talent with skills. The system fluidly matches the right skills to the right work, moment by moment. Jackson: That sounds… abstract. It’s hard to picture. It’s kind of like having a team of superheroes in the Avengers. You don't assign them a 'job,' you just call on whoever has the right superpower—super strength, flying, whatever—for the specific mission at hand. Olivia: That is a perfect analogy! And to make it even more concrete, the book gives this incredible case study of a global insurance company. They had data scientists scattered across different departments, often underutilized or stuck in bureaucratic silos. Jackson: The classic big-company problem. Olivia: Right. So they took a radical step. They pulled all their data scientists out of their departments and put them into one global talent pool. They deconstructed all the data science work into projects and posted them on an internal talent marketplace, powered by an AI. Jackson: So the AI was the matchmaker? Olivia: Precisely. The AI would analyze the skills needed for a project and match it with the data scientists who had those skills, plus their interest and availability. No more managers hoarding talent. No more brilliant people sitting around waiting for the next assignment. The result? Jackson: I’m on the edge of my seat. Olivia: A 600 percent gain in productivity. Jackson: Six hundred percent?! How is that even possible? That's not just an improvement, that's a complete game-changer. It sounds like magic. Olivia: It’s not magic, it’s just radical efficiency. The book breaks it down. First, downtime was virtually eliminated. Second, engagement skyrocketed because people were working on projects that perfectly matched their skills and interests. And third, they could deploy talent to critical projects at lightning speed. They moved from a rigid structure to a fluid one, and it unlocked a massive amount of value. Jackson: Okay, that story sells it. But it also raises a huge question. This 'Flow' model sounds amazing, but it also sounds incredibly complex to manage. Who orchestrates all this? Does my manager just become an algorithm?

Olivia: That’s the million-dollar question, and it leads to the final piece of the puzzle: the role of AI and a new type of leadership. The book is clear: AI isn't the manager, it's the enabler. It's the sophisticated matchmaker that connects the supply of skills with the demand for work. Jackson: So it’s more like a super-intelligent guidance counselor than a boss. Olivia: Exactly. And this is where the experience of the co-author, Tanuj Kapilashrami, at Standard Chartered Bank becomes so powerful. They built their own internal talent marketplace. The book shares a great little story about it. A team in Singapore needed to analyze customer feedback, a manual, time-consuming task. They posted it as a "gig" on the marketplace. Jackson: Like an internal Upwork or Fiverr. Olivia: Precisely. The AI found an employee on the supply chain team in Chennai, India, who had skills in programming and data visualization. He saw the gig, signed up, and built a tool that automated the process. What used to take three hours now took fifteen minutes. Jackson: Wow. And that connection would never have happened in a traditional, siloed company. The guy in Chennai would have been stuck in his supply chain box. Olivia: Never. And this changes the role of the manager entirely. At Standard Chartered, they're moving away from the term "manager" and now call them "people leaders." Their job is no longer to delegate tasks from a fixed job description. Their new job is to coach their team members, help them identify and build valuable skills, and encourage them to take on these gigs to grow. Jackson: So my boss's job is less about telling me what to do, and more about helping me build the skills to get matched to interesting work by the AI? That's a completely different relationship. Olivia: It's a fundamental shift from a commander to a coach. The leader's goal is to make their people more valuable to the entire organization, not just to their own team. It requires letting go of control and embracing a mindset of talent sharing.

Olivia: When you put all the pieces together—the breakdown of jobs, the new models of work, and the role of AI and leadership—you see a complete reinvention of the enterprise. It's a fundamental shift from buying a person for a job, to renting their specific skills for a task. Jackson: That’s a powerful way to put it. It feels like this isn't just about efficiency; it's about unlocking human potential that's been trapped inside rigid job descriptions for a century. Olivia: That’s the heart of it. The book argues that this is a more human-centric way of working. It allows people to contribute in ways that are more aligned with their true talents and passions. Jackson: So the big takeaway for me, as a listener, is that I need to stop thinking of myself as my job title and start thinking of myself as a portfolio of skills. I need to do a personal skills audit, right now. Olivia: Exactly. The book gives some great advice for individuals on how to thrive in this new world. It suggests starting with a simple personal skills audit. Just list 20-30 things you're good at, from technical skills like 'data analysis' or 'coding in Python,' to human skills like 'persuasion,' 'storytelling,' or 'problem-solving.' That list is your new resume. Jackson: I love that. It’s so practical. I'm genuinely curious what skills our listeners would put on their list. Share one or two of your top skills with us on our social channels. Let's see what the Aibrary community is made of. Olivia: That’s a great idea. It’s a powerful exercise. And it’s the first step to navigating this new world of work. This is Aibrary, signing off.