Skills are Not the Destination.

They’re just raw material

Accenture’s latest study on GenAI adoption makes it clear that companies that move toward a skills-based talent strategy are better positioned to capture value. The compelling data indicates that skills matter because they enable redeployment, agility, and a faster uptake of new technologies.

But there’s a limit. Traditional job structures, and even many skills frameworks, frame work in ways that are increasingly abstracted from actual value creation. They lock people into activities that maintain the machinery of the organisation rather than contributing directly to the flows that generate revenue, margin, or customer impact. That’s why so many employees feel they’re working hard yet moving the needle only marginally. It’s also why leaders often see limited business return from re-skilling programs: the system hasn’t changed, just the individual inputs.

A more powerful move is to start with value-stream outcomes. When you redesign the system around how value actually flows, skills, roles, and technologies become aligned to outcomes rather than managed in isolation. This is where talent strategy becomes business strategy, producing speed, resilience, and growth that a skills inventory alone can never deliver.

Skills are ingredients. Value streams are the recipe. Only when you connect the two does talent strategy create competitive advantage.

Food for thought: Can you show how your most critical skills directly map to the value streams that drive your P&L? If not, you’re still organising around people, not outcomes.