I’ve had lots of conversations lately with leaders about the capabilities their businesses will need in the future. And several have since told me that the conversation changed the profile of the person they ended up hiring and what they’ve been rewarding.
At the same time, recruiters are beginning to ask candidates questions such as, “How are you using AI?” and “Tell me about a time AI improved your work.”
These questions are still relatively new but they are early signals of a broader change.
Because our definition of professional value is shifting.
I’ve written previously about how technical expertise increasingly provides the foundation, while human capability shapes the value we create from it. But if the capabilities that create value are changing, are we changing what we look for and value in our people?
The Baseline is Moving
Technical expertise remains foundational. We still need people who understand their field, can apply their knowledge and can be trusted to do the work well.
In many professions however, technical expertise increasingly gets someone into the game rather than setting them apart.
AI fluency is beginning to move in the same direction. Knowing how to work with AI responsibly and effectively is increasingly becoming an expected professional capability (just like using the internet or sending an email), rather than something that distinguishes a small group of early adopters.
So, what sets someone apart when several candidates have relevant qualifications, sound experience and the ability to work with AI?
Increasingly, it’s how they apply those foundations… Can they exercise judgement when the answer is unclear? Build trusted relationships? Stay curious? Communicate complexity simply? Adapt when circumstances change? Create new possibilities and help others perform?
These capabilities aren’t separate from professional expertise but are how expertise becomes useful in more complex roles and changing environments.
The Promotion Paradox
Let’s not forget that there’s a bit of a familiar tension in how organisations have recognised professional success in the past…
You might know it — people are often promoted because they’re exceptional at the work that they’re potentially about to spend less time doing. We see it often. An excellent accountant becomes a partner, the best salesperson becomes the team leader, and a respected academic becomes Head of School.
Now of course, their expertise won’t stop mattering. It gives them credibility, context and a deep understanding of the work. But their new role will ask them to create value differently. They must lead, exercise judgement, influence decisions, build relationships and empower others to perform.
And for some this will be more than a development gap, it may require some unlearning too.
Because for decades, many workplaces have rewarded technical expertise, efficiency, consistency, process, output and having the answer. Over time, those qualities haven’t just shaped how people work; they’ve shaped how people see themselves and what it means to be great at their job.
For an experienced professional, expertise can be deeply connected to their confidence, reputation and identity. The person who has built their career by having the answer may now create greater value by asking better questions. The leader who was rewarded for solving problems may need to become someone who enables others to solve them.
That’s why this shift requires more than learning a few new skills. It might require us to let go of some of the behaviours that made us successful in the past and make a deliberate choice about how we create value in the future.
So perhaps the question needs to move beyond “What do I need to do differently?” towards “Who do I need to become?”
Organisations need to recognise the scale of that transition, rather than treating it as a simple change in behaviour.
Are We Hiring the Capability We Need?
This brings me back to the leaders who changed the profile of the person they wanted to hire.
Consider a financial advice business. Does the next hire automatically need another background in finance or economics? Or might someone with experience in psychology, behavioural science or a less conventional career pathway add something the team doesn’t currently have?
Technical expertise remains part of the equation, but the strategic question is what capability already exists across the organisation and what is missing.
‘Role fit’ considers whether someone can perform the work required today. ‘Capability add’ asks what they could help the organisation do tomorrow.
Hiring differently, however, will have limited impact if the rest of the organisation continues to reward an earlier definition of value.
Organisations reveal what they value through what they hire, develop, promote and reward. And that value is visible in job descriptions, capability frameworks, development investment, performance measures and promotion decisions.
An organisation might say that judgement, relationships and adaptability matter. But if most investment and advancement still favour technical output, people receive a different message. If promotion panels reward billable output, technical quality and individual delivery but do not assess coaching, collaboration or decision-making under uncertainty, the organisation is still signalling that these capabilities are secondary…
The issue isn’t simply whether human capabilities appear in a framework. It’s whether people have opportunities to practise them, receive useful feedback and importantly, see them recognised in the decisions that matter.
Because if you treasure them, you measure them.
So, what gets someone hired in your organisation?
Which capabilities receive the greatest development investment?
And are those choices building the capability you’ll need next, or reinforcing what created success in the past?
The skills shift isn’t only asking people to develop new capabilities, it’s asking organisations to reconsider what capability they value in the first place.
