Back in June 2022, I wrote about a definition of capability that I’ve used for years.

Capability = Capacity + Ability

Where capacity is the space to perform and ability is the skill to perform.

My argument then was that developing people’s skills wasn’t enough. The environment they work in, the relationships they depend on and the demands placed on them all change. If we want capability to be sustainable, we need to pay attention to those things too.

Four years later, I think the premise is still valid, but the context has changed considerably. AI is changing how work gets done, the skills people need and how much they might need to learn in the first place.

I recently read an article by Sandra Mohr about workforce capacity, which took me back to that 2022 post. It made me wonder how my thinking has changed in four years, particularly around the relationship between capacity, ability and performance.

And whether the way we think about sustainable capability also needs to change.

Something I need to spend more time chewing over.