Rethinking the Skills Conversation: Gaps, Drift, and Reconfiguration:

Urgent. Widening. Soft Skills. AI. Shortage.
Headlines about the “skills gap” hit our feeds daily—sometimes hourly. But in many cases, the term gap is misleading. It suggests something static and solvable: a single missing piece, a hole to be filled, a checklist item for HR.

Reality is more complex.

When a company struggles with efficiency, innovation, or adaptability, the issue isn’t just a missing skill—it’s often that capabilities are falling behind the pace of change. And even when one “gap” is addressed, the landscape has already shifted again.

That’s why we use the term capability drift.

From Gaps to Drift

“Drift” acknowledges that the workforce isn’t simply missing something—they’re moving out of alignment with evolving market conditions. Drift accounts for:

• the accelerating velocity of change

• the compounding effect of small misalignments

• the reality that realignment may require cultural as well as behavioral shifts

A capability drift isn’t solved with a quick course or a new hire. It’s a broader, systemic phenomenon that needs a more adaptive response.

From Unlearning to Reconfiguration

At a recent event, I heard a talent leader talk about AI adoption in terms of learning, unlearning, and relearning. It’s a popular phrase—but something about it didn’t sit right with me.

Here’s why: Unlearning implies erasure. It asks people to discard hard-won expertise—skills they’ve honed, that define their professional identity, and that they’re rightly proud of.

That’s not how change works for most people. And more importantly, it’s not how you motivate them.

Instead, I’d offer the concept of reconfiguration.

Reconfiguration means adapting existing strengths, not abandoning them. It frames transformation as:

• Evolution, not elimination.

• Integration, not rejection.

• A path forward, not a judgment of the past.

If your instinct is, “Well, they have to adapt or they won’t have a job,” you’re technically right—but strategically wrong. That mindset breeds resistance. Reconfiguration, on the other hand, invites people to come along for the journey—to reshape what they know to meet what the future demands.

Velocity Matters

Drift and reconfiguration may sound like semantics, but they reflect a critical truth:

The market has a velocity. So does your organization's capability.
When those two get out of sync, drift accelerates. But when you treat reconfiguration as a strategic discipline, you can harness your existing strengths—and your people’s motivation—to accelerate through change, not just survive it.

So the question becomes:
What are you doing to close the velocity gap between your market and your capabilities?