Capability Centers - What it is and how is it connected with the future of work?

If you read this, your life will change - ‘said everyone’ but I’ll leave you to judge once you finish reading this 4mins 07secs article ??

Context:

Through this article I wanted to share my personal thoughts on ‘Capability Centers model’ which is an integral part of the way companies scale their teams across the globe (any team beyond HeadQuarters). You would have potentially heard various terminologies for these types of setups such as Regional centers, GICs (Global in-house centers), Shared services, Centers of excellence, Tech centers, Captives, Development centers, Delivery centers, R&D centers etc. These are interchangeably used but I’ll be very specific about what it means to be a Capability Center. In future articles I’ll also talk about more details around how to build one, why should you work in such a setup etc., stories around lessons learnt, battle scars in trying and failing and trying again.?

Let’s start ????♀?????

I’m a huge fan of Multidisciplinary thinking, especially how Peter Kaufman talks about it. Here’s more on this topic from this brilliant article here if you want to build on this muscle. You might be thinking okay - Why are we talking about multidisciplinary thinking when the topic is Capability Center blah…?

The key idea here is that if you are able to find examples which have been true for many years in one field, you could potentially derive similarities and make your point. That’s the approach that we are going to take. Read on???

Evolution in biology which has been in existence for over 3.2 billion years (good sample size eh?) is where we will seek our inspiration from.

As we know humans have evolved from single cell organisms to complex organisms who have over 724 trillion cells. Now to manage this complex setup, did you know how many brains do humans have??

Drumroll please ??

Originally people thought we have 1 brain in our head, but according to the latest research humans have 3 brains. Here’s an awesome article on this written by Joe Mechlinski. First of all, what qualifies as a brain is any place which has neuron activity taking place. Neurons activity symbolizes decision making. Our second brain is in our Heart and our third brain is in our Gut. I came across this analogy from this amazing book 'Reinventing organizations' by Frederic Laloux. Here’s his video link which makes for a phenomenal weekend watch (not kidding) on understanding the evolution of Organizational designs over the years.

Okay now pivoting to Capability Centers

Looking back at 2020, there is no doubt that we live in a VUCA world. The acronym first coined in the army is now widely applied to business and society. It describes a world which is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Corporations and individuals aren’t shielded from this volatility and hence similar to how the human body evolved to create 3 brains to manage the complexity, companies also need additional brains. See the similarity -> Head, Brain, HeadQuarters ??, extended Brain… I think you get the point!

Basically the Capability Center model is just that. All teams which are setup beyond HQ, if they also think about how they can add value with the resources they have and in partnership with HQ, then that’s what makes them the extended brain. Well at a high level this is the idea??!

Basis industry research the current setup of these in-house centers/captives can be simplistically divided into two categories:

1. Delivery Centers and 2. Capability Centers

Delivery centers only execute what’s decided by HQ. Capability Centers are way ahead in the journey and are adding value on top of delivery.

What does it look like in action:

It's when each of your teams are empowered to add value beyond delivery to the company. In fact it's at its pinnacle when each employee is adding value beyond delivery. An example in action would be when your community support person is not only just solving the customers problem but also thinking and acting on ensuring these problems don’t happen again for other customers. Similarly if you are a software developer you are not only just coding what you’ve been told but are also empowered to understand what you are building and actively sharing your inputs on building the product roadmap.?

?Cool... Thanks for all the fancy stuff. It makes sense for the company. Why should I as an employee/candidate care:?

Here's the brief rationale. The future of work is already here, where a vast majority of easy work is automated and the new work that is coming in is going to be more and more complex. It would require creative thinking and problem solving skills. If you work in places where you aren’t able to build on these skills then it’s equivalent to working in the horse & buggy industry when Mr. Ford and team were building cars.?

I’ll cover more around this topic in times to come as I continue to get requests from folks on my thinking about future of work. It’s an evolving topic and this is a humble attempt to share what I’ve learnt on this journey. Happy to take feedback and learn together.?

Shameless plug: We continue to build World Class Capability Centers at Airbnb (Gurgaon and Bangalore locations) working on the mission of belonging. And are looking for people who believe in the mission and are passionate to work on solving hard problems while building their skillsets. Please check out our careers page and apply for roles which match your experience.

Amit Dubey is the Global Director of Capability Centers for Airbnb. Prior to Airbnb, Amit held executive leadership positions at Uber and American Express Specializing in Leadership, Operations (Fraud/Credit Risk, Safety, Finance Ops & Community Support), Analytics and Sales & Marketing. Prior to his corporate career he also served in the Indian Military as a Civil Engineering Officer.?

Amit is also a Stage 4 Cancer survivor (APML - Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia) and has been in remission since 2006. He’s passionate about the impact cancer survivors can make to help others who are going through similar journeys and has helped create support groups to aid that idea.

Amit regularly shares interesting articles and his point of view and perspective on leadership, technology, career, dealing with crisis and management related topics and is a noted keynote speaker on Technology, Leadership Development, Crisis Management, Customer Experience trends and best practices around the country and the world (virtually and in-person pre-pandemic). If you are interested, please follow Amit on Linkedin and on Twitter?