Capability vs. Ability: What is the Difference?

This article first appeared on Acorn Labs in September 2023.

While ability and capability may sound similar, they can’t be used interchangeably.

An ability is something typically innate, like verbal communication, which an individual is able to perform. It differs from a skill in that a skill needs to be learned and honed to be performed.

A capability is the collective mix of skills, knowledge, tools, processes and behaviors that, when combined, help to deliver organizational outcomes. They can be both job-specific or organization-wide.

What’s the difference?

There are three factors that distinguish abilities and capabilities from each other.

1. Scope: Capabilities cover a wide range of attributes, including abilities. They’re a comprehensive set of resources that can be utilized by individuals and organizations to achieve specific goals. On the other hand, abilities are only a small aspect of capabilities.
2. Long- vs. short-term strategy: Ability and capability have individual vs. collective use cases. Ability is more about an individual’s competence, and can be developed in the short term. Capability is both individual and strategic, meaning capability drives business impact as a long-term strategy.
3. Context: Abilities are innate or inherent and remain largely the same over time, although they can be further honed. They just aren’t affected by dynamic shifts in the way capabilities are. Capabilities are context-specific and are acquired and developed via learning and experience.

How to develop capabilities in the workplace

There’s no one-size-fits-all way to developing capabilities. Your business goals, industry, and specific business functions affect what methods you should use to effectively develop your capabilities.

Try a knowledge management system

This is a software tool like a performance learning management system (PLMS) that organizes learning content and resources for employees in a central and accessible location. Not only does it manage content and track training completions, but it also demonstrates the impact capability building has had on your company by measuring performance improvement.

Provide on-the-job training

Learning in the flow of work is the hands-on, in-the-moment method of teaching that can impart the necessary capabilities needed for a specific role. It’s not just about providing teaching, but about providing experience too to strengthen knowledge retention. Building capability on-the-job training like coaching or mentoring is effective because:

• It’s immediately applicable
• It’s cost-effective
• It increases productivity
• It’s flexible
• It lends itself to social learning.

Coaching comes in two forms: Formal (in which coach and coachee have a structured relationship) or informal (where there are no specific appointment times or start and end dates). The latter has a focus on occurring in day-to-day interactions and activities. Coaching is more about pushing the less experienced individual to reach solutions themselves by building their knowledge and aptitude.

On the other hand, mentoring focuses more on imparting knowledge on the less-experienced mentee from the more experienced mentor. The mentor is skilled in a specific area of knowledge that the mentee wants guidance on. This kind of feedback-loop relationship helps in building employee capabilities, retaining high performing individuals, and solidifying career goals.

Formal internal courses

For one-time educational situations such as leadership training for new or emerging leaders, a one-time formal course is helpful to impart knowledge to a group en masse, increasing time to proficiency. It allows learners to collaborate and engage in social learning to help them understand concepts and build problem-solving skills.

The important thing to remember about formal courses is that if they’re a one-time occurrence for one-time training, they still need to be a long-term investment. It’s easy for learners to forget concepts they only learned once, especially if they don’t get to put their training to use in their day-to-day work. Following up on learning from formal courses is essential for knowledge retention and ensuring that capabilities are being developed.