The work of Learning and Development should help people to change what they want

"You can change the way people get what they want - or you can change what they want"

Seth Godin

Inside inward looking, reactive, politically charged bureaucracies the work of L&D is diluted down to training solution order taking, project management and reaction tracking. This stems from the past - when centralised business models were the holy grail. Management control through standardisation and compliance was the prized goal. These features were difficult to achieve, scarce and therefore differentiating and valuable.

Not anymore.

There is an urgent new goal for L&D leaders and their teams. I describe this as the leap from management to leadership. We can choose to re-balance time spent on packaging the results of someone else's priorities with setting out new paths and goals of our own. The basis of these goals can include:

Moving focus away from developing compliant workers towards building adaptability in the organisation

Putting 'the work to be done' not, 'the learning we want' at the centre of our thinking

Moving Management focus away from 'education at work'

Adopting building better connections and participation across the organisation as a fundamental 'success measure'

Most corporate L&D is built around giving people what they already want, just through different tactics and tools. The exciting new opportunity is to help people to change what they want by helping them to see differently.


Paul helps L&D teams to contribute to more adaptable, human, future ready organisations.