"You can't use an old map to see a new land." Gary Hamel Rule of thumb for 'Transforming' organisations: The level of change and new expectations in your Learning / Capability strategy should be proportional to the level of change and new expectations in your business strategy.  The same level of new ambition and new commitment is needed here too because: Most corporate learning and development priorities, strategy (and therefore) tactics are still out of sync with the challenges facing business and workers today Content led, education based, (topic broadcast, 'school at work') 'L&D' is a hang over from the industrial era - when businesses only created their value by optimising and scaling efficiency Businesses can no longer codify and transfer fixed skills fast enough to equip workers with the confidence they'll need to add value.  Competence and compliance are no longer the scarce commodities behind successful, differentiated, sustainabl

"A sustainable, self-regulating work system is a direct threat to those who making a living off of regulating work systems." John Cutler The role, focus and measurement of workplace learning still remains stuck in the industrial age. A generation of early adopters advocating a shift from content creation to enabling learning through work and networks remain marginalised by the status quo.  The convenient collusion between corporate leaders still obsessed with control and plans, L&D teams entrenched in education and tools, and a proliferating, enabling vendor community has created an impasse. So, in most organisations L&D leaders still go unchallenged and continue to prioritise and reinforce: Content creation as 'the Learning Strategy' Self-reinforcing vanity metrics; (clicks, visits, course attendance) Bending the definition of ' employee   performance ' towards ' being   compliant ' A reductive focus on tactics over context, operating environm

" The first law of bad management: if something isn't working, do more of it." Tom DeMarco There's still a fascinating gap between the post COVID / post hybrid working / post 'great resignation' realities and the role and focus of workplace learning.  Despite these three seismic impacts on business models, value creation, employee contribution and workplace culture, most leaders choose to stick with the same detached approach to 'learning'. Whether implicitly or explicitly, senior leaders' expectations of their L&D team and annual L&D budget remain stuck around: Developing training 'solutions' aligned to 'hot topics' Investing in new (cheaper) tools and tactics with which to develop and scale training solutions Prioritising access to training solutions over enabling performance improvement Distracting colleagues from their work to 'engage' with 'training solutions' Tracking 'engagement' with training

"This obsession with control gives a greater power to gatekeepers than to connectors. In a culture of compliance and competition, it is rational to avoid taking risks." Celine Schillinger Most corporate learning and development still serves a simplistic and reductive management model.  The default focus on tools, (which now includes a proliferation of enabling 'learning technologies') means that the underpinning status quo mindset remains unchallenged.  The underlying goal is still centralised control through 'compliance' - an unacknowledged  mindset that runs deeper than just the well worn 'mandatory annual compliance training' cycle. Symptoms of a control based L&D strategy hide in plain sight, for examples: A default focus on individuals' 'learning'  A default approach which reinforces a separation between 'learning' and 'working' A default focus on only productive learning; (based on improving 'what we already