The L&D low impact cycle

"The thing upper management wants most often is to speed 'delivery'. What they don't realise is that delivery speed is a systems issues. To speed delivery, you need to fix the entire system. They are part of that system, however, and are usually unwilling to be "fixed"."

Allan Holub

Industrial leaders remain fixated on the (lazy) premise that the way to build more valuable / valued / differentiated / sustainable / future-proofed organisations is to 'fix' individual workers. 

This default traps L&D teams in low impact work: order taking, content design, events management, and (inevitably) self justifying 'client satisfaction' tracking schemes. 

This creates a common challenge: L&D struggle to achieve meaningful impact on the performance of the organisation because they are tasked with doing low-impact work. 

The common solution to this challenge is to find ways for L&D to do more of their low-impact work, faster through technology; (digitise courses, digitise events, scale up content, scale access to content).

This solution compounds the L&D low impact problem, (individual focused, reactive, content led) but creates a sense of reassurance for leaders who only trade in 'action and volume plans' rather than a commitment to lead systems change.


I work as a thinking partner and advisor with mid sized, value oriented companies going through significant change. I help you to build new capability and mindsets through shifting your approach to organisational development.

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