The perennial challenges with the impact, credibility and identity of the corporate L&D function are symptoms of it's tactical positioning within the business. 'Post COVID' its systemic focus on 'packaged solutions' risks leaving the function isolated further as sustainable business models rebuild around connectivity, adaptability and speed of organisational learning. Jason Yip provides helpful direction for L&D leaders seeking to reform the intent and impact of their work: “Strategy is a resolution of "What do we want?", "What do we have?", and "What is happening in the environment?"  “Strategy is diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action” L&D leaders can consider their Strategy in this way. As an example: New L&D ‘Diagnosis’ - How our business uniquely creates value for customers What is changing in our market / customer context that will change the way the business creates value looking ahead Capabilities that ...

"Change is made by individuals who have stopped seeking deniability." Seth Godin The old-world vulnerabilities in organisations have become clearer as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Years of self-serving leadership, poor management, silo'ed thinking, short term-ism and incoherent investment in people have contributed to undifferentiated businesses and brands which lack the capability to inspire and adapt.  And so, the new leadership opportunity for an L&D function is to actively disrupt the status quo : Disrupt the current organisational 'collective mindset': If the collective mindset of the business is still based around control - with consistency, familiarity and standardisation as the overriding goals - this is now (in fact) a threat to the future of the organisation...  T he new focus of the L&D function should be to help define, enable and accelerate an alternative perspective - with empathy and adaptability as the new shared goals. Disrup...

" Either you repeat the same old conventional doctrines everybody else is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune. " Noam Chomsky I ran a series of polls on Twitter in May and June - with the ambition to gauge the 'underlying' challenges for L&D leaders, beyond the 'noise' of reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four key themes emerged from the responses: 1. 'Post-COVID' L&D leaders felt their focus should be on enabling adaptability in their organisations 2. Heads of Learning and Development felt that they were unable to define what 'learning' means for their organisation 3. They believe that the biggest barrier to progress is " traditional mindsets"  - both within L&D and in the wider organisation 4. They believe that there are two key challenges preventing L&D teams from seeing " a   new way forward ": - The lack of a 'new narrative' for ...

" Change washing (noun): the process of introducing reforms that purport to bring about change but fail to result in any substantive shifts in systems, services or culture ." Thea Snow and Abe Greenspoon "The pandemic means things will never be the same in L&D." "There's no going back to the old ways in L&D after the pandemic." "The pandemic has created a 'new normal' for workplace Learning and Development." Against a backdrop of (mostly vendor led) proclamations of " Everything is now different in L&D ", it's arguably more helpful to reflect on what appears to remain the same : Organisations value 'L&D' when reacting to urgent and unforeseen events The 'corporate industrial education complex' is still the overriding approach When organisational 'political capital' is high, 'L&D success measures' are less of a priority The term "learning" ...

"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision . You can't blow an uncertain trumpet." Jason Walker What if " moving the curriculum online " wasn't the real challenge at all?... Five alternative challenges for restless Learning and Development leaders: 1. Leading with new  Confidence 'Learning' means enabling chang e - with and in the organisation. Choosing to take responsibility for change is the definition of leadership work. The age old Learning and Development question of " When will we be given a seat at the table? " is a hangover from the industrial management model - based on scarcity and positional power. Learning and Development can lead by choosing to take new responsibility  - rather than waiting to be granted more 'authority'. 2. Connecting to a new work Context There have been two unstoppable forces at play in business which fundamentally shift the context within which the Learning and D...

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it." Upton Sinclair ' oxymoron ' - noun ' a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction ' Here is a collection of direct quotes from some (random) ' Head of Learning and Development ' job descriptions I found online. The first set of quotes are from the " Objectives of the role " sections: "Drive the new strategy" "Supporting behavioural change in accordance with the People Strategy; aligned to the strategic vision and priorities of the organisation" "Create new knowledge and confidence across the organisation" "You will mould the learning culture from he group up and partner with clients to develop a learning community" "Make a big impact by implementing a future thinking learning strategy" "Set up and drive forward our Learning ...

"Some people are just toolists. They believe that tools change the world. Not insight." Nils Pflaeging The world now seems to be changing faster than many would have thought possible. Ideas around ' leadership ', ' the future of work ', ' purpose ', ' connection ', ' activism ' and ' change ' all have renewed resonance and urgency. Against this dynamic backdrop, the work of "corporate learning" often seems like a relic of the industrial era. An outdated model - a small cog in the 'old system'. Learning leaders can also choose to start to change - by influencing the management system within which they operate, otherwise the cycle of " doing the wrong things righter " will persist. A powerful starting point for Learning and Development leaders can to change they way they describe the  ambition, intent, focus   and  contribution  of their work: We help people to connect, participate and take...

" Each system is perfectly designed to give you exactly what you are getting today ." W. Edwards Demming The new role of 'Learning and Development' is to help the organisation to connect with its new "living with COVID" context. This ambition helps to deliberately re-position the work of Learning and Development beyond that of a 'content delivery team'. These three questions can help to re-frame and elevate the focus and contribution of Learning and Development, around: The organisations' business model - now and looking forward The competitive context within which the organisation is now operating The new definitions of ' performance ' now needed - to build a differentiated business The different types of work within the organisation - that create value now and looking forward Q1. How stable (and differentiating) is our current business model? Will this change? Is the organisation deliberately aligning around the ...

" In organisations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions. " Margaret Wheatley There are two 'axis' around which the work of L&D can align: Developing individuals vs. developing t he organisation as a whole and 'Productive' learning (for the 'now') vs. ' Generative' learning (developing a new future) In most organisations the work of L&D only focuses on individual, productive learning. The narrow priority here is maintaining centralised control - through standardisation and consistency. This perspective is a hangover from the old 'industrial' mindset - when businesses only created value through consistent execution of individual roles and individual skills. The limitations of this approach will become even more apparent as the 'remote-working' business world be...

"Here (and increasingly everywhere) the critical factor for success is determining what percentage of your people are change-makers, at what level and how good a job you are doing in enabling them to work together in fluid, open teams of teams." Bill Drayton Now is a good time for Learning and Development leaders to pose new questions to the senior leadership team: What kind of team do we now need to develop - to become the business we say we want to be? How different are the features and capabilities of that team now - compared to what we have today? How important is it now to expand the ability of our people to change the way we do things today? - Why? How important is it now to change our employees' understanding of how they contribute to our business model - Why? How important is it now to help change the way our employees think about teamwork? - Why? How important is it now to help to change the way our employees think about learning? - Why? ...

"Few senior leaders have spent much time observing and understanding their own motivations, challenging their assumptions, or pushing beyond their intellectual and emotional comfort zones."  Psychologists Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan have termed this " Immunity to change. " At this time L&D leaders can choose to pause between bursts of reacting and responding - and reflect on where the "comfort zones" have existed in their organisation up to now: "Speed" "Execution" "Process delivery" "Deployment" "Consistency" "Conformance" "Compliance" "Standardisation" "Programmes" "Curriculums" "Resources" "Pathways" "Alignment" "Simplicity" "Scalability" "Tracking" "Controlling" "Content" By observing and understanding the last four weeks in "lock-down"...

"Right about now you'll be figuring out if you work for a learning organisation ..." Jabe Bloom There are three ways in which Learning and Development leaders can choose to position their work at this time of crisis. Reacting: Move existing training solutions 'online'. Continue to focus on access and consumption. Responding: 'Take orders' for new 'solutions' and 'content' on a new range of topics; (resilience, home working, 'remote' leadership, time management, 'productivity'). Continue to focus on access and consumption. or Initiating: Understanding the new challenges being faced by the organisation - and the new capabilities required to move forward Deciding and communicating what the Learning and Development team will now  stop doing  - and why Identifying new ways to increase the capacity to solve new customer challenges Enabling new ways for individuals and teams to connect and share their exper...