"The reason why we don't see the source of our problems is that the means by which we try to solve them are the source." David Bohm A shout out to a tweet from the always inspirational John Cutler on this blog... I’ve used these questions before giving L&D teams advice: Is there a ‘learning strategy’? Is it reasonable? Is the strategy explicitly or implicitly communicated? Is the structure of the L&D team aligned with the strategy? Sometimes you get lucky. There’s a reasonable learning strategy. A reasonable structure. The key issue is to make the strategy explicit . The hardest to unpack is actually an implicit, not-great strategy with a tightly coupled (“optimised”) structure… An interesting situation is when the learning strategy is in flux... The L&D structure is aligned around the “old” strategy. Which was implicit. The new strategy is understood at a high level, but the details are murky. This is SO confusing. It is uncomfortable. To start ... is it a le...

"The status quo of organised learning benefits those who benefit from the status quo." Beth Salyers Three reflections on my experience of annual L&D investment planning: 1. Most corporate learning strategies are built around control and looking backwards 2. L&D leaders rarely (if ever) describe the trade offs they are making when deciding on an investment plan 3. Even in 'sophisticated' organisations most learning strategies are a collection of to-do lists Two questions to help you reflect on whether your L&D function is playing on 'defence' or 'offence': 1. How much of your L&D investment is currently driven by? - The business reacting to external events? - Cost reduction initiatives? - Digitisation of existing business processes? - 'Standardisation' projects? - Compliance audit risks? 2. What proportion of your L&D priorities are enabled through these strategy choices? - Standardising fixed skills for individual roles? - E...

"The only thing more difficult than starting something new in an organisation is stopping something old." Russell Ackoff What the organisation needs to agree - before you can reinvent the L&D function: 1. What's our market context? Is this changing? If so - why? 2. As a business how are we specifically going to differentiate? 3. Is our business model based on increasing optimisation and efficiency? 4. How much of the value we create for customers comes from known, established work and process? Will this change as we look forward? 5. Is our future success dependant on enabling people to execute standardised, repeatable processes? 6. What are the features of 'future readiness' for this business? (e.g. beliefs, mindset, capabilities, culture(s))  7. How much time and resources will we need to invest in identifying new opportunities and new possibilities? 8. How fast is our expectation and definition of a "high performer" changing? 9. Where do we n...

"After spending decades optimising operating models and digitising their business models, companies must now focus on humanising their management models" Gary Hamel The work of corporate L&D has (almost) exclusively focused on reinforcing and maintaining the status quo. The function has an opportunity to rethink its role and priorities and to create value in new ways - if it is to remain relevant in the digital era: From following and implementing - to leading and role modeling From spotting problems and creating ‘solutions’ - to enabling all parts to work together creatively From a focus on ‘Management measurement’ - to a focus on improving quality of interaction From directive and centralised - to facilitating good people to lead collaboratively From a focus on process compliance and repeatability - to a drive for insight and reflection From serving organisational status and hierarchy - to enabling interdependent networks From maximising only current success measur...

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 ...