"Be careful of asking the passengers and crew of the Titanic about the risk of the Titanic. They're on the ship, that tells you everything you need to know. If you paid for it or you're making a living from it, you're probably not going to have an objective risk view." Paul Portesi Most organisations still have lots of infrastructure around symptom identification and cost management but very little around enabling and accelerating continual learning. Set repertoires and processes. Approved tools and 'solutions'. 'Content' and 'resources'. All focused on 'fixing' individual workers. The 'L&D' function is typically positioned as an active contributor to these accepted 'social norms' and the resulting work cultures they inevitably develop.  But could this focus shift? - from identifying problems, creating 'solutions', and 'proof measurement' towards: Enabling the evolution of the organisation and the...

"You can't get long term outcomes with short term people."  Shane Parrish We can all now see that business models are evolving faster than ever. This means that new capabilities are valuable and differentiating for organisations. Cultures in successful, resilient, and sustainable businesses are now differentiated by: Their 'social structures' - the level of alignment, connections, dialogue and psychological safety  Their 'organisational learning DNA' - the level of commitment to work as continual learning Which enable them to deal with new complexity, new demands and new dilemmas effectively. New characteristics are increasingly critical for a business to create new value for its customers: Clarity on the specific customer challenges and opportunities it seeks to uniquely solve Customer 'closeness', context and empathy Embracing uncertainty and ambiguity  Adopting continual learning as a strategy. These fundamental shifts away from the old indu...

"Profound change can happen through the almost invisible work of developing the capacity of ordinary people to see things differently." Carol Sanford 1. Spend more time with people who are responsible for developing business strategies and the management models that (aim to) enable them. Reflect on the thinking and capabilities needed in front line teams to realise the goals of the organisation. 2. Spend more time with teams and individuals responsible for ' delivering ' / ' executing ' / ' managing ' the business models in practice . Reflect on the challenges and unmet opportunities they describe. 3. Identify, and spend more time with, 'exemplary performers' across the organisation. Understand the challenges they have identified and how they've overcome these. Reflect on how their ideas could be 'scaled' so that more people in the organisation might benefit.  4. Reflect on the ratio of L&D team time /effort / annual budget c...

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." Lao Tzu ' As a Learning and Development function are we seeking to align, to enable or to disrupt? ' Can be a helpful way to frame your goals . For examples: The L&D function aligns organisational learning to organisational development and culture The L&D function aligns our organisational learning strategy to brand and business goals The L&D function aligns goals, strategy and tactics to the capabilities needed to develop a more adaptable and differentiated organisation The L&D function enables the expectation of and conditions for learning from, through and at work The L&D function enables a more connected, empathetic and psychologically safe work environment The L&D function enables every employee to connect with the people, experiences and opportunities to grow their confidence, connection and contribution The L&D function is deliberately disrupting the curre...

"Change the way the work works, and people's behaviours change for free." John Seddon The 'Big Leaps' for corporate Learning and Development teams: Opportunity focused road map (vs. 'solution' focused) Grounded in building new organisational resilience / adaptability / differentiation 'Work systems change' focused Shift from 'design and delivery' stance to enablement and agency stance L&D team can link day-to-day work with short / medium / long term corporate bets Ability to facilitate concurrent, context dependent, learning operating models across the organisation Prioritises new, emerging, differentiating capabilities Optimises (including automating) 'table stakes' capabilities to free up time (see above) L&D leaders shift focus to servant leadership - facilitators, coaches, catalysts Value oriented team structure vs. structuring around delivery channels and administration Goals, missions, capabilities and services over d...

"Strategy isn't about the objective you hope to achieve, it's about the risk you're willing to take. Otherwise it's just daydreaming." Shann Biglione We could choose to elevate the work in corporate Learning & Development beyond that of the " education delivery function ". New ambitions could include: Helping develop a more adaptable business with the capabilities to solve new, complex challenges Helping develop a more resilient, sustainable business from social structures that enable continual learning Enabling people to become more active contributors to the future of their organisation Enabling leaders and employees to take more personal responsibility for their work and their careers Active contributors to a 'future of work' where their organisation thrives through human skills, connections and enrolment Leading and accelerating the most powerful competitive advantage... Why not? Dynamic organisational learning strategy for mid size...

"The key to job enrichment is nurture of a client relationship rather than a functional or hierarchichal relationship." Krederick Herzberg New  differentiating capabilities for resilient, sustainable businesses today: Developing and nurturing leadership and employee mindsets that can adapt and thrive in uncertainty Creating social structures that enable and reward continual learning Identifying and investing in new ways to approach customer opportunities and challenges Balancing focus on existing processes with space and time to look further ahead Creating psychological safety Creating the expectations and conditions that enable people to learn and reflect from their daily work together. New valuable capabilities for resilient, sustainable businesses today: Openness to ambiguity and uncertainty Adaptability Better connections More diverse teams and networks Trust in decision makers who are closest to the 'real' customer Enrolment of engaged, purposeful workers and ...

"We must distinguish between real change and fictitious change. The change which comes from without, from externally imposed training and discipline, is fictitious." J.G.Bennett In the industrial work culture the 'L&D bit' was the last piece of a project. The final step, to wrap up everything that had been agreed, to summarise 'how things were now going to be', and to simply 'train it in'. This was the 'delivery' piece that got discussed when the 'important people' had already left the room. But in today's world of work, value creation, connections and dependencies everything is now interwoven . This is a problem because most L&D teams still think, and operate, and 'measure success' separately and differently from the rest of the organisation. In reality it's now hard to hitch the conversation on 'corporate learning' in one straight line because everything leads to something else: Brand, business model...

"If you just want someone to reflect what you say, it is far more cost effective to replace a senior manager with a full-length mirror." Rishad Tobaccowala Three key opportunities for L&D leaders in 2021: Re-positioning 'L&D' as an organisational priority Connecting insights and foresight to sharpen leaders' focus and prioritisation Developing new commitment and engagement with and from leaders Aligning 'learning' directly to business strategy and the ability to compete in complexity Linking the value of 'learning' to organisational development and culture change Helping the whole organisation to take responsibility for continual learning. Becoming more confident in the commercial context Understanding the commercial context within which the organisation seeks to create value Understanding and connecting brand and business goals - and the trade offs being made Understanding the business model, the organisational model and the management mod...

"Narrative strategy is a 21st century skill." Tom Critchlow "Narrative (noun) - a story or a description of a series of events." Corporate 'L&D' teams continue to struggle with 'buy-in' because they continue to struggle with narrative . This is now mission critical because optimising instructional design tactics is not enough to build leverage and affect the organisational culture.  So, the L&D team needs to forge a new, compelling, actionable vision of the different future it seeks for the organisation. It then needs to tell this story in every interaction and through every deliverable .  Some inputs into the new, compelling, actionable vision of the different future the L&D function seeks for the organisation might include: "This is how our business uniquely creates value for our customers today..." "This is what's changing in our market and for our customers and why. This will impact the way our business creat...

"The first step in changing a culture is to understand how a leaders' thinking currently drives the system and how, therefore it currently drives performance." Vanguard Consulting There is a deeply entrenched three-way standoff between the untapped opportunity for businesses to embrace continual learning, the fears that prevent (many) leaders from committing to this and the way the role of the 'L&D' function is positioned.  Having worked in and around this phenomenon for a number of years, I reflect that there are cognitive biases at play - for both leaders and their L&D teams. Here's my list of examples: 'Status quo bias' - The tendency to like things to stay relatively the same (see also 'loss aversion' and 'system justification').  'System justification' - The tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged, sometime...

"Creating the conditions for personal agency and authority requires dismantling machineries of compulsion and hierarchical authority. Once workers have discovered their own guiding star, they will organise themselves to grow the capabilities they need..." Carol Sanford What you might mean when you say " learning culture ": "We have a catalogue of training courses." "We provide a wide range of ' learning resources '." "We have centralised our ' learning offer ' on a technology platform." "We are committed to helping more people consume more of our ' learning content '." "We have defined what we need people to know - in order to 'execute' in their role." "We provide the ' learning solutions ' to our ' business problems '." "We have a structured process to validate and prioritise requests for interventions." "We have a consistent and standardised a...