Learning starts with connection

In a lot of organizations, learning now has its own budget, its own strategy and a place among the priorities in the company’s long-term plan. What has not changed (much) is that the decisions that shape how people work, for example, what they are measured on, what they are promoted for, which systems they use, how teams are structured, etc., are often still made without L&D in the conversation. Learning will often just get handed the outcome and asked to build training that makes it work.

In our post immediately following the TICE event, we wrote about how L&D earns influence at work: asking better questions before building, speaking the business’s language, and putting its results where leaders can see them. If you missed it, it’s here That post was about L&D getting noticed by the business and earning recognition — being invited into the conversation and taken seriously in it. This one is about what happens next.

A learning leader once ran sales training for a retailer’s store staff. Sales jumped that year, and he told the CFO the training was why. The CFO had another explanation: this was the year of the Beanie Babies craze (collectible plush toys that were a 90s obsession), and the stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves. Plenty of things moved that number. Why credit the training?

Open LinkedIn on any given morning and someone is telling L&D to stop being an order taker. Push back, become a strategic partner, set the agenda rather than receive it. The advice is everywhere and it sounds correct.

Once a month I host a roundtable call with L&D leaders who are working through AI in their organizations. We’ve been running these for a little over a year now, and the conversation has changed shape. A year ago, most of the questions were about fear of AI taking over L&D. The calls sound different now.