Busy Does Not Always Mean Influential Not all L&D teams have the same impact. Some stay busy all year designing programmes, delivering workshops, and responding to requests from the business. Their calendars are full. Their course catalogues are impressive. Yet when major decisions are being made about performance, culture, or strategy, they often find themselves on the edge of the conversation rather than at the centre of it. Other L&D teams operate differently. They still d

Many organisations launch change programmes to improve performance. Far fewer consider the commercial cost of leading change badly. In the organisations I work with, many change initiatives are driven by the need to save money, restructure teams or introduce new systems. But when change is poorly led, the opposite of what was intended often happens. Productivity drops. Decision making slows. Good people disengage. The organisation becomes more cautious just when it needs to m

This week I facilitated a follow-up session with a in-house L&D team in a national financial services organisation. Not a launch session. Not a content-heavy workshop. A consolidation conversation. Earlier in the year, we worked together on shifting their identity from “training team” to Capability Consultants. The initial session created energy and clarity. There was strong engagement and a genuine appetite to operate more strategically. But enthusiasm in the room is never t

I am really looking forward to working with you during the upcoming Executive Team Leadership Programme. The purpose of this page is to give you a flavour of what to expect and to help you get the most from each session. While I want you to have a great experience, it is even more important to me that the programme adds value to you as a leader, to the Executive Team as a whole and to the business. Programme Outcomes As a result of applying your learning and insights, you wil

Trust is not built in town halls. It’s not built in strategy decks. At Executive level, trust is built by consistent behaviour. Quietly. Repeatedly. Especially under pressure. The Executive leaders who earn the deepest trust do three things consistently. 1. They make their trade-offs visible Every executive decision is a trade-off. Short term versus long term. Cost versus capability. Speed versus rigour. Trust grows when people understand the logic behind those trade-offs. No

I’m excited to be working with you in Broken Arrow on 9th and 10th March as part of your strategy event. Here is a short video to give you a flavour of what to expect and to help you to prepare to get the most from it. What Else? Whenever I facilitate events like this, some people arrive energised and ready to dive in. Others are less comfortable in this kind of setting. Both are completely normal. In my experience here's how you get the most from the two days: Come with an o

What Real Shift Looks Like, And Why It Matters When I launched the TwentyOne Leadership L&D Academy in 2025, it wasn’t to add more content into an already crowded learning landscape. It was to change how L&D teams see themselves, and how they are seen by the business. Over the past few months, I’ve been working with an in-house L&D team who were ready to make that shift. They didn’t lack skill. They didn’t lack commitment. What they wanted was greater credibility, stronger in

In my experience, leaders rarely lose credibility in one dramatic moment. It erodes. Quietly, incrementally, unintentionally, and almost always through inconsistency. Here are three sure-fire ways for a leader to undermine their credibility. 1. Saying One Thing. Demonstrating Another. “We’re all in this together.” “People are our greatest asset.” “We care about wellbeing.” Then, 2000 redundancies are announced via email. Or bonuses are protected at the top while everyone else

Hello again As we approach our upcoming online session on Wednesday 25th February (10:00 to 11:30), I’d like to ask you to spend a little focused time preparing so we can make the session practical, honest and forward-looking. Learning Outcome The session itself will focus on shared learning, honest reflection, and team led action planning. This isn’t only about revisiting workshop content. It’s about embedding the shift from “training team” to Capability Consultants and stre

Twelve months ago, I launched the TwentyOne Leadership L&D Academy with a clear focus. It’s for L&D teams and professionals who want to shape direction, not just deliver solutions. After thirty years in Learning & Development, I had seen the same pattern play out across organisations and sectors. Talented L&D professionals. Hardworking L&D teams. Full calendars. But too often operating at the edge of the real strategic conversation. Busy delivering. Rarely directing. The Acad

Not every great leader is loud. Not every confident leader dominates the room. And not every high-impact executive is the most charismatic person on the stage, although they do know how to hold the room. Some of the most powerful leadership I see is calm, steady and values-driven. It doesn't demand attention. It earns trust. In most organisations, the leaders creating the most sustainable impact are the ones who: Model emotional regulation when others are reactive. Create cla

Early in my career, I believed credibility in L&D came from being helpful. From responding quickly. From saying yes. Yes to the programme. Yes to the workshop. Yes to the deadline that everyone knew was unrealistic. Like many L&D professionals, I was rewarded for this behaviour. I was busy. I was reliable. I was thanked. And for a while, that felt like success. But something didn’t add up. When Being Helpful Isn’t the Same as Being Valuable Over time, I noticed a pattern. The

Most leaders underestimate the impact they are having. Not their strategic impact.Not their operational impact.Their emotional impact . Here’s a powerful perspective, shaped by more than 20 years of working closely with leaders. The number one factor influencing how someone feels at work is how their boss is feeling. Not the organisation. Not the strategy. Not the vision or values on the wall. Their boss. People do not experience the organisation. They experience you. Think a

Upstream influence isn’t granted. It’s earned. Most L&D professionals don’t lack credibility because they’re not capable. They lack influence because organisations have learned to see learning as a downstream activity, something that happens after  decisions are made, not while they’re being shaped. Changing that perception requires a deliberate shift in how L&D shows up. From Delivery to Diagnosis Upstream influence starts with the quality of questions L&D asks. When the fir

In nearly 20 years of developing leaders, there is one transition I have seen derail more capable, well-intentioned people than any other. The move from senior manager to first executive role. Most organisations assume that if someone has performed well at senior level, has deep experience, and knows the business inside out, they will naturally make a strong executive. That assumption is wrong more often than we like to admit. Experience gets people promoted. It does not prep

This Director's Leadership Development Programme is designed to strengthen how you lead, align and make decisions together, in service of Ascot’s long-term success. I look forward to working with you throughout the programme. Programme Outcomes As a result of applying your learning and insights, you will: Operate as an even more cohesive, high-functioning Board and leadership team Strengthen alignment across strategy, culture and the experience delivered to guests Build alig

There’s a pattern I see again and again. A problem shows up. Performance dips. Tension rises. Something isn’t working.And eventually, someone says the familiar words: “We need training.” But more often than not, that request isn’t a solution, it’s a signal. A signal that harder work upstream hasn’t happened yet. When Training Becomes the Safest Option In many organisations, training is reached for because it feels decisive and visible. It creates the appearance of action whil

Engagement has moved from the margins to the boardroom. In many organisations, it now features on executive scorecards and bonus plans. On the surface, this feels like progress. It signals that people, culture and experience matter, and that leadership behaviour counts. But as a recent article from Ghassan Karian  explores , it also exposes a risk. When engagement becomes a number to hit, rather than a signal to listen to, behaviour can warp. Surveys turn into theatre. Attent

It was great to work with you as we explored governance, leadership and more. I appreciated your energy and contribution. Here are the flipcharts from the session. We briefly explored the five dysfunctions of a team. Here is a video of Patrick Lencioni describing the model in more detail. For more reading on the other topics we explored, here is some additional reading: The Leadership Challenge - Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner The Solutions Focus - Mark McKergow and Paul Z. Jack

The comfortable myth about performance One of the most enduring assumptions in organisations is that when performance dips, people need more training. Missed targets, inconsistent behaviours, quality issues, the response is often the same. Train them again. It feels logical, decisive, and reassuring. But in most cases, it’s simply the wrong diagnosis. What’s really getting in the way In reality, people rarely underperform because they lack skill or knowledge. More often, they