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

If you are a leader in a large organisation, there is a good chance most of the formal attention you receive is on your gaps. Personal Development Plans focus on what needs improving. Performance reviews often spend more time on what was missed than what was delivered. Talent conversations are full of language about readiness, stretch, risk and development. All of that has its place. But it can quietly distort how you see yourself. Here's my view. If you are a leader in a lar

Why January Matters More Than We Admit January is a deceptively dangerous time for L&D. Not because of funding cuts or rising demand, but because this is when old habits quietly reassert themselves. Budgets are signed off, expectations are set, and many L&D teams drift back into being fast, helpful, and endlessly busy, mistaking movement for momentum. I see it every year. And earlier in my own career, I was part of the problem. When Being Busy Feels Like Progress The requests

I cannot count how many times I have heard Executive Teams say they want better execution. More pace. Better decisions. Less rework. Fewer dropped balls. What if execution does not fall short because people are lazy, underskilled, or not committed? What if the standard of execution is not where it should be because the Executive Team is not fully aligned? Misalignment on the big issues inevitably shows up in the small ones. It shows up in the “how we do things around here” th

Why Helpfulness Is Holding L&D Back I have worked with L&D teams for many years, and one pattern shows up again and again. L&D is exceptionally helpful. It responds quickly. It delivers what is asked for. It bends over backwards to support the business. And yet, many of these teams still struggle for influence. Helpfulness keeps L&D busy, but it rarely makes it strategic. When L&D immediately delivers what is requested, it reinforces the idea that learning exists to support a

"I don't know" Simple, right? One of your direct reports asks what you think they should do, and you say, “I don’t know.” Notice how comfortable or uncomfortable that feels as you read it. Over the years, I’ve worked with thousands of talented leaders. Very few are genuinely comfortable not having the answer and admitting it to their people. Intellectually, we know our role as senior leaders isn’t to have all the answers. But years of conditioning in middle management train u

I am really looking forward to working with you during your Bringing Governance to Life workshop on 13th January. This will be a fast-paced, highly interactive and hugely practical day. There will be no role-plays, no 'death byPowerPoint' and my aimis to make it enjoyable and applicable. We'll be exploring much more than just governance; we'll be exploring a range of leadership-related areas, from strategy and culture to the foundations of high-performance teams. Outcomes By

It was brilliant to work with you during your team event. I hope you found the session valuable. Here are the flipcharts from the session. Here is the recap video of the Personality Programmes. I also promised to share this video of Patrick Lencioni exploring his Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you have any questions following the session, please feel free to get in touch via richard@twentyoneleadership.com .

The Comfort of Fast Answers Organisations are full of smart people making fast decisions, yet L&D repeatedly gets pulled into the same trap. It is asked to solve the wrong problem. Time and energy are poured into solutions that look sensible on the surface but never touch the underlying cause. When nothing changes, the cycle restarts. New initiatives, new workshops, new noise, but no real shift in behaviour or performance. This is not a failure of intent. It is a failure of d

Do you believe that confidence and performance are linked? In most leadership programmes we run, confidence becomes a hot topic. Leaders believe that confidence helps them make clearer decisions. Confident teams move faster. Confident cultures create momentum. Despite 20 years of developing leaders and helping them build confidence, I've never found credible research linking confidence and performance at work. So I'm working with a brilliant group of students at the London Sc

The Moment That Changed the Room I facilitated a leadership development group recently for a brand new cohort of leaders. Day one always matters, but this one felt different. Our executive sponsor walked into the room, sat with the group, and shared her leadership story. Not a script. Not a corporate speech. A real, honest, human account of challenge, growth, failure, and resilience. The atmosphere shifted immediately. People leaned in. They connected. They saw themselves in

One of the most common mistakes organisations make is believing that culture issues can be fixed with training. A team is not collaborating, so they get communication skills. A department is avoiding accountability, so they get a workshop on ownership. Leaders are not inspiring confidence, so they attend a leadership programme. People feel busy. L&D feels useful. Leaders feel like they have taken action. And nothing changes. Because culture is not created in classrooms. It is

It was great to work with you during your team session, albeit in challenging circumstances. I really appreciated your welcome and openness to me supporting you as you talked through the challenges of the current situation. We explored personality programmes, and I promised to send a follow-up video to help you recap on the distinctions. You can watch it below. We also touched briefly on Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team. You can watch more below. One of the thin

When we ask CEOs what keeps them awake at night, succession is always in the top five. Not because they do not have talented senior managers, but because too many potential successors reach the brink of executive level without being properly prepared for it. The challenge is that if you want a strong, confident, aligned Executive Team in 12 to 18 months, you need to start developing your Execs of tomorrow today. Here are the four pillars that you must focus on to get your lea

In my experience over the past 30 years, I still observe many L&D teams spending far too much time trying to fix problems that were never really learning problems in the first place. Leaders ask for communication training, resilience workshops, or accountability sessions, and L&D responds with energy and good intent. Yet the issues they are trying to solve are almost always deeper than the request suggests. The real cause is rarely the skill the workshop was designed to addre

It was fantastic to work with you last week. Thank you for your openness and energy. Here is a reminder of the four simple commitments that you made and signed up to on the day. Here are the other flipcharts from the session. Your commitment to 'modelling the way' really will be the biggest factor in the success or otherwise of the new framework and approach to governance. I look forward to hearing more about your successes and where you've had to course correct in the months

“A bad system will beat a good person every time.” W. Edwards Deming Your organisation might say it wants empowered people. But are you creating the conditions where your people can  be empowered? Here are three practical ways to shift the system so people think for themselves, make smart decisions and take genuine ownership. 1. Make coaching 'the way you do things around here ' If you want empowered people, start with coaching. Not as a development initiative for middle mana

One of the biggest misconceptions in Learning and Development is that information leads to transformation. It does not. If it did, every organisation would be performing at a world class level because everyone has access to more information than at any other point in history. People are drowning in content. They can search, scroll, click, and consume endlessly. The problem is not a lack of knowledge. The problem is converting knowledge into action, confidence, and capability.

Does this sound familiar? Two strong teams. Talented people. Clear roles. Good leaders. Individually, they perform. But when they come together, something feels off. Decisions slow down. Conversations get defensive. Priorities clash. Problems bounce between teams instead of getting solved. Everyone is working hard. But the organisation isn’t moving at the speed and with the confidence it should. If that sounds familiar, the issue isn’t capability. It’s misalignment. And it is

When I started in Learning and Development more than thirty years ago, the focus was simple. If you delivered great content and people enjoyed the workshop, you were doing a good job. Back then, L&D was measured by the quality of the materials, the smoothness of delivery, and the number of sessions you could run in a month. Those days are gone. The organisations we support today need something very different. They need L&D teams who can diagnose real performance issues, partn