Somewhere along the way, Learning & Development got boxed in. Ask most leaders what L&D does and you’ll hear familiar answers: runs courses, delivers workshops, manages the LMS. Useful, yes. Strategic, rarely. The function becomes a service provider, waiting for requests, responding to perceived needs, and measuring success through attendance and feedback scores. But none of that guarantees performance. Why Training Isn’t the Point If L&D is serious about impact, it has to st

The Exec meeting looked fine from the outside. Experienced people around the table. A clear agenda. Confident conversations. But everyone knew that something was off. That's why I had been invited to observe. What I saw and heard were conversations that were slightly too polished. Disagreements quickly pushed back under the surface. Nobody was really pushing back on anything. What I was watching wasn't a high performing leadership team. It was more like a polite gathering, wh

The Illusion of Success For years, L&D has leaned on a familiar signal. End-of-session feedback. Strong scores. Positive comments. People saying they enjoyed it. It feels like success. But what’s actually changed? Because people can enjoy a session, rate it highly, and still go back to doing exactly what they were doing before. The same behaviours show up. The same challenges remain. The same performance gaps continue. Yet the programme gets ticked off as a job well done. Mea

Last year I sat down with the executive team of a highly technical production business. They were significantly behind target. Investors were applying serious pressure. The atmosphere was tense. We spent several hours working through what they thought their strategy was before someone finally said: "Actually, we do have a strategy document." They opened it. Twelve pages. I read it and understood exactly why they were in trouble. It wasn't a strategy. It was a peace treaty. Bu

The Comfort of the Happy Sheet For years, L&D has relied on a simple signal of success. The feedback form at the end of a session. Did they enjoy it?Was it engaging?Would they recommend it? The scores come back strong. The comments are positive. The session is labelled a success. And yet, nothing really changes. The same performance issues show up again. The same conversations happen between managers and teams. The same gaps remain, just dressed in slightly better language. T

There’s an odd phenomenon in culture change. People know certain things don’t work, but do them anyway because everyone else does them too. You’ve probably experienced it. The leadership team decides the culture needs to change. Energy builds and a programme gets launched. Twelve months later, not much has shifted. The intention was genuine. The approach was wrong. Here are three things that consistently knock culture change off track. It isn’t connected to the strategy Cultu

After more than thirty years working with Learning and Development teams, I’ve come to a conclusion that sometimes surprises people. Most L&D professionals don’t lack knowledge. They don’t lack experience. They don’t lack access to good models, frameworks, or ideas. What they lack are the habits that allow them to operate strategically when the pressure is on. I meet very few teams who don’t understand what good looks like. They know about performance consulting. They talk ab

Your leadership team gets on well. People are respectful, meetings run smoothly, decisions get made. By most measures, it's working. So why does something still feel slightly off? Because harmony is not the same as honesty. A team that looks aligned on the surface can be quietly, persistently pulling in different directions underneath it. Not because people are difficult, but because they've learned it's easier not to say certain things. The meeting ends. The unsaid stays uns

Every L&D professional recognises the moment. An email arrives asking for a course. A manager requests a workshop. A senior leader asks for a programme to fix a performance issue. The expectation is usually clear: design something, deliver it, and move quickly. In many organisations, that request triggers a familiar process. Learning objectives are drafted, content is designed, and dates are booked in the diary. The work moves forward efficiently and professionally. But the m

There's a pattern in almost every organisation I work with. Teams throughout the business behave like the executive team. Not a perfect copy - but recognisably similar. Close enough to matter. If the exec team collaborates well, collaboration tends to show up further down the organisation. If they operate in silos, those silos multiply. If they avoid difficult conversations, that avoidance spreads - floor by floor, team by team - until it's just "how things work around here."

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

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

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

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