Category: Learning Strategy

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Learning Strategy

These 3 Frameworks Make Me a Better L&D Pro (and Human)

God damn AI, am I right?

It’s everything, everywhere, all at once, and kinda feels like a chokehold at times, or maybe that’s just me.

Yes, I have contributed to this myself in my domain of learning. I love to endlessly explore how modern technology can enhance and amplify human learning, but these AI bros on social media are making it hard for me to keep enjoying that.

Nonetheless, while AI is cool, sexy and is an integral part of the infrastructure of how work and learning are done, we have more to life than those two little letters.

So, I thought what better way to bring some balance to AI everything than by sharing some good old-fashioned analogue tools that any human can plug and play.

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1/ How to find your purpose in the noise of life

A diagram illustrating the Japanese concept of Ikigai, depicting four overlapping circles labeled 'What you love,' 'What you are good at,' 'What the world needs,' and 'What you can be paid for,' with 'Ikigai' at the center, representing a reason for being.

There’s a lot of noise in the world.

We compare ourselves to others we shouldn’t, fear the tech takeover and continue to be glued to sensationalist headlines curated by outlets that position themselves as ‘news’.

It’s tough, and I feel it too.

Before the tidal wave of AI, ‘purpose at work’ used to be one of the top drivers in both L&D and employee engagement strategies. It’s fallen to the side in the rush to jump on the AI bandwagon, yet, it feels like a crisis of purpose could be on the rise.

If AI is threatening to do everything that we do, where does that leave me and you?

It’s for that reason that purpose both at work and in real life is having more of a moment.

A 2025 Deloitte survey across 44 countries with 24,000 participants uncovered that 89% of Gen Z and 92% of Millennial respondents class purpose as paramount to job satisfaction. We see this backed up in research from Gallup, where they discovered that employees with a strong sense of purpose are 5.6x more engaged with work than those with low purpose.

So, bottom line…purpose, meaning, or whatever you label it, is incredibly important in work and life.

The natural question becomes: ‘How do I define my purpose?’, a big question, but one only you can answer. I shared a few strategies that have worked for me in this pursuit in a recent edition of my newsletter. I’m not saying they’re ‘the way’, but they’re ‘a way’.

2/ Would you pay to use your own L&D product?

Graphic outlining five key questions for evaluating a learning and development (L&D) product as a subscription service, including topics like market fit, customer discovery, retention, human-centered design, and a reality check.

DRAMA…

But I feel like it has to be said, as it is the ultimate test in my opinion.

If you’re not prepared to cough up, let’s say, $100 a year to use your L&D product, then don’t expect your workforce to do it.

This is the same question I ask when crafting my products and services. We each vote with our time, attention and money. It’s the ultimate compliment for someone to say ‘yes’ to all three.

I can sleep at night knowing I say YES to these.

I encourage you to reflect on the same at the start of every year when everyone talks about ‘Learning Strategy’.

Don’t just focus on strategy, understand the value.

Ask your whole team, if this was a paid product, would we all pay to use it?

The answer to this is everything you need to know.

Dropbox, the cloud storage provider, was created in this way. Drew Houston, the CEO, was so frustrated with existing solutions that he built his own. He pays for it, and it turns out millions would pay for it too.

If you wouldn’t buy your own product, why should anyone else?

P.S. Get more on this and my 8 counter-intuitive questions to ask at your next L&D team strategy meeting in the members-only edition of my newsletter.

3/ The simple skill-building strategy to stay relevant

Graphic with the title 'A No-BS Approach to Skills' and three questions about skill relevance, including 'What skills are expiring?', 'What skills do I need to evolve?', and 'What are the emerging skills I can get ahead of?'

Ahh skills…why do we insist on making it so hard?

Our industry is built to support best in class skills, yet we find so many ways to make it complicated with complex terminology like oncologies, taxonomies and the latest ‘skill-based systems’, whatever that means.

I feel exhausted just reading that last sentence.

It can be simpler, it should be simpler.

Part of my rituals at the beginning of the year involves analysing my skillset, but with none of the complex tools our industry chucks at us. Instead, I use something much simpler to ensure I have the most cutting-edge skills to do what I do, and keep ahead of the pack.

This is what I do.

I grab a notebook or open a doc and do the following:

  • List my current high-level skills
  • The emerging technology, trends and challenges in my industry

Then, I ask these questions:

  1. What skills are expiring and no longer serve me and/or the world today?
  2. What skills do I need to evolve to meet the demands of today?
  3. What are the emerging skills I can get ahead of?

Yes, it’s that simple.

You can call me crazy, but I believe you could graft this onto a much larger population of a workforce, too. We’re often convinced that it all needs to be complex to be valuable, but that’s not right.

Sometimes the simple things can have the biggest impact.

Final thoughts

Ok, that’s it for this one, friend.

Expect more analogue and digital tools to keep coming your way. At the end of the day, we all know that any tool is only good in the hands of a competent human.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

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Learning Strategy

How 4,000 L&D Teams Are Creating Meaningful Business Value in 2025

Let’s be honest, we get a lot of stick in the L&D industry.

Senior execs query what we do and how we provide value almost weekly. CFOs are chomping at the bit to cut our budgets in half, and middle managers think we’re just delivering ‘nice to have and fun experiences’ and believe they can do it better for their teams.

Who knows, maybe they’re right?

90% of the time, I believe they’re wrong.

That’s not to say I think they’re liars or anything. I just think they’re misinformed and aren’t clear on how their local L&D team is delivering value.

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The problem is we’re not so great at defining the value we bring to organisations.

If we want the narrative and perceptions to change, we need to be clear and compelling on how we deliver value every year. I understand this is a ‘captain obvious’ statement to make.

So, I thought, why not ask the talented 4,500 readers of my newsletter about the areas they’re focusing on in 2025 to drive value for their organisation.

The killer question, data collection and analysis

Since November 24, I’ve run a one-question survey through the newsletter.

It’s closed as of last week. The only question I asked was “What areas do you think L&D teams should focus on to drive value in 2025, and why?”

I’ve had thousands of responses.

Analysing this was no easy task, as you can imagine. I’ve read a lot of the comments, but I can’t read them all. So, as you might have guessed, I turned to AI for some help. Data analysis is a great use case for AI collaboration, imo.

Over a course of a week, I’ve analysed, thought deeply and categorised thousands of comments into key themes.

I’m sharing the top 3 key themes that emerged with you today, along with my thoughts and valuable comments from respondents.

These are what I look at as 3 ways L&D teams plan to deliver value for businesses in 2025.

As always, context is everything. Our industry is huge, and while I have a few thousand responses as part of this survey, it won’t represent everyone’s specific culture, context and constraints.

Take these results as a pulse of what fellow pros are doing to drive value, and perhaps, let it be a source of inspiration for you to get clear on how you’re delivering value to your business this year.

The Top 3 Focus Areas for L&D in 2025

An image showing how 4,00 L&D teams are creating meaningful business value in 2025.

1. Leverage and humanise AI for work

Generative AI is being touted as a transformative opportunity for L&D and education, particularly in realising the ultimate dream of true personalised learning.

You knew that already, but just in case.

What warmed my little black heart about the comments on AI, was how few mentioned using it for more content. I like to think my constant parading about just using AI to create more (and often sub-par) content, which delivers little value is rubbing off on you. But, I also know you’re a smart cookie, so you have more wisdom than most in the industry.

If creating more content wasn’t on the mind, what was?

I’m happy to say the majority of comments focused on people learning how to use AI intelligently themselves and supporting their workforce to do that. Plus, I discovered repeat mentions of humanising AI for work, which feels incredibly valuable.

As one respondent shared: “I’m focused on enabling the use of AI and learning where it’s relevant rather than just being a buzz word. Conversations with senior IT stakeholders to get it moving. Present business cases. Address the barriers. Get the business to commit. Help people to learn where it benefits.”

Another highlighted the smart move to support humans to hone their craft with human skills alongside expanding capabilities with AI, or as they shared: “In a world where possibilities are endless, L&D should focus on prioritising humans alongside AI.”

In sum: What came through was a strong theme that a large portion of you are focused on not just how to leverage these tools for work, but helping the human find their place too.

2. Building the right skills for the modern world

One thing I never find helpful with the usual industry drool of “x priorities for this year” is the lack of specificity.

For example, many will list ‘Upskilling and Reskilling’ as a priority, but list nothing of what skills or why. I want to avoid this in my own insights from the survey comments. So, we’re going to be specific.

As you can imagine, skills or something skill-based related was mentioned A LOT.

We’ll focus on exactly what skills were mentioned in a moment, but what I can say is the overall theme of these comments focused on helping people build the right skills to navigate the modern world, not more skills.

There was a strong sense in responses that too much time is wasted on skills that are dictated by misinformed leadership and offer little real-world impact.

Again, probably from my influence of mentioning it every other week, many responses highlighted digital skills as a priority: “Digital skills – we’re at a time where we have vast differences in basic digital skills and those gaps only seem to be getting wider.”

Of course, AI literacy was mentioned several times as a priority skill, and we shouldn’t be surprised by this.

Another two skills that crept up many times were both effective communication (heavy on the effective) and the family of metacognitive skills with critical thinking and problem solving. I can’t help but think these are being driven by what teams are seeing on the ground with behaviour change with AI tools.

As one respondent superbly put it with communication:

“In a world full of uncertainty and ambiguity our brains are desperate to find some clarity. With the rise of social media and ever shorter modes of communication (reels, tik tok), most of us are less and less able to communicate well, or distil our thoughts into comprehensive structures that can easily be explained to others. Shorter attention spans mean we also don’t listen (active listening) as well as we used to. I’ve received a lot of “apparently” different requests for learning projects/interventions. When I try to dissect what the underlying theme is, it almost always boils down to how well people communicate – whether it’s about a line manager role, commercial role, senior leadership role, technical role. Not to mention that those who are effective communicators are also the ones who benefit most from AI – those who prompt the best are essentially communicating clearly with their AI tool of choice.”

Such a wonderful insight.

And another great note from this respondent on developing those human skills: “We’re focusing on meta cognition – helping them understand how they think, being able to problem solve by recognising what they don’t know so they can fill in the gaps. Practicing curiosity and thinking creatively – by creatively I mean the ability to problem solve.”

If we’re to sum up these priority skills, it looks a little like this:

  • Digital skills
  • AI literacy
  • Human skills – thinking, communicating, problem-solving etc

A pretty strong focus, imo.

3. Aligning Learning with Business Impact

This theme should surprise no one.

It occupies many of the ‘top x priority lists’ of industry lists for as long as I’ve been in the industry. So, it seems we’re still not getting it right!

On the surface, the message here is simple: Do things that benefit your business and you’ll create value.

Of course, it’s more complicated than that (isn’t it always).

I received the most comments on this theme, so I can see the passion that burns through so many of you when it comes to this. I found this theme was multi-layered with comments on showing impact, how L&D is integrated across a business and how we define significant challenges rather than taking one leaders word for it.

One respondent put it best as they shared:

“Starting with the problem to solve and really understanding it before jumping in with solutions! There are so many examples, from standard ‘mandatory’ training, to inspirational webinars to use of AI. We need to take a HUGE step back, pause and look at what the needs really are and how best to solve them. It’s so easy to get lost in all the day-to-day ‘to dos’ but we can be so much more efficient with a little better understanding of context / problem.”

Another recommended to align with the business, you must know it well, and I couldn’t agree more: “The focus should be whatever is the top business challenge facing their organisation. This requires them to actually go learn the business of their business.“

One of my first rules of L&D onboarding is always to know how your company makes money, otherwise, you can’t really impact performance.

This comment on L&D’s organisational alignment as a means of impacting the business got me thinking too: “L&D should be integrated into the business strategy, not function as a standalone entity.”

I don’t know many companies that consider L&D as a strategic imperative. Not the function in the business itself, anyway. Almost all leaders I meet with are clear on the benefits of improved learning and performance, yet they don’t see that coming from one department like L&D. Instead, they see it as a somewhat shared focus across every team.

While that’s lovely to think of, I always believe you need some kind of sherpa to lead the way.

Standout comments

Obviously, I can’t share every single comment.

Here’s a few more I didn’t include above, but certainly provoked deep thinking while writing this analysis:

  • In a world where possibilities have multiplied thanks to AI, it has become harder to say, “We’ll do this one thing and get it right.” There’s always a temptation to experiment, to test thousands of new tools. However, sometimes the “right” approach is to focus on that one “apple pie made with grandma’s recipe” and execute it properly—respectfully, with consideration for humans, listening to them, and understanding their development concerns.
  • Being able to measure the impact L&D has in the workplace and highlight is impact to show the value. Do not be an order taker- ask what is the problem the business is trying to solve? It may not be learning 🙂
  • Address significant business problems! I often see learning getting excited by the novelty of certain solutions and losing touch with the value release / relevance of their products
  • Develop solutions to help these employees achieve their objectives, as much as possible away from training and towards whatever the most effective solution can be (software, automation, repositories, aides, etc).
  • Behaviour/ performance improvement. Why? Because if there is no improvement, then the learning is nothing more than information provided.

Final thoughts

There you have it, my fellow learning nerd.

Some food for thought from our community. While there is never only ‘one way’, I hope this gives you a view of what the industry is thinking and even inspires how you’re driving value across your business this year.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

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Learning Strategy

Set Principles, Not Goals To Navigate Life

No year sounds more Blade Runner-esque to me than 2025.

Each year, we quickly find ourselves deep in one of the biggest human rituals of the year.

You know what I’m talking about – New Year’s Resolutions.

For the record, I think they’re a cup of sugar, honey, ice and tea (figure that one out). Plus, for whatever reason, companies decide that it’s also a good time for performance reviews and mass goal-setting exercises.

Of course, nothing can be better than returning to work after the festive season to have your performance rated. It’s practically the delayed Christmas present no one wants.

As you’ve most likely guessed, I’m not a resolutions or goals type of guy.

New Year’s resolutions are an age-old tradition.

They date back to 4,000 years ago. The ancient Babylonians are thought to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions.

Sadly, by February, most New Year’s goals/resolutions are nothing more than forgotten bullet points. In fact, a whopping 92% of people fail to reach their new year goals.

We all know the same people who set the same resolutions each year and still feel no closer to those changes 10 years later.

The non-obvious prison of goals and resolutions

Before anyone grabs their pitchforks and fire, I’m not saying goals are awful.

Every tool has its time and place. If you want to use goals for work, life and your career, that’s great. What I’m offering is an alternative to the status quo. Context is key with everything, so do what works for you.

With that out of the way, here’s why I’m not a big fan of goals and resolutions:

  • They often force a success or fail mentality
  • They prioritise immediate and definitive outcomes over enduring habits
  • For the most part, they’re quite rigid. Life changes, and as such, goals must too
  • 90% of people don’t recognise their starting place, nor the environment, mindset and motivators needed to achieve these

That’s my case to you.

So, what do I THE GOAL HATING DEMON do instead?

I do two things:

  1. A yearly life review
  2. Revisit and update my principles.

It’s not for everyone, but this might save you from the tyranny of prison that goals can create.

Ron Burgundy What GIF

Do a review

We’re so quick to set goals for a new year that we never consider what has passed.

I’m guilty of this.

I’ve never been one to indulge myself in wins. You might call me a ‘and onto the next one’ kinda guy. I like to think it’s stoic.

Perhaps a better word than ‘review’ would be round-up.

I’m not reviewing life like a performance review would, but rather recognising what has been. Think of it like a Spotify Wrapped but for life moments of the last 12 months.

This roundup will form the foundation of what you want to build in the year ahead.

I like these because they help build a broad picture with multiple data points. Most people set goals/resolutions based on ambitions that are not backed by data.

No one person can know where to go next if they don’t recognise where they’ve been.

These reviews help me with both my sanity and avoiding recency bias. Until I did my latest review last week, I’d convinced myself that 2024 was just a ‘meh’ year for me.

But spending the time to see all the moments laid out in front of me, gave me so many ‘ah that was a good thing’ notes.

It’s funny how that happens.

How can you know where to go next if you don’t know where you’ve come from?

How to do your review

  1. Grab a piece of paper or open a word document, divide the page into three columns. Now label one – What went well? The second: What did I enjoy? And the last as: What can I work on?
  2. Now spend 30 minutes reviewing the last 12 months. Place the thoughts that come into your head in each column.
  3. Once you’ve completed this, make sure (and this is the really important bit) to read all of your responses in depth to appreciate everything you’ve noted.
  4. The final step is to look over your what can I work on column. Take the final part of your reflection session to produce the 3-5 top things you want to work on in the year ahead.

Your answers don’t need to be complicated.

This isn’t an EOY review for work. This exercise aims to understand your starting point for the year ahead.

Goals often fail because they’re not personalised to where you are right now. This is why many fall down in the second week of the year, we simply ask too much too soon.

A common example of this is when people want to improve their physical fitness.

Let’s say person x wishes to improve their physical fitness this year, great, so what do they do?

In my approach, they would review their starting point by exploring what’s happened over the past 12 months.

  • What physical activities have you been doing?
  • How many times a week do you do these?
  • Do these supplement your lifestyle?

These are important points to review before building plans for the next 12 months.

Let’s say they work out twice a week.

A 3rd session might be a logical next step if it suits their current lifestyle.

Sadly, this is not the approach many of us take.

Too many come from a place of having no historical physical practice and jump into a gruelling body and soul-crushing routine of hitting the gym 5-6 times a week.

They think they’ll become that ‘ripped actor’ in just a few weeks.

But they’re wrong. Instead, they run themselves into the ground, and those goals/resolutions are dead by the second month of 2025.

Setting principles, not goals

Sooo the controversial bit.

Instead of huge lists of goals, I build, revisit and refresh an annual set of principles. Again, this isn’t for everyone, so don’t feel pressured to use it if it doesn’t work for you.

Context, friend. Everything is about context (that might be my word of 2025 already).

I use principles to shape and guide my behaviour, reasoning and decisions across my business, finances, wellbeing and more. I thrive in a framework of principles that encourage me to do the right things consistently rather than chasing defined endpoints.

A lot of this comes down to personal motivation. Principles motivate me more than goals.

FYI, a quick definition of principles – yes, I asked ChatGPT:

A principle is a fundamental truth, belief, or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of behaviour, reasoning and understanding. They act as guiding rules or standards to shape decisions, actions, and judgments across various contexts.

Why principles?

I look at principles as guiding frameworks.

Rather than fixed targets (goals), they serve as touchstones that influence actions and decision-making. It’s easier for them to grow with you too.

Whereas goals are more focused on ‘what you want to do,’ principles are about who you want to be.

As an example, I could set a goal of “read 5 books this year”, which is never going to happen btw, or set a principle like ‘Dedicate time to exploring new knowledge and applying it meaningfully’.

Get what I mean?

How to craft your principles

If you’re interested in crafting your own set of principles for 2025, I look at this in 5 steps:

  1. Reflect/establish your values
  2. Define commitments
  3. Keep them visible
  4. Don’t be afraid to change
  5. Use them daily

Let’s unpack these in a little more detail.

1/ Establish your values

This is never an easy task.

I always hated being asked this one when I was younger. For some reason, age has made it easier to define.

Principles should reflect your personal values, not external expectations.

A simple way to approach this is by identifying what truly matters to you.

2/ Define commitments

Here we translate those values into guiding principles.

We’re not in the business of confining ourselves to a rigid goal.

As an example, instead of saying “I’m going to exercise five times a week for 52 weeks of the next year”, reframe this to a principle of “I’m going to prioritise daily movement and healthier choices”.

Subtle and small but enduring.

3/ Keep them visible

Principles aren’t something you write on a performance review submitted on an HR platform that you don’t see till this time next year.

They’re living reminders, not ideas you write once and forget.

Keep them top of mind by placing them in visible spots. I have mine on a chalkboard next to my desk, and in a notes app on my phone.

4/ Don’t be afraid to change

Life changes, and so should your principles.

Goals have a win or lose mentality, whereas principles are more aligned with how life plays out. If life priorities have changed, then don’t be afraid to adapt your principles.

You can do this with goals too.

There’s no need to be trapped by them.

5/ Use them daily

Like most things in life, principles aren’t much use if you don’t use them.

They guide not just what you do but how you approach decisions.

When faced with a choice, ask: “Which option aligns most with my principles?” If priorities conflict, let your principles clarify what matters most.

[P.S. You can get my thoughts on making goal setting really work with some strategies you won’t find as part of the status quo].

📝 Final thoughts

Look, none of this is easy.

It’s not a magic potion, either. It’s an alternative to the norm, and if you’ve been hitting brick walls with goals, it might be worth a look.

Life is never about perfection.

Being consistent and intentional is the best that each of us can do.

As always, these are strategies that work for me. Context is key in everything. Principles won’t be for everyone, I know that.

No matter your method, I hope we can come back this time next year and share our stories.

In sum:

  • Don’t chase the New Year high
  • Adapt and evolve
  • Leverage the environment and motivators unique to your context

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Learning Strategy

How To Actually Achieve Your Goals in 2026

We’re often told if we want to achieve our dreams, we just need to set some goals.

But is it really that simple?

While I’ve shared my approach with utilising principles instead of goals for my performance, this doesn’t mean goals are bad.

They’re a tool, and depending on the environment, goals can be useful. I can’t challenge the status quo of goal setting without doing my research on the pitfalls.

Below is a short round-up on what I uncovered and how you (if you choose to use goals) can make goal setting really valuable.

You need more than motivation

According to research, a whopping 92% of people fail to reach their new year goals.

That’s a lot of people not achieving what they set out to do. So, what’s the problem?

Well, it turns out that motivation alone isn’t always enough.

Sure, it’s great to be fired up and ready to take on the world, but what happens when that initial burst of motivation wears off? That’s where follow-through comes in.

Peter Bregman wrote an article for HBR where he suggests that the real issue is not motivation, but follow-through.

And he’s right, to a certain extent. You can be motivated all you want, but if you don’t follow through on your commitments, you’re not going to achieve much.

Introduce a little anarchy

Not everyone is motivated by the same things.

Some people are all about positive goal setting, while others are more motivated by the fear of missing out or the consequences of not taking action.

I fall into the category of motivation by fear of what I don’t want in life (which is something I learnt from Tim Ferriss in his fear-setting talk).

(Get more detail from Tim on his thinking on this topic)

This thinking stems from the concept of loss aversion.

This fancy psychological concept suggests that we’re more motivated by the fear of losing something than the prospect of gaining something. In other words, we’re more likely to take action to avoid a negative outcome than to pursue a positive outcome.

So, you’re saying I should be driven by fear?

Well, it means that setting fears instead of goals might be more effective for some people.

When we set goals, we tend to focus on the outcome we want to achieve. And while that can be motivating in the short term, it can also create anxiety and stress if we’re not making progress as quickly as we’d like.

Setting fears, on the other hand, allows us to focus on the consequences of not taking action. It might sound a bit negative, but it can actually be a really powerful motivator for some folks.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to save money.

Setting a fear of not being able to pay your bills or having to work longer hours might be more effective than setting a positive goal of achieving financial freedom.

Alternative approaches to the status quo that will enable you to actually achieve your goals in 2025.

An adaptable goal setting formula

Having spent over a decade helping people set goals for personal and professional development. I have a long list of case studies of the good, bad and ugly.

What’s key is building an approach specific to you.

Cookie-cutter templates are great as a standing point, but it’s your job to mould them to your unique style.

To achieve our goals, we need:

  1. The right environment
  2. The right mindset
  3. Specific motivators

Consider these the next time you’re thinking about setting goals for yourself.

It’s not enough to simply write them down and hope for the best.

Instead, focus on creating an environment that supports your efforts, and adapt your approach as needed.

Final thoughts

Look, none of this is easy.

It’s not a magic potion, either. It’s an alternative to the norm, and if you’ve been hitting brick walls with goals, it might be worth a look.

Life is never about perfection.

Being consistent and intentional is the best that each of us can do.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Learning Strategy

3 Strategies to Stay Relevant, Drive Value, and Enhance Your L&D Career in 2025

December seems to be a month of overload.

Aside from the mass gift-giving and food consumption competitions, it’s also the month for reflection, predictions and a little bit of dubious speculation on the year ahead.

I’ve never cared much for predictions, especially in the L&D world.

It’s always the same stuff, different year – mostly.

Instead of peddling more of this crap, I thought I’d share what I’ve experienced in my work over the last 12 months, and based on that, the 3 actions you can take to drive value in your L&D work and career in 2025.

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Previously, we explored keeping things simple in L&D and life.

I’ll be continuing that theme with these 3 strategies. I’m a big believer in focusing on the 2-3 areas that will drive the most impact vs a top 10 list that no one will ever crack.

Too many get lost in making changes because they try to do too much.

So, we’re keeping this simple but effective.

The 3 strategies, or insights, I’ll share are drawn from the work I’ve done with clients, L&D teams and conversations with industry peers. But, as always, context matters.

Don’t feel like you must do these things to succeed.

As I’ve covered before, the context, culture, and constraints of your organisation play a huge role in what you can achieve in your role. One of the reasons I don’t pay much attention to conferences is that they contain too many speakers who talk in absolutes.

The world is not that straightforward.

In sum: These are insights based on experience. If you can make them work for you, great. If not, don’t lose any sleep over it.

📌 Key insights

  • Build strategies based on your context, not what trend reports say
  • Knowing ‘how’ to use AI is worthless without knowing why and when
  • You need more than L&D skills to go far

(FYI, you can watch a video version of the below on my Youtube channel.)

1/ Reshape what we mean by workplace learning

I’m coming in hot here already.

This is probably the biggest reason our industry experiences the pain and lack of recognition it does inside companies.

In the current model, no one takes us that seriously.

In L&D, we’re often asked: “How are we providing business value?” I can’t tell you the amount of times I had this conversation with every new CFO dying to find a line to cut in the shrinking company budget.

The answer isn’t in maintaining the status quo.

Especially when we have misguided souls who want to automate and ‘AI-everything’. Everyone thinks they’re a learning designer, marketer and product manager now.

The truth is the majority of your organisation doesn’t care about methodologies or technology – they care about performance and ROI.

→ Building trust as a strategic partner isn’t a quick fix, either. 

Too many organisations are stuck in a quasi-education system mindset. As we explored last week, workplace L&D teams are chucked into the same category as the traditional education system.

Both employees and leadership seeing us this way is a huge source of our problems.

People expect hours of lectures, note memorisation, and the idea that intelligence is assessed on only what you can recall. It doesn’t work in the real world. We need to focus on performance, not ‘learning’.

Our education system has brainwashed us to believe that ‘learning’ anything must be a designated event.

Your company still (probably) follows this system too.

An image showing how workplace L&D teams can remain relevant, drive value and enhance their career in 2025.

So, what do you do?

In short, reframe how you view yourself and the value you bring.

In an era of ‘AI-everything’, I believe our value lies not in finding that tool with a faster one-click delivery system, but in positioning our unique strategic insight and contextual understanding across the organisation.

The future belongs to L&D teams who bridge the gap between learning activities and business outcomes. But, this takes time. It could be years, and you need to be prepared for that.

The move from ‘nice to have’ to a valued strategic partner is worth it, imo.

That’s why I created The Art of Performance Consulting course. Everyone is obsessed with AI, but we’re still in the business of people. Our world is still built on relationships and uncovering the real problems.

Everything I know with all my strategies and war stories is in that.

Check it out if you want to improve the human in 2025 too.

2/ Make smarter decisions with digital technology

Disruptions from tech innovations are nothing new.

Yet, I see the same pattern of behaviour play out. You already know that generative AI is the current superstar in this role. Many have come before and more will after.

The mistake here is getting caught in the hype.

It feels like everyone, and I mean everyone, including their mum, grandmother, and even their cat has suddenly become an AI strategist. It seems like ‘AI’ has found its way into every job title overnight too.

Industry data tells us what some of us already know: leaders understand AI has massive potential for creating value, yet the majority of employees don’t have the skills to unlock it. 

Two years into this AI gold rush, companies still have no clear, structured approach to help people learn the skills, behaviours, and mindset required to use AI tools intelligently.

But that’s a problem you can solve both for your company and your own journey.

For L&D pros, I created the AI For L&D Crash Course to educate and empower industry professionals to not just use AI tools, but understand why and when.

After working with many companies these last 18 months on AI skills programmes, I’ve seen the same trend.

Leaders are so obsessed with ‘how to use tools’, they forget to help users understand why and when to use them. This is going to become a problem down the road.

It may surprise you, but the majority of my work in these skills programmes has been 70% focused on mindset and behaviours with AI tools. This isn’t an L&D challenge to solve alone.

Your organisation can only succeed with AI skill-building if it treats it as a transformation programme. Training alone will not bring success.

Saying that, and particularly with generative AI today, taming the outright mad expectations is another task in itself. Most of its current value lies in tackling the “boring and basic” tasks like streamlining workflows, saving time, and freeing people up to focus on what really matters.

a data viz from Boston Consulting Group which shows the lack of AI skills in organisations. This is a strategy that L&D teams need to build to drive value.
Source: Boston Consulting Group

3/ You need more than L&D skills to succeed

Firstly, let me be clear, every job requires more than the industry skillset it occupies.

That’s nothing new.

For the past decade, I sat down at the end of the year with a notepad and answered “How do you create your advantage as an L&D pro?”.

There are millions of people doing the same role, so how do I stand out?

First, recognise that your most powerful skills won’t be traditional ‘L&D skills’.

I get that might annoy some of you.

Deep technical expertise in your industry alone is not a massive advantage these days. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great but we need more than that.

Over the last 17+ years, my superpower in creating impact and staying ahead has had very little to do with being a good ‘trainer’ or ‘learning designer’ alone.

It’s had a lot more to do with:

  • Leveraging marketing principles to sell ideas
  • Becoming a storyteller to get stakeholder and customer buy-in
  • Adopting tech early to understand how it can shape experiences
  • Understanding how products are built and scaled

You won’t find this in any L&D 101 manual.

And that’s a problem.

This is not about being a jack of all trades, rather, it’s understanding what skills can enhance the L&D work you do.

Everyone’s worried about what AI could do to their jobs.

The best way to combat that is by building a set of skills for the modern era that give you an edge. So, stop thinking like a trainer, and start exploring the skills that will complement your L&D expertise.

I think you’ll have a pretty meaningful 2025 by doing that.

Two things to help you in this journey:

→ The 7 skills L&D teams need for today’s world

→ 5 rare skills no one talks about to become a successful L&D pro

Final thoughts

I’ve gone on enough!

In essence: Focus on performance, embrace intelligent use of tech, and build a diverse skill set.

The future is human-powered and you can shape your growth and impact.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.