9 years ago to the day (March 4 2013), I wrote a blog post about how LnD was focusing on the wrong stuff.

The summary included these 4 points:

1. If we continue to pronounce how we have ‘new’ and ‘brilliant’ content we will disappear.
2. If someone markets solutions from within workflow we will disappear
3. If we can’t talk in terms of business we will disappear
4. If we can’t focus on outcomes rather than outputs, we will disappear

Number 1 is happening. User Generated Content (UGC) is everywhere and people are realising they can produce and provide content for free via Slack, Yammer, Teams and the other internal comms channels.

Number 2 is beginning to happen. Look at the TikTok story and it’s possible to see how teams will market their own talent development. Indeed, it happens in parts of the Civil Service as teams compete with professions and external providers to capture attention.

We need to do some serious work on part 3. I was in a webinar last week that still talked about evaluation using Kirkpatrick and that ‘Level 4 was beyond the learning function’.

I’ve been talking about number 4 for a while now. I was working with a team last week and we identified a raft of potential smart output measures that would improve and inform. Start looking more business-like as a function and we’ll be invited to produce outcome data. Start collecting it anyway and accelerate the process.

If you want help with these and want to talk it through, please do let me know.