Here are the next series of unanswered questions in a session I attended at the CIPD Festival of Work.

Is there anything you think L&D should STOP doing just now, so that we have the capacity to develop for the future?
This could be a very long and complex answer but I’ll reiterate the simple point: if what you’re doing doesn’t have an impact on the performance of the business, you need to question why you’re doing it. That means knowing the impact of EVERY intervention and recognising those which don’t do anything.

Data-driven decision making is a real buzz-word at the moment, but the leadership capabilities often lag. How do we as L&D professionals advocate for these softer skills and ensure internal capabilities match future direction?
Firstly, don’t call them soft skills. These are critical core skills. Label them appropriately to recognise the priority they deserve. The best way to drive adoption is to role model what’s expected; weave data interpretation into leadership support, analysis and reporting, and your learning and performance evaluation. Don’t try and turn leaders into analysts; they need to use data to influence, not just inform and know why they need to ask better questions. That comes from them understanding trends, anomalies and how to spot their – and others’ – biases.

What is the best piece of career advice that each of you have received?
It is one of the Life Lessons I mentioned on a recent podcast; if you’re unhappy, do something different – anything different. You are unlikely to be unhappier and you are actively doing something to improve your circumstances.

As I am in a global role one of my priorities is to upskill and influence local L&D teams that are at different maturity levels – with some of them, for example, having L&D as well as talent-acquisition or generalist HR responsibilities in their scope. How would you approach this situation to ensure everyone is aligned and fully adopting the global strategy?
I’ve mentioned before that collaboration is, in almost every case, impossible to achieve. It requires absolute clarity, agreement, and consensus on the core aims and objectives, aims and purposes. In a global organisation, local contexts – location, culture, social and community factors – will prevent this happening. Understand what your tolerance is to what WON’T be done and aim for cooperation. That means accepting and acknowledging dispersed teams might do things differently and their outcomes might be different, but there are clear reasons for this. Data is – again – your friend here and effective and robust analysis will support this approach.

What’s one skill we shouldn’t keep investing in because it has a shelf life?
It’s difficult to suggest a skill NOT to invest in without knowing each person’s context, baseline, etc. However, if you looked at the skills I worked on in the 90s, it might identify some obsolescence:

Then	Now
Reliance on classroom delivery	Blended face to face online, analogue, asynchronous, digitally supported
Static course catalogues	Growth mindset, just for me and just enough support, in the flow of work
Training administration	Auto tracking and enrolment, data collection, analytical tools
Knowledge transfer as a goal	Performance as a goal
Legendary models	Better understanding of andragogy, heutagogy, geragogy, the ways people learn and a shift from fixed design, delivery and evaluation models

What would you add? I’ll look at the last few unanswered questions next time.

#CIPD #FoW25