As I crawled towards the end of 2025, the hope of 2026 kept me going. I opened my laptop last week, and January abruptly arrived with the usual noise: new plans, new expectations, and a rush to make the year look bigger than the last. Rather than joining that noise, I think L&D teams would do better to focus on three conversations that will shape real impact in 2026.

First: what actually changed last year?
Not the volume of delivery or the number of people who turned up, but the way work itself shifted. Where did behaviour genuinely move? Where did decisions improve? If we can name those places, we should protect and grow them. If we can’t, it tells us something important about how we spent our time.

Second: where is demand signalling real organisational pain?
Most requests come to L&D framed as training needs, but underneath them sit workflow friction, unclear accountability, broken processes and cultural strain. If we treat that pain as a call for more courses, nothing improves. If we treat it as insight into the system, we can help organisations redesign how work actually happens.

Third: what are we willing to stop doing?
Every L&D team I know is carrying legacy work that soaks up time and energy without delivering performance. Reports produced because someone once asked for them. Programmes that exist because they always have. Saying “no” more often isn’t resistance; it’s strategy.

If these three conversations take place in January, the year ahead becomes less about filling calendars and more about strengthening capability, improving decisions and reducing friction at work. That feels like a better direction for 2026.