Ten years ago, I wrote a post about things I had overheard, read or been prompted to think about.

I asked:

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we stopped worrying about seats at tables?
I still hear this conversation ten years later. L&D still talks about getting a seat at the table as though influence comes from being invited into a particular room, rather than understanding the organisation, offering useful judgement and helping solve problems that matter.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we made training courses even more mandatory?
Ten years on, mandatory learning is still the default response to many organisational problems. Sometimes it is appropriate, but often it is simply the easiest thing to mandate, track and report. Completion remains easier to measure than whether anything changed.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we stated the obvious, in simple words, so people had no reason to doubt our intention?
The jargon has changed, but the habit hasn’t. We still make straightforward ideas sound more complicated than they are, often because complicated language looks more credible than a simple explanation. Sometimes expertise is demonstrated by knowing what can be left out.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we scaled up?
Scale is still treated as evidence of value: more learners, content, reach and activity. But making something bigger does not necessarily make it better. What works for 20 people may lose the thing that made it useful when extended to 2,000.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we scaled down?
I still think this. Small, focused work can be dismissed as lacking ambition, even when it produces better results. We are often more comfortable funding a large programme than a precise intervention because the programme looks more substantial.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we stopped doing something until we knew its complete value?
We still want certainty before acting. We ask for a complete business case, a full set of measures and evidence of impact before the work has begun. That is not an argument for acting without thought, but some value can only be understood through doing.

Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we gave everyone a label that made it easier for us to classify them?
The labels have changed, yet the desire to sort people into manageable groups remains. Generations, personas, talent categories and proficiency levels can be useful. They can also become substitutes for understanding the people they are supposed to describe.

And ten years ago I also asked:

• Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we thought more about the ‘be’ than the ‘do’?
• Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we stopped asking people what they wanted and showed them they could trust our craft, knowledge and expertise?
• Wouldn’t it be a ‘good’ idea if we didn’t worry so much about what strangers thought and cared more about friends?

What have you been thinking about for the past ten years?