Race to the bottom

We have industrialised learning. It has become about growth and scale of delivery. The channel has, in many worlds, taken priority over the outcome  Scale the delivery and lower the cost. Is the race to the lowest cost the best value? Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Three conversations

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… Read More Three conversations

Beyond Integration

Nick Davies at Thinqi has written a thoughtful piece on why L&D feels broken heading into 2026. His central argument: HR and L&D operate as separate functions when they should be one unified capability aligned to organisational outcomes. He’s right that this fragmentation isn’t new. What’s changed is that AI has made the conversation urgent… Read More Beyond Integration

REALLY modern learning

I was reading the latest WFH research data from the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes at Stanford earlier this week. It shows that about 25% of all paid workdays in the US are now done from home, and employer plans have settled at around 1.4 days per week as standard. I’m doing some… Read More REALLY modern learning

Learning isn’t in courses

A new study from the IZA Institute of Labour Economics (Silliman & Willén, Beyond Training: Worker Agency, Informal Learning, and Competition, Sept 2025) shows what many of us already feel: most skills at work aren’t built in classrooms or course catalogues. They grow informally; on the job, with peers, through mentoring, and self-study. The findings… Read More Learning isn’t in courses