TLB #46🧠 Why your L&D strategy fails before it even begins
A bi-weekly inside scoop on all the hottest events, juicy discussions, and oh-so-many other exciting things happening in our dynamic L&D community. 🧡
Hello Shaker,
Here’s all that you’ll experience in today’s issue:
💡Learning Bites: The hidden traps that derail L&D strategy and how to overcome them
🗓️ Community Calendar: Be part of local hub meet-ups happening in your city and virtual events happening like How to Speak Business and Earn Your Seat at the Table
🖌️ Community Creations: Let’s welcome Valerie Pierre, Li-hsien Chang and Bettina Gulya and Joana Alexandrino and Patrícia Bochňáková into the community
🔖 Resource Reel: A collection of resources on talent, ways of working, L&D strategy and many more.
Learning Bites 💡
You’ve got the budget, leadership buy-in, and a well-intentioned L&D strategy that seems bulletproof. Yet months later, engagement is low, skills gaps persist, and leadership is questioning the ROI. What went wrong? 🤔
The reality is, that most L&D strategies fail before they even begin—not because they lack ambition, but because they fall into hidden traps. These traps aren’t obvious at first, but they silently undermine your efforts, leading to wasted resources, disengaged employees, and missed business impact. 😣
In today’s VUCA world, organizations are navigating:
🎢 Rapid digital transformation and automation
🎢 Shifting workforce demographics and hybrid work environments
🎢 A growing demand for continuous reskilling and upskilling
🎢 Increased focus on business agility and innovation
Yet, many L&D strategies still follow outdated playbooks—focusing on training over performance, content over application, and measurement over meaningful impact.
So, where do these failures stem from? Let’s break it down into four critical pillars of an L&D strategy and uncover the hidden traps within each.
1. Strategic Alignment (Is L&D solving the right problem?)
🚧 Trap 1: L&D Is disconnected from business priorities
Why It happens:
L&D often operates in a silo, designing programs without fully aligning with the company’s strategic direction. As a result, training initiatives feel disconnected from real business needs.
Modern business shifts that should influence L&D strategy include:
Market disruptions: Pivoting to new products, industries, or digital transformation.
Talent shortages: Closing workforce skill gaps due to high turnover.
Competitive pressures: Developing innovation capabilities to stay ahead.
Mergers & acquisitions: Unifying corporate cultures and upskilling for integration.
What you can do right now:
✅ Run a business impact mapping session – Meet with senior leadership and ask questions like, what are the top three challenges the company faces? How can L&D contribute to solving them?
✅ Adopt an action mapping approach – Instead of asking, what training do employees need? ask, what behaviours need to change to meet business goals?
✅ Use a skills taxonomy – Map out current workforce skills against future business needs to identify gaps.
🚧 Trap 2: Assuming training is always the answer
Why It happens:
L&D often jumps straight to creating training without diagnosing whether the issue is a knowledge gap, process issue, or motivation problem.
What you can do right now:
✅ Conduct a root cause analysis – You can use the simple 5 Whys technique to determine whether a performance gap is due to missing skills, inefficient workflows, or lack of motivation.
✅ Leverage performance support tools – Instead of formal training, consider job aids, checklists, automation, or workflow improvements that address the root cause more effectively.
✅ Partner with business units – Before designing training, run small pilot programs to test if alternative solutions (e.g., coaching, job rotations) work better.
2. Learning Design & Delivery (Are we designing for learning effectiveness?)
🚧 Trap 3: Content overload – More isn’t better
Why It happens:
L&D teams focus on content coverage rather than designing for learning retention. This results in cognitive overload, reducing knowledge retention by up to 40% (Sweller, Cognitive Load Theory, 2023).
What you can do right now:
✅ Apply the 80/20 Rule – Focus on the 20% of content that drives 80% of impact. Cut the fluff.
✅ Use spaced learning & retrieval practice – Reinforce learning through microlearning nudges, flashcards, or quick scenario-based questions.
✅ Shift from lecture to experience – Use interactive simulations, scenario-based learning, and peer problem-solving instead of passive content dumps.
🚧 Trap 4: Ignoring how adults learn
Why It happens:
Most corporate training still follows school-based models (long lectures, one-size-fits-all content) rather than the self-directed, problem-based, and social learning approaches that adults prefer (Knowles, 1984).
What you can do right now:
✅ Personalize learning journeys – Let employees self-select learning paths based on their goals.
✅ Encourage peer learning – Use learning circles, slack discussions, or internal mentorship instead of relying only on top-down instruction.
✅ Embed learning in workflows – Convert training into just-in-time performance support using tools like chatbots, AI-powered learning assistants, or embedded video walkthroughs.
3. Implementation & Reinforcement (Is learning transferring to performance?)
🚧 Trap 5: No manager buy-In = No learning transfer?
Why it happens:
Studies in the past have shown that employees are more likely to apply new skills if their managers reinforce learning. Yet, most managers are not engaged in learning initiatives.
What you can do right now
✅ Equip managers with coaching Tools – Provide conversation guides, follow-up templates, and reinforcement nudges to help managers discuss learning with employees.
✅ Tie learning to performance reviews – Make learning applications a key part of employee evaluations.
✅ Create learning champions – Identify influential managers and train them to be learning advocates within their teams or even for their business unit.
4. Measurement & Impact (Can we prove it’s working?)
🚧 Trap 6: Measuring Completion Rates, Not Business Impact
Why it happens:
Many L&D teams track course completions and engagement metrics rather than focusing on real-world behaviour change and business outcomes.
What you can do right now
✅ Track behaviour, not just learning – Measure on-the-job application of skills via manager check-ins/ assessments or project outcomes.
✅ Use business KPIs – Align learning metrics with sales performance, customer satisfaction, productivity gains, or error reductions.
✅ Pilot & iterate – Run small test-and-learn cycles to refine L&D programs based on real impact data.
The reality is, it’s not that we don’t know these things. Many L&D professionals are already doing some of this—but it’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind and drift away from what truly moves the needle. Sometimes, we focus on delivering more courses instead of solving real problems. Other times, we measure activity instead of impact. It happens.
The good news? We can always recalibrate. Small shifts—like asking the right questions before designing training, engaging managers more intentionally, and tracking real business impact—can make a massive difference. 🚀
So, what’s one change you can make in your L&D approach today that will have a real, measurable impact?
Drop your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear from you!👇
Coming Up Next
Community Calendar 🗓️
Our CORE TEAM has been working behind the scenes to bring you some incredible learning experiences, and we can’t wait for you to be part of them! 🚀
These upcoming events are designed to spark new ideas, challenge perspectives, and create meaningful connections.
Community Creations 🖌️
🇨🇭Our Local Hub in Zurich is growing, and so is the team leading it! Valerie Pierre is officially joining Teresa Moreno and Nevena as the Local Hub Lead in Zurich.
Welcome to the team, Valerie—wishing you all the best in this new journey! 🕺
🇩🇪 Thrilled to welcome Li-hsien Chang and Bettina Gulya as the new Local Hub Leads for our Berlin community!
Their shared passion for bringing people together to learn makes them a perfect fit for the role. A huge thank you to Ribana and Denise Philipp for their incredible work leading this project over the past year.
Let’s give them all a big cheer! 🎉
Our community’s peer-to-peer, show-and-tell event, "L&D Backstage" is back and stronger than ever!
Launched by the amazing Ana Silva two years ago, it’s all about sharing and learning from each other’s work in L&D. Now, Joana Alexandrino and Patrícia Bochňáková are stepping in as Event Catalysts to continue this awesome format! 🥳
A huge thank you to Ana Silva for all the incredible case studies she’s brought to the community. Your impact is truly appreciated! 💛
Are you an internal L&D professional with a great case study to share? Now’s your chance—Joana and Patrícia will help bring it to life!
Want to host and share your case study with other Shakers? Drop in your details here.
Cool Stuff You Don’t Wanna Miss Out
Resource Reel 🔖
Increasing your return on talent: The moves and metrics that matter- This article talks about the five actions that organizations can take to maximize their return on talent, from building a skills-based strategic workforce planning capability to establishing a stellar performance-oriented culture.
2025 Megatrends: Big challenges, Big opportunities- Explore the infographic to learn how the mega trends from increased geopolitical disruption to more AI use cases, and fewer experiments will be shaping the way we work
State of Facilitation 2025- This report deep dives into what’s next for facilitation in 2025. Facilitators from around the world have shared their vision for facilitation for the year, how they keep learning and many more such insights from facilitators’ pov.
How to make culture tangible and actionable – the ABCs- The best way to work around culture is to make it tangible so people in the organisation can connect to it. Alignment, Belonging, and Collaboration are the three interconnected dimensions that help you to do so.
10 best Organizational Development conferences in 2025- Often, people in the Shakers community keep asking for conferences to attend and I got this list of conferences to attend if you’re keen to explore broader OD perspectives.
14 best Change Management certifications to take in 2025- Looking to dip your toes into Change Management, then this list with a detailed overview for each of the courses listed will help you make the best choice.
The building blocks of a future-ready L&D strategy- What better day to share this resource than today? Read this infographic to understand the core components that make up your L&D strategy.
Joy cards- Looking for ways to infuse delight into teaching and learning? Then these cards with some amazing ideas will help you do so.
〜See you soon
Till then, keep spicing up your learning! 🧠🧂
Sejaal