Beyond Learning: The Strategic Role of L&D in 2025 & Beyond

Let's talk a little bit about today's topic.
So, as learning starts to kind
of take center stage in driving business performance,
the role of l and d is being redefined.
It's no longer just about delivering content,
it's about being, um, innovative, about being able to prove
that impact and embrace AI with intention,
not just enthusiasm.
In this forward thinking session today, we'll explore
what it takes to evolve your learning strategy
for the AI era
and build function that powers performance at scale
with long-term success.
Today, we are super lucky to be joined with two experts
who will lead us through this conversation.
First up, we have Sean Stowers, CEO of weLearn,
uh, learning Services.
And last but not least, we have Jennifer Meyers,
senior Director of Learning
and Development at Center for Internet Security.
Thank you so much for being here, Sean and Jennifer,
Uh, thank you for having us.
And actually, I would just, uh, switch it around
and say Jennifer's the most important person here, um,
because Jennifer sits in role.
So I am going to, we're gonna have a conversation today,
and we are super excited to be here.
And Jen, as always, thank you for being here
and being my partner in crime.
Of course. Hi friends.
Hi. So, again, a little housekeeping.
Um, so my, again, my name is Sean Stowers.
I'm the CEO and Chief Learning Officer of weLearn.
We are a learning consultancy based in Chicago,
and we are built and we are building
better humans through learning.
Jen, do you wanna introduce, uh,
give a little bit more background on yourself
and the Center for Internet Security?
Sure. So the Center
for Internet Security is a non-for-profit.
Um, and what we do is we partner with public
and private organizations to help, um,
companies mitigate cyber risk.
So we have a bunch of different products that we offer.
Um, I have been in learning
and development specifically for
probably about four or five years.
Um, prior to that, I've been in lots
of leadership roles in human resources.
However, like many of us learning
and development has always been my passion,
and so I'm so happy when I transitioned over this
and I get to spend my days working with, um, all my fellow l
and d colleagues, and we can just nerd out
on, on what I love to do.
So I'm happy to be here. Thanks, Sean.
Excellent. So in our presentation today,
we're gonna share some insights,
and then I'm going to ask Jen some questions, um, about
how this is playing out for her in her role
as the Senior Director of learning
and development at the Center for Internet Security.
Um, as Sarah said, um, please feel free to drop,
uh, questions in the chat.
We're, we will try to monitor the chat
as we're going through the presentation.
We will come back at the end
and answer any questions that are in the chat as well.
And so we're super excited to be here with you today
and look forward to this conversation.
So we'll start with a little bit of context setting and,
and say that l and d is at an inflection point.
And I dunno about you guys, but I'm on, on LinkedIn.
I, I see things all the time where l
and d is dead, AI is going to eat us.
Um, there's conversations about, um, what l and t should
and shouldn't be doing, but I think that, um, you know,
there's, uh, a bit of, um, kind
of consternation right now about l and d.
Um, you know, 89% of, um, L
and D Pro say that they're pri prioritizing skill building,
um, which is great.
You know, we, we hear a lot about needing to build skills
for the future, but only 25% of l
and d professionals feel like they're
confident in their learning strategy.
Um, and that, and so really, you know, I think
where we sit is we talk about, you know,
this is really about moving from, uh, just content delivery
to performance and innovation.
And I think as we continue
to look at what's going on in the marketplace, that
pressure, um, in, in, in what's fueling changes is a lot
of it has to do with digital transformation right now, AI
and shorter skills lifespan.
Um, interestingly enough, you know, 38% of
employees say learning is aligned to business goals.
I think that there's some great information out there right
now that's talking about AI
and what AI is doing to employees,
and that, um, employees aren't quite sure about what
you know, they should be doing in terms of ai.
And so I think
that this provides us both an interesting moment for l
and d in terms of thinking not only about our strategy,
but what is it that we're doing as an l
and d organization, how do we support, um,
our employees in this changing, um, this changing world.
And so with that sort of context of, you know, where we are
and, and, and where L
and d leaders feel about their strategy, I wanna ask Jen,
how are these shifts showing up for you at CIS Um, kind of
where are you in your strategic journey?
What, how, how are you reacting to these trends
and what's, what's going on with you?
Yeah, so as you can imagine, uh, change in
cybersecurity is relentless.
And so it is a constant evolving door what we need
to be doing, what we need to be focusing on.
But what I am seeing, I think, within our workforce is,
you know, with the rise of AI
and different productivity tools
and technology, um, a lot of what we're trying
to do is shift our focus from hard skills like technical
skills, uh, learning, you know,
teaching a specific coding language.
And what we're trying to do
and put more emphasis on is more of those
transferable cognitive skills.
So agility, critical thinking, decision making, those things
that are, regardless of how good we are with the usage
of generative AI
and other digital technologies, these are things
that we need to be efficient at,
and we need to be really solid at them to be able
to thrive in high stakes environments
and also make informed decisions.
So that's one thing that I think that we're seeing in CIS
Thank you for sharing that.
I think that, you know, I think it's important that,
you know, again, we are, we're constantly evolving and,
and thinking about what we're doing.
Um, let's, let's kind of continue on
and, and talk a little further.
So I think one of the, the big things that we know is
that aligning strategy
to business impact is super important.
And I think, you know, a lot of times in l
and d we focus on completion satisfaction.
Um, I think Jen, you
and I were just at a conference where one
of our friends talked about BS being butts in seats
and having to move away away from that.
And that really, you know, we need to as l
and d move to thinking about performance
engagement readiness.
Um, you know, the Brendan Hall Group really says 71%
of top organizations like l and d to KPIs in the business.
And, you know, I think what's super interesting about
that is, um, for l
and d is really redefining success, right?
Moving from activity to outcome, blending l
and d data with performance data.
Um, and then, you know,
maybe some strategies like capability
academies and dashboards.
Um, I think one of the things that we know
and that we see is that, um, the data that we need
to sometimes talk about our impact
isn't always within the four walls of, of L and D, right?
We have to go out and talk to other partners in the
business, um, for that.
Um, and so, Jen, I know that you talked about, you know,
four years in l and d and you know, a little bit about,
and maybe a little bit of your journey.
You really started the l and d function at CIS, right?
You've built it from the ground up.
Um, so you're in not only four years in your l
and d journey, you're, you know,
four years into your strategy journey.
And so, Chen, I think that it's super question here is
how do you align learning with the business strategy at CIS?
And maybe you could talk about that journey
and your relationship with the executives at CIS
and really what you
and your team do to align to the business.
Yeah, I could definitely share some of my, uh,
my bruises along the way, so to speak.
But I would say, um, you know, we, I was asked
to lead a new team, start a new department.
I had very minimal knowledge of how
to even create a learning strategy.
And I was lucky enough to partner with Wheel Learn,
and they taught me all the basics of it,
but a lot of it was really just boots on the ground.
Um, and I will say that what I've learned is that you need
to know your strategy deeply.
And if you do not, you should probably dive a little bit
deeper into that and really understand your organization's
goals, why they are moving in the direction
that they're moving, what is the strategy behind it?
Um, you know, what skills, behaviors,
and mindsets are, um, necessary to help drive that.
It's not seats, it's not butts and seats, right?
That's not gonna prove the value add there.
So what I have learned to do, um, is ask questions, meet
with business leaders, insert yourself early
on in those discussions.
Um, l and d is often not brought into the
conversation in the beginning.
So a lot of times when employees are seeing the strategic
direction or organizational goals of the company, l
and d is also seeing them for the first time too.
Um, but knowing this information, um,
you can be a bit more proactive in asking the right people,
Hey, what are you forecasting for next year?
What are we thinking? Um, and one example I wanna show you
or I wanna explain is, you know, for example, if,
if your organization has a goal to improve revenue with it
of specific product, how well ask yourself,
how well do you know that product?
Do you know as an l
and d professional what the market strategy is,
how it differentiates with other products?
And then you need to speak with leaders
and ask, you know, what do employees know about this?
What are the skills that are lacking within being able
to increase that revenue?
Um, sometimes it's silly questions,
but we need to have a little bit of business acumen
to be able to ask the right questions
and get with the right people to know how can l
and d help drive the performance of this?
What does success look like?
If we were to help you do this, what would you wanna see?
What behaviors would you wanna see?
Um, there was another point I wanted to make, so that,
that's really what I would say about strategy.
But with regards to, you talked about academies, um,
capability academies, and that was interesting too,
because I feel like we've been doing a lot of this,
but we haven't been calling it that.
Um, and for example, uh, with the rise of ai,
we knew we needed to upscale our employees, right?
We knew we needed, but we weren't really interested in just
saying, let's teach them how to use chat GPT,
or let's teach them how to use copilot.
We created a, a, a learning series
of noon time knowledge sessions focused on
different AI topics.
And some of them are around, you know, understanding, uh,
natural language processing and chatbots,
and how to understand the backend.
Then we would do another session about the capabilities
behind understanding, uh, bias and risk and security.
Um, and then we would, we would pull in employees
and do a session and do actual use cases
of people in the company who are using these tools
and how they're using them.
So we're approaching it from multiple angles
and building our overall AI capabilities,
whether you call it an academy
or you call it just a learning experience, we're trying to,
you know, just make it more of an experience for people.
Um, so that, that's one example of how, how, you know,
in a capability academy is, is kind of shaping up at,
at CISI.
So, first of all, I appreciate that,
and we're gonna talk more about ai.
So this is, I'm glad you shared that
and we're gonna dive in more.
Um, and something you talked about about is like getting out
there and getting to know your strategy
and getting to know it, know it well.
And oftentimes we talked to l
and d leaders who say, I don't know what the strategy is.
I don't know how to get access to it.
But you talked about getting out there and, and,
and having conversations with business leaders,
leaders within the business as stakeholders.
So can you talk a little bit about how you've built that,
um, muscle, how you built that muscle, how you,
how you've earned the credibility
to have those conversations and,
and what that journey's been like for you?
Yeah, so I was very fortunate enough in the beginning
of my role that the CEO was very
invested in this new department, thought
that the initiative was super impactful.
So I got time with him, I had a regular meeting cadence
with him, and I would use that time to talk about, you know,
forward thinking strategy, what he's seeing,
what the board of directors are seeing.
And I would always try to keep a pulse on that.
Um, and a lot of times it was just listening in
and shadowing on C-suite level meetings.
Um, I would join in on the strategy session
and, you know, just listen, I didn't have a part
to play in the development and the innovative conversation,
but just being in the room
and asking to be a part of that, I was able
to pick up on things and know exactly
what our challenges were and, and where things were going.
Um, most people in my organ organization know that I'm,
you know, I'll, I'll, I'll be quick to slack
or email somebody and say, Hey,
can you hop on a quick call for 15 minutes?
I just wanna understand, you know,
the strategy in your team, what some
of your goals are about, um, and learn more about them.
Um, and maybe it leads to a learning
and development alignment, and maybe it doesn't,
but it gives me the knowledge I need to know.
Um, a lot of times I'm asking for, you know,
if I can get a couple minutes on an agenda of a meeting
to talk about a couple things that
we're doing and get feedback.
So I, again, try to hit it from, from all angles,
but I, I am hungry, I think for and curious,
and I'm not afraid to ask silly questions and,
and go out there and just build connections and,
and network with different leaders around the organization.
Excellent. I love that.
Um, and that is, uh, such a great, um,
I think way to build that muscle.
Um, so Jen, you talked a little bit about AI
and AI and learning and, and what's real.
Um, and I think what's super interesting is that, you know,
when we talk about ai, you know, o Open AI
has a statistic in 2024 saying 16% of folks are using ai
da, you know, daily, 38% are rarely or never using ai.
Um, you know, some folks are using it for personalization,
some people are using it for curation.
Some folks in o and D are using it for performance support.
Um, I remember two years ago
sitting in a conference when open generative AI came out
and everybody kind of lost their mind, lost their,
it was like, oh my God, I've gotta go back in and,
and fire half of my staff.
What I'm intrigued by Jen is that
what you talked about in terms of AI
wasn't necessarily about like, how do we use AI
to deliver learning differently?
And I know you're doing some of
that, so I wanna talk about that.
But you really focused on
how do we help our employees better understand
generative AI and what it is.
And one of the things that I remember in our conversations
about this, Jen, is initially, given what you do
and what CIS does, AI wasn't something that you necessarily
as an L and d leader had access to.
So talk a little bit about how you bifurcated the view of,
hey, one, we have to help our employees understand it
and why that's important to an organization like CIS Yeah.
And then talk a little bit about how you
and your team are using AI to do what you do
inside of the organization.
Yeah, yeah, good question.
So, I will preface with the fact that we, you know,
have very limited AI tools that we're approved for.
So I think that the challenge that comes with ai,
I'll talk on an organizational level, is balancing,
you know, that pe our employees are very eager.
They're, they, they're, these are technical professionals.
They are, they know the tools that are out there.
They don't understand why they can't use them.
They, they have a real hard time with balancing innovation
with risk and compliance.
Um, and so we, we struggle there.
And so I think learning comes into play, helping
to navigate that balance.
And that's why we took the approach of, Hey,
maybe maybe our employees do have something
to learn about ai, but
before we get into teaching about the tools
and technology, let's give them the knowledge they need
to know about the risks associated with, um,
our proprietary data, what would happen, some of, some of
what that looks like if this, this goes south,
and why we take the stance we do in being really diligent in
what we give our employees access to.
So that's sort of one approach that we're taking.
But I think from the l
and d team, um, the tools that I will say
that are most helpful from a gen AI perspective,
obviously our, our, our copilot, that is
what we use day in and day out.
I, I saw some members of my team are on the line here, so
we are really just scratching the surface with it.
Um, I will tell you, I used copilot
to help me formulate some of my thoughts
for this presentation.
And if you are not doing that in advance of prepping
for a presentation or some sort of speaking event,
you need to, you need to do that.
Sometimes it's just easy to have somebody to, to go through,
here are my random thoughts, here's some things I did.
How can you polish this for a bit better of a response
that really connects to what, what the,
the audience is looking for?
Um, things like meeting summaries, curriculum design,
you know, here's some ideas.
We, we wanna upskill leaders in X, Y, and Z.
What are some innovative approaches that, that, um,
we could use for in-person instruction?
Um, you know, there's, there's tons of things
that we're doing that's all built into our productivity.
It's all things that we can teach ourselves.
So we don't really need to, you know, attend a training to,
to learn how, 'cause if you fail, it doesn't matter.
Just say, that's not what I was looking for.
Let's, let's go down to different prob.
Um, you don't have to be so kind.
And I like that because I'm a bit more direct when you're
dealing with actual human beings, right?
You might need to preface
and be a little bit softer, your approach,
but if AI's not giving you what you need,
you can be like, that's not right.
Let's try again. And you don't have to worry about them.
You know, maybe not being your friend at the end.
So that's something.
But I will also say that, um,
what's not working in our organization is,
aside from the limited availability of tools that we have,
when tools are approved for specific use cases,
employees need training on how, what they're used for, um,
how to use them at a bare minimum.
And sometimes when l
and D isn't brought into that conversation, they,
they fall flat, or employees don't use them at all
because they really aren't certain, okay,
I know we're approved for this.
I don't really know if it's applied to me
and what I can do with it.
And so l and d needs to kind
of be a bit more proactive in saying, Hey,
here's this new tool.
Let's, let's get some meetings on with employees
and see what we can do to help increase
the, the usage of it.
Um, so those are just a couple thoughts I have
On that. You know, I,
I love that point that you just made.
I recently had a conversation with a learning leader who,
we did a round table on ai
and he set up a conversation with us
and he goes, listen, I've got this, um, uh, I, I,
I got access to copilot for 365, and, um,
but we don't have a plan on how to use this.
We don't know what to do with it. He was like, I'm trying
to figure out what my role is in this.
And I re I said to him, I said, okay, so
do you think you're the only person
that it's given pilot copilot 365 to?
And he goes, no. And I said, well,
maybe go ask the IT department.
Well, who else has access to it
so I could go ask them how they're using it?
And he goes, right, oh.
And I was like, like, that's
where the conversation starts, right?
Mm-hmm. So I love that kind of sense of that you're saying,
Hey, wait, we need to be involved in this
as the tools are rolling out.
And that, you know, having that conversation with it
is super important.
So, um, I love, I love that,
but it is sometimes thinking about like, Hey, wait,
like let's go ask like, how are we giving out those tools
and why are we giving them out?
And do we have any guardrails around those tools?
And if not, how can we help make sure
that everyone knows what they are?
Right? Yeah.
I will tell you at the, the T conference, I was blown away
by some of the ways that l
and d teams were using generative AI tools.
I mean, I was learning from them.
And that's, that's, that's where the bread and butter is.
Go find people who are doing it well. Yeah.
Um, and it'll blow your mind what it's capable of. Yeah.
Um, you know, we're not expected to do this alone. Okay.
Yeah. I think what's interesting, Jen, as well about
what you said is I do think that there's part
of our profession that has run to
how do we use this to do what we do?
And we're kind of really focused on what we do
as the function, but we're not actually looking at
what do we need to give
our employees in terms of the skillset.
But you, you actually bifurcated the focus
and said, we need to focus on both.
Because at the end of the day, to your point, your CEO,
your business leaders, the business leaders
of everyone on this phone who are, um,
running organizations, they, the number one thing
that they want are people that have skills in ai, right?
So, and as l and d, that's the thing that we do.
We build those skills. So I think it's super important to,
to, to think about that bifurcation of that focus to,
we have to think about how we use it to do our job
and do it well, but we have to think about how we equip our,
our, our employees to use this.
Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And so I think that was what was, um,
I love that that's kind of
how you led your answer in this discussion
was starting with the employees.
Um, I think that one of the interesting things about AI is,
um, you know, avoiding the AI hype traps.
So, you know, it's easy to lead with tech, it's easy,
there's a lot of bright and shiny toys out there.
Um, and, and,
and I think one of the things that Jen,
you talked about was, you know, um, finding use cases,
finding places to, to pilot things, build trust,
which I think is super important.
Um, and so for those of you out there listening,
and maybe you're thinking about AI
and how do you use it, whether it's in your l and d team,
or how do you begin to think about how do you use this
inside of your organization?
Um, this, I think these are super important things.
I think recognize that this is a ma mature,
maturing technology landscape that, um, that, you know,
there's going to be a lot of, um, technologies
that may not exist in a year.
So I think those are all super important things.
Um, so Jen, we've talked a little bit about this,
but I'm curious, uh, you mentioned copilot.
What AI tools or practices are working for you at CIS
and what, what has it worked?
Is there anything that you've are like, Hey, we've tried
that and that didn't actually work?
Oh gosh. Um, I'll start with what hasn't been working,
and I know my fellow employees
who are on the line right now know what I'm talking about.
But, uh, we have a, a pretty
substantial review board, a governance board that involves
many different departments at CIS.
So we have a, a review board from legal,
we have our information security office.
We have, you know, folks on the executive team
that are reviewing these tools.
The length of time that the pure length of time it takes
to submit a use case, to get it approved,
to get it reviewed, and to get it out
to staff once it it's approved, is just entirely too long.
I mean, we, we are, we are risking not moving at the pace
that we need to move.
Um, just looking at what some of our competitors are doing.
Um, but we're balancing that, you know,
the ability we have to go through this.
We have to be able to, um, evaluate our risk
and regulatory compliance and security
and all the privacy data and what this could look like.
And if we don't do that, we are really,
we risk our reputation as an organization.
So I think that's one thing that's not working,
and we're trying to figure out how we can be a bit more
efficient in that process without losing the impact of
what it is we're trying to do.
Yeah. I lo I love that perspective.
I think that, you know, but,
and again, I think there's a role for l
and d in that governance process around ai, around thinking
of these sorted issues
and helping the organization to navigate this.
Um, particularly since we are the ones
that perhaps are best equipped
to help educate employees about what to do
or not to do as it relates to some of the,
the tools you talked about,
educating employees within CIS about what are the impacts
of our data or our products being ingested by these tools.
Um, I think something that we run into a lot,
and I think this as an and,
and Jen, I'd be curious as a learning leader, um,
as you evaluate technologies,
particularly learning technologies that come in
to train your employees.
And, and I see Diane, uh, Barker raised her hand,
so we'll come back to Diane
and ask you about your, to see if you have a question.
But one of the things that, you know, I know
that we end up talking about on behind is
that when there are AI tools, um,
that are being used in a piece of technology, um, that
your data isn't used to train the AI model,
are you getting into any of those conversations
with suppliers that have AI enabled tools
where you're saying, Hey, you can't use our
data to train your model?
And can you talk a little bit about what
that's like from a learning leader perspective? Yeah,
Yeah. So I won't,
I won't get into it too much
'cause I'm not technical in, in how I speak about ai.
But I will say, um, the many products
that we have already been utilizing at CIS are coming out
with AI features.
Uh, what that is doing to our process is also, um,
you know, becoming very challenging.
So for instance, we, we use Articulate, articulate,
just came out with an, an AI component.
We had to halt using, articulate for course creation
and put it back through to the process
to have the entire software, uh, tool completely reviewed.
Again, again, this is a, you know, this is,
this impacts our efficiency in what we're able to do.
So this, I mean, it's coming up left and right,
and sometimes we don't even know
that they're on the tools that we're using.
I mean, we don't even think about it.
We are using them, and it's just part of human nature now
to have a chat assistant that's helping you.
You don't even even think about it.
So I think where l and d is coming in is we're training
people on like, Hey, this is ai.
Like if you see this in a meeting,
and I know Sean, I've actually said this to you
before when I get on meetings with you,
sometimes you have a note taker.
Absolutely. You have to ask you to remove that.
Absolutely. Depending on what our conversation is about,
it could be sensitive.
Absolutely. So we have to train our employees on being able
to identify what is an AI tool, what does it look like,
where could you potentially be seeing it in some
of the things that you're already doing,
and what to do when you do see it,
and what, what is the correct approach.
So, um, and that's learning. That's where learning comes in.
We're kind of embedding some of this, uh, capability into
some of our AI trainings.
Yeah.
So Jen, there's a question, uh,
that came up from Louis Smith that asked,
what tools do you use to evaluate risk?
Have you considered creating a fast path for urgent
and low risk AI ideas and a regular past for normal
and high risk ideas?
So obviously, Jen, this is an evolving, um, model
for you at ci IS, but do you,
can you talk a little bit about, um,
are there specific tools you're using
or are you looking at things
that allow you within the business to say, Hey,
these are lower risk, these can move forward.
Um, these are higher risk, they have to follow a,
a different, um, path.
I'm, I'm almost positive that is part
of the review board process,
which unfortunately I don't have a seat at that table
to know exactly how they're evaluating those tools,
but I assume it's something very similar
to what's being described.
Okay, perfect. Perfect. Thank you.
And Louie, thank you for the question. Yeah.
Um, that, that's great.
Um, so I think as we continue on, um, one
of the things that I think is super important is l
and d really is there as a tra change partner.
And I think a lot of times at l
and d, we, we find ourselves, um,
sitting there in, in change moments
where we are vital to the culture change.
As Deloitte says, we are 74%, and to say l
and D is, uh, vital to, um, culture change.
But you know what, a lot of times our executives don't think
that we're necessarily ready.
And so I think what's important for us as l
and d leaders, like particularly in an, in an age of ai, is
that we have to be prepared to help lead the change.
Um, and one of the things I think are important is, uh,
in an l and d organization is so number, you know, in terms
of capabilities for the AI age and,
and helping to lead change, um, data fluency.
So understanding data, all the sources of data.
And Jen, we've talked a little bit about this, you know,
where do you draw data from in terms of, um, being able
to identify whether it's business needs
or whether it is, um, you know,
identifying what's going on in the market.
I think the need for experimentation, like
how do you experiment with tools and,
and then certainly consultative skills are important.
And, and, and by the way, I think a lot of times in l
and d we are not always fortunate enough
to invest in our own team's growth.
And, and those are, um, that's important as well.
And so, Jen,
what skills are you developing in your l and d team?
And I know you said some of 'em on the phone,
and by the way, I have the pleasure of knowing a lot
of your team, and I know a lot of what you do
to invest in your team, but can you talk about
what you're doing to invest in developing the skills
of your team to future-proof your l and d organization
and drive, um, the changes that you need with NCIS?
Yeah, we,
and you're right Sean, we,
we have been very fortunate in our organization
to have a healthy budget where we can send our employees to,
you know, um, some of really, really incredible conferences
and trainings and, and allow 'em to get certifications
and extend their academic education
through degree programs and stuff.
Um, recently we had some, some budget restrictions,
so we had to be creative
and, um, almost all of the things
that we've done this year have been little to no cost.
And a few of them are network, network, network.
That is the biggest one
that I feel like I have learned more from becoming friends
with Sean than I could have ever learned in any,
in any course, in any l and d degree that I would've gotten.
Um, learn from people who are doing it well
and learn from people who have failed,
both offer very valuable lessons.
And honestly, most people in l
and d, we all love to nerd out.
So if, if, if you find somebody
that's interesting on LinkedIn
or you meet somebody at a conference, ask the to connect
with them later, most
of the time they are thrilled to do so.
They love talking about this stuff. Ask, ask hard questions.
Um, even if, you know, they don't know the answers,
at least you know you're not alone.
And I think that's also helpful for our confidence.
Um, you know,
and then talking about consultative skills,
I think I'll go back to don't wait for the information.
Be curious. Go out and find people in your organization.
I mean, some of these people I've never met before,
and I'm sending them a note saying,
Hey, let's hop on a call.
I'd love to learn a little bit more about what you do.
Um, you'll be surprised what you pick up just
by building relationships with people and asking questions.
These don't cost anything right there, there are things
that we can do continuously throughout our role in our
organization that can give us a lot
of insight into the direction that we should be going.
Um, and then lastly, I would say,
and I encourage my team to do all of this stuff.
I'm always connecting them with somebody else
and, um, telling them, Hey, hop on this meeting and shadow.
You might pick up a thing or two,
or sending them documents to read
that came from meeting summary somewhere.
Um, and I feel like those things are, are quick ones.
We can do those. We don't have to spend a lot
of time and we can learn a lot.
Um, and then use ai, just use it,
get in there, play with it.
Uh, it's a literacy.
We all need to develop one way, shape, or form.
Um, if you are not using it, you, you do need to be learning
how other people are using it too.
So learn how your technical professionals are
using it, what are they doing?
Um, you can learn a lot from people
who aren't even in your industry
and how they're leveraging it.
Um, so I would say, you know, network, be curious
and use AI would be the things
that I have been pushing the most on,
on my colleagues and my peers.
I love that. The thing, Jen, that you didn't share though,
that I think is super important is, um,
when you talked about picking up the phone
and calling someone, you work in an environment where prior
to the pandemic, you were all co-located to the same place.
Oh, yeah. And then you are now a dispersed workforce,
so you also have had to flex that skill, not
where you can't just walk down the hall
and walk into someone's office, you have to
pick up the phone schedule the meeting.
So you're doing that now at a distance where
before, you know, three, four years ago, you were able
to walk down the hall and find that person in the office
and, and bend their ear.
So that's a little bit of a difference for you,
even in terms of that sort of dynamic.
Yeah, and I honestly find it easier.
I remember the days where we were waiting
outside the CFO's office to get a signature on an invoice,
and he was in a meeting and we had to wait.
And this is literally when I first
started at this organization.
So now it's a quick email, slack, Hey,
I sent you this, can you sign it?
It's, I mean, the, the pace that we're able to work now
and the, um, ability to reach out to people
who we wouldn't normally pass in the hallway
has just exponentially increased.
And so it actually, in a way, makes it a little easier.
You just have to get used to it
and be a little bit more comfortable with it.
We use cameras on for the most part,
and I think that also makes a big difference
because you still get that human connection.
Absolutely. I love that.
Um, so Jen, I think as we talked about this,
and I think we're gonna, we're kind
of bringing this into the home stretch
and can open up for questions really as we look ahead 2025
and beyond, you know, the strategic roadmap for l
and d, it's really shifting from learning to performance,
shifting from programs to personalization and,
and shifting from order taker to advisor.
You used the term more consultative, um,
and which I think is, is a, is a big theme.
And Jen, for, from your perspective, as you think about you
and your team, does this jive for you in terms of,
you look at 20, uh, as you're looking out to 20 26, 20 27,
are these the types of themes
and shifts that you are looking to build on?
Is there anything you would add to this?
Um, that is, I mean, it's just spot on in the skills that
that need to be apparent in l and d.
Um, if you haven't read Dr.
Keith's book, the Trusted Learning Advisor, highly,
highly recommend.
I've started his next book, hidden Value as well.
But my team has all, you know, read that book.
We've had book club discussions about it.
How can we better insert ourselves in the business?
And a lot of our, our bruises and our challenges
and that we've overcame over the years have came from
our ability to build these consultative skills.
But the benefit that we have gotten, um,
and the impact that we've made,
because we've been able to really focus on those skills,
has been incredible.
I don't think we would've made as much
of a difference in our learning organization had we not been
curious and inserting ourselves into conversations
and really networking with leaders across the organization
to ask questions.
Um, they will come to you
and they will say, we need to upskill our sales team.
And it is our job to say, okay, tell me
what the sales team is doing.
Tell me what they're not doing. What behaviors exist?
What competencies would you like to see improvement in?
What does success look like?
Um, and these are part of your intake, right?
These are, if you are not asking these questions,
you could very well go out
and get an off the shelf sales training.
Would it deliver on the need if you're not asking the right
questions and, and coming to a consensus
with your leadership.
I mean, co-creating those learning goals, as you know, is,
is something that's instrumental.
I love that. Um, so I think one of the things
that we wanna leave everyone here with,
and obviously this will be in the recording, is
what are some of the things that your l
and d team should be doing to lead in 2025 and beyond?
Um, aligning with the business strategy
and KPIs, actively piloting or piloting
or scaling practical AI use cases,
focusing on performance enablement, not just training.
Um, Jen, if you look at this list, is there anything
that you think is, is missing?
I think, you know, the, the last one you've hit on a number
of times being viewed as a strategic
partner by executive leadership.
Is there anything that you think is missing here that,
that would be helpful to our audience
that you're like, Hey, I'm doing this.
Or how do, do you think that this is a checklist that you
and your team are continuing to use
to advance what you're doing
In addition to the things that I've mentioned?
This is pretty solid, I
Think. Excellent.
Tt this is a great checklist to, to start
with if you're looking to,
to have a direction and get on the right track.
So, by the way, Jen, as we come into wrapping up and,
and opening up for some final q
and a, I do wanna just point out to everyone on the,
the phone on who's been there are a number of resources
that we, as we learn offer, um, in terms
of thought leadership, you can find them on our website.
Um, there are resources around ai, um,
and leading the change in ai, there are resources
around creating a learning strategy.
Um, so we definitely encourage everyone to go there and,
and grab those resources.
And if there are anything that you haven't heard today,
or if there's something you heard today that you're like,
Hey, I want to know more about it, you can definitely reach
out to us and we're always happy to answer our questions.
Um, so I wanna open it up to the audience.
Um, again, today, this was really about, um,
having, sharing some information
and bringing the perspective of someone who sits in role,
our colleague Jen, Jennifer Myers.
Um, so are there any questions anyone has
that we haven't touched on that you'd love to hear from Jen
or myself, um, about anything we touched on today?
Um, we'll take a look at the chat.
Um, I'm just gonna kind of go through, I know
that there's some questions about the, the books we gave,
um, the, um, name of the,
uh, the, the author, Dr. Keith Keating.
But any questions in from the audience
from our conversation today?
Just watching chat.
I'm gonna put the links to the books in there too.
I see that somebody would like them. Oh, excellent.
Oh, oh, sorry, Katie did it.
I think that's the must read list.
That's what she was posting. Thank
You. Yes. Oh yeah.
Excellent. Excellent.
I'm trying to see, I don't see any questions.
Ah, here's one. Penny Davis,
how do you keep up your own resilience at a time
of constant change?
L and d professionals are so often the face of change,
but it's not like we're immune to change fatigue ourselves.
That's a great question, Jen,
how do you, how do you take that?
Oh, how do we keep up with our own resilience
during this time of constant change?
What a, what a great question for
where our organization is at currently.
We're, we're in a transition period
and changing a lot, uh, reorgs and new membership models
and, and an entirely new business strategy.
Um, I, I don't know if there's a secret sauce
to this answer, um,
but I will tell you one thing is have grace
with yourself and with your team.
Um, we have days our team meets every single day,
and a lot of times, uh, we are on, we're having,
it's, it's an a game day.
And then there are just times where we're feeling
that we're not ourselves,
and we have open conversations about that with the team.
And we're, you know, today I'm not just bringing,
I'm not bringing my best self
and keeping that environment, um, transparent
and having that safe space for people to show up
how they show up, I think makes a really big difference.
And how we take care of ourself and how we remain resilient.
I would just add to agenda something you said,
and I think I, I follow this.
Um, and you know, sometimes it's the networking
and being able to talk to other people
and realizing that you're not the only person
that experiences it.
Um, you know, I think as a provider, you know,
we often walk into organizations
and, you know, I, I had a conversation this morning
where someone said, we don't do change management well.
And I kind of smiled
and said, Hey, do you know what I have to tell you?
I have that conversation a lot and it's okay and that,
and we're here to help you through it.
Right? Um, and it's sometimes just saying, Hey, it's okay
that you say that it's okay that you guys,
that your don't think your organization does it well.
Yeah. Um, hey, we got another question from Danielle
who said, how do you keep your team motivated
and on task, um, as you wait
for those long approval processes?
Processes? I know my team can get frustrated
and feel held back during those wait times.
So Jen, do you wanna talk a little bit about, um, uh,
how you manage that with your team?
I, I would have to say my response is the same.
Sometimes we are, we have to accept it
and we feel that we can just share in our frustrations
with it, um, in a safe way, a professional way.
Uh, if it rises to the level
where the team is really, the pro productivity is,
is really hindered from some sort of, uh, process
that's, that's delayed, um,
I personally will probably bring it up in, in
and raise it up to a higher level.
Yeah. If I feel like it is detrimental
to the success of our team.
So it's just keeping a pulse on it,
having a read of the team.
How is everybody feeling today?
What's frustrating, what's challenging?
What can I help with and what can I help with?
And sometimes when I can't help with it,
I just wanna tell you that I still hear you
and Yeah, I understand.
And I think just having
that conversation really just helps us all feel like we're
human beings and I'm a human being.
I, I wanna pave the road and inspire
and engage the team, um, as much as I can.
And, but sometimes, you know, there are roadblocks
and we have to, um, just commit to them as leaders
and understand the bigger picture.
I love that. I love that Sonia, uh, Sonia Thomas asked,
um, it said, our team is learning about AI right?
Along with our staff. How do you suggest we not
fake it while training?
I love that question. I I have, I have,
I have a partial answer to that,
but Jen, I'd love to hear your answer. I no,
I'm gonna let you handle this one.
'cause my answer is speak it till you make it
Always. Uh, so,
so, so Sonya, I have to say, Sonya, I have to say
that reminds me of my beginning of my career in learning
where I've worked for IBM
and worked for a company
that did end user desktop training in like word Excel,
load us notes for people
that were getting word all in those notes.
And I have to tell you that our trainers were constantly two
steps ahead of the learners we were training, right?
They were learning the new features and how to use them,
and then walking into classrooms
and teaching people how to use them.
And you know what, sometimes when you get
that question in the room where you're,
you're just two steps ahead of your learner
and someone goes, Hey,
but what about this, you know, that one
of the great tools is going, Hey, that's a great question.
Let me throw it on the parking lot and get back to you.
But I honestly, I think that that's part
of technology training and probably always will be,
because there's always gonna be a new feature,
a new model coming out, and you're always going
to feel like you're only a few steps ahead
of your learners when it comes to that technology.
Jen, how about you?
I was reading this next, uh, question here,
Sean, so I apologize.
I I blocked the tail end of what you were saying.
You said fake Too.
Yeah, no, I'll tell you what. Um, yeah.
So basically Sonia said, Hey,
how do you not avoid faking it until you make it?
And you said, well, I say,
you fake it until you make it. You
Take it until you make it. Yeah. Okay.
Um, Be confident. Yeah. I mean, what we do is hard.
It's hard to measure. Yeah.
It's hard to get all the stakeholders involved.
It's hard to keep up with the change. Yeah.
You're not alone. We all feel this.
And Sean, I'll never forget the, probably one
of the first times I met you, we had a conversation about
how in l and d for some odd reason,
we all are doing a great job,
but we, none of us think we're doing it right. It's
Just Like, yeah. But
we need to understand we are,
we are making a difference.
Yeah. Um, sometimes the value's intangible, um,
it's not always economic, you know, sometimes
for me personally, having an organization that wants me
to learn and, and grow and develop is a personal motivator.
You can't put a price tag on that.
So it's very hard to quantify the impact Yeah.
Of, of having a learning organization on what it's doing
to me personally as a human.
Absolutely. Um, Kelly asked, it's a very big question,
and I'm trying to take
A look. That's the one that derailed
me for a minute.
Yeah. Kelly asked,
as our organization navigates increased in market volatility
and rapid technological shifts, how will l
and d by using AI pinpoint critical talent gaps
and predict future learning direct trajectories
directly enable the agility required for successful
and continuous change, thereby solidifying a position
as the strategic orchestrator of organizational
transformation, um, learning adapt.
Kelly, that is a big question.
And, um, I mean, I think it's a great question,
and it's two, you said, just two questions, Kelly.
I think it's a great question. I think it is, you're right.
It is a, it's, it is two questions.
Um, and without knowing specifically what company you're in
or kind of what your dynamics are, um, I think that,
um, honestly, I think part of that is a
conversation that you lead with the business.
Like I, I feel like Kelly,
you've identified the business workshop
that you take your leaders through the talk about how you
as a business tackle that.
And along the way, you know, plug in how l
and d supports what the business leaders are feeling,
because I'll tell you what, Kelly, if you're feeling that,
I'm gonna imagine that your business leaders are feeling it
and they probably have the same questions you do.
Um, and I think it's probably a, you know, that's where
being that advisor to the business, um,
becomes super important.
Um, because I think that's, I mean, I think that's like a,
a million dollar question there.
Mm. Jen, what do you think?
Yeah, I, my first thought that came to mind, um,
it's a great question and um, Kelly,
if I could think about it
and see if I could come up with a response, um,
that hits on some of your points here,
but when you say, how is l and d proactively designing
and embedding, oh, I lost it.
Embedding the foundational operating system
for continuous learning.
One thing that we have done is really step back and,
and recognize that learning alone
cannot make culture change.
Learning is one component.
Um, you need to find ways to embed it in your business and,
and have the businesses really be
responsible for the learning.
And if they're not, that continuous learning
culture, um, will fall flat.
We can't do it alone.
We can't do it alone, but we can inspire
and we can create programs
and frameworks to help people get there.
Um, one thing that we do in our organization is we have, um,
a learning champion program.
So we have individuals that are all over the business
that are almost kind of our advocates for everything
that we're doing and learning.
They're the ones that tell us the needs of the teams.
They're subject matter experts in the business.
Um, and so they're, they're like an extension of our team.
And so most of our communication goes through them.
Um, and we tend to, to see
that it lands better when it's coming from
somebody who's a trusted resource of the department
and is looked at, um, you know, as a subject matter expert,
and they're telling you what skills they should learn it,
it's so, it almost hits a little bit better.
So when you're thinking about
continuous learning, think about it.
Um, everybody has a partner, everybody, employees, leaders,
l and d, HR executives.
You need to build a framework that
where everybody has some sort of, um, impact
and, um, responsibility in helping us get there.
Jen, I love that. Um, I want to, um, I know
that we're getting to the top of our hour.
Um, I want to thank everyone for spending an hour with us.
Jen, thank you for being here.
As always, you are a fantastic co-presenter,
partner in crime, excellent person
to have these conversations with.
Um, anything that you wanna close on in terms of, um,
the, the topic that we had today?
No, I wanna thank you all
for being interested in this topic.
And like we've said, just know you're not alone.
This is, it's a very hard challenging thing to, especially
with the rise of AI and technology
and figuring out what the new phase
of learning development teams look like.
Um, but we are here to help support,
and I'd love to learn from some of you.
So if, if you'd love to reach out to me on LinkedIn,
I'd love to hear about what your
organizations are doing as well.
Excellent. And, and everyone, I too, thank you all.
Um, I am also always happy to connect on LinkedIn.
As Jen said.
I'm also great too, um, about helping
to connect folks in the industry,
but also just talking through, um,
maybe challenges that you're having.
So feel free to follow us.
Um, follow the Wheel Learn website, follow us on LinkedIn.
Reach out on LinkedIn. Um,
but I wanna thank you all for being here today
and thank you for, uh, to achieve a engagement for, um,
giving us the opportunity to do this session.
And Sarah, I'll turn it back over to you
for any last housekeeping.
Amazing. Thank you so much, Sean
and Jennifer for sharing your expertise.
Everyone on the call, please give a warm round
of emojis floating to the top of the screen
for our excellent presenters.
Sean, I'm gonna go ahead and steal the screen sharing, so
Absolutely. Just
to give those people on the call, the codes
for today, I also put them in the chat,
so we should be all set there.
And finally, you'll be getting
that in a automatic follow up email as well.
Thank you. Excellent.
So much everybody for joining us today,
and we hope to see you next time.
Cheers. Excellent. Thank you.

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