Quote Of The Week
It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it!
Monday Tips
Do your learners have permission to change?
A manager once said to me, "I cannot send Sally on that programme. Who will do her job?" We both laughed. Then we both went quiet. Because he meant it.
You have probably heard a version of that too. Or the sequel: people come back from a workshop energised, then hit an overflowing inbox and 'business as usual'. The unspoken message is clear: thanks for learning, now please stop changing.
I think of this as 'permission to change'. Not the glossy endorsement at the kick-off event, but the cultural lived permission in the diary, the workload, and the conversations back at work.
Research on learning transfer keeps pointing to the same thing: if managers and leaders protect time and reduce pressure after training, people are far more likely to actually apply what they learned. Without that, most of us quietly revert to old habits.
So, a few questions for you this week: • What explicit permission do learners get to experiment, make mistakes and work differently after your programmes? • When they are in the classroom, who is doing their job? • When they are practising new skills afterwards, what happens to their 'day job' tasks? • What do sponsors and line managers say and do that signals, "I expect you to change, and I have your back while you do it"?
If you are designing or commissioning learning right now, try one small shift: build 'job cover' and practice time into the programme from the start, and make the executive sponsor say that out loud to participants and their managers. Even a simple statement like, "For the next month, I expect you to spend two hours a week trying this, and your manager will help you protect that time", can change the whole feel of a programme.
Because if nobody makes space for people to do their job differently, we should not be surprised when they quietly keep doing it the old way.
The things you've quietly forgotten
When her baby brother was born, four-year-old Sasha begged her parents to let her be alone with him. They hesitated, then finally agreed, leaving the door quietly ajar.
Sasha tiptoed to the cradle, leaned over, and whispered:
"Little brother, tell me what it's like where we came from. I'm beginning to forget."
We all start out knowing what matters: love, wonder, connection. Then life gets louder and busier, and that knowing fades under the noise.
What have you forgotten about who you are, or what really matters to you?
Try this.
Grab a blank page or open a fresh note on your phone. Then write three short lists:
1. What used to light me up? (Childhood fascinations or moments of flow.)
2. What drains my energy now? (Meetings, habits, people, or thoughts. Notice patterns.)
3. What do I want more of again? (A feeling, a value, a rhythm, not just things.)
Read your lists back slowly. Circle one thing that matters most, and take one tiny step toward it before the day ends. A message, a walk, a small promise to yourself.
You might be surprised what comes back when you start remembering.
If you can't see it, it isn't happening
Two weeks ago, I suggested that learning fails quietly when it relies on memory and motivation.
Let's go one step further.
If you can't see the new behaviour, it isn't happening.
Or at least, it isn't happening reliably enough to matter.
People leave training energised. They try something new once or twice. Then real work takes over.
No signal. No reinforcement. No consequence. No visibility.
So, the organisation reverts to its default settings.
Invisible change dies. And here's the uncomfortable truth:
The culture will untrain your people faster than you can train them, unless you protect them.
Protection does not mean enthusiasm. It means design.
The programmes that scale with impact don't rely on goodwill.
They make behaviour visible, front and centre.
A prompt appears in the workflow. An activity is delegated to the learner. A dashboard shows application. A buddy has a chat about what's changed. A manager reviews observable evidence. A metric shifts.
Now the new behaviour has protection. Now it survives first contact with reality.
Call to action:
Pick one behaviour your latest programme is meant to change.
Where does it show up? Who can see it? What system makes it hard to ignore?
If the answer is "we assume it's happening", that's not a strategy. That's hope.
Who's really holding whose hand?
I came across this little story recently, and it really made me stop and think, so I'm sharing it with you here.
A little girl and her father were crossing a narrow bridge.
The father was worried about his daughter's safety, so he said, "Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don't fall into the river."
The little girl replied, "No, Dad. You hold my hand."
"What's the difference?" asked the puzzled father.
"There's a big difference," she said. "If I hold your hand and something happens to me, I might let go. But if you hold my hand, I know that no matter what happens, you will never let go."
Now pause for a moment and let this sink in.
In the relationships that really matter in your life, where do you feel you are holding on, and where do you feel deeply held?
Why training still doesn't stick
Most training programmes fail quietly.
Not because the content is bad. Not because the facilitator isn't engaging. Not even because learners don't care.
They fail because the workplace gets in the way.
People return from training with good intentions, then hit real work. Time pressure. Competing priorities. Old habits. Helpful colleagues who say, "That's not how we do it here."
So change, and therefore impact, relies on memory and motivation.
Which means it doesn't scale.
If behaviour change depends on people remembering to do the right thing, it's already fragile.
The programmes that work, design for transfer, not hope for it.
They build prompts into the workflow. They make progress visible. They support line managers to reinforce the change. They reduce reliance on heroic learners. They pull the right levers.
Call to action: Look at one programme you're running right now and ask: What has to go right, after the training, for behaviour to actually change? If the answer is "people just need to remember", that's your risk.
Personal Energy
Personal Energy
We all know that to be successful we need to get things done. And to get things done we need energy. Managing your energy levels is a prerequisite to success, so it is worth finding out how to do it.
13 Barriers to Implementing Learning Transfer
13 Barriers to Implementing Learning Transfer
L&D professionals are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Are you one of them? This ebook shares the most common barriers to implementing learning transfer and how to overcome them.