In L&D, if we want more buy-in from the business, we need to be more proactive

L&D needs a seat at the table. To add business value. To change its perception in a business.

Okay, but what are we doing about it? This is the fair question Ryan Meyer asked at the start of the episode!

How can we be more proactive to ensure we’re at the forefront of solving those big challenges? 

“I think the proactivity piece is for us to know that our industry is fundamentally changing. And if we want to be the voice that directs how the industry and our profession is changing, then we need to be the ones speaking about how it needs to change.”

Ryan took us through how he’s being more proactive and strategic in his role, including:

• Becoming more confident in pushing back.
• Asking the right questions using the COM-B Model.
• Slowing down and taking more time with challenges.
• Getting comfortable with more uncomfortable metrics.
• Building a roadmap to communicate clearly around business needs.

You can connect with Ryan on LinkedIn here.

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6 lessons on the power of being proactive in L&D

1. You can’t become a strategic partner until you get comfortable pushing back

“I think L&D professionals are very uncomfortable asking questions around what the business goal is? How do we get from point A to point B?”

“If we’re not having those conversations, we’ll continue to be seen as order takers. People will say, I see the business challenge as X and I want you to do Y, because I think that’s what’s going to help me.”

If you just say yes, no problem and put on a course, you miss the chance to have a strategic conversation where you ask:

• Why is this a challenge? 
• How do we know it’s a challenge? 
• What do we want to see being done differently that would change a particular outcome?

Ryan believes this can be solved by asking more in-depth questions when people come to us.

“Just know that realistically, if we are not seen as somebody who is strategic, the only way that that is going to change is by us pushing back and us having that opportunity to start shifting into that strategic partner role.”

“It’s not going to happen overnight. People are still going to come and want a course on time management… but that is not where the value of our role lies. The value of our role, like I always say to people, I’m a professional problem solver. Our role is to solve business problems.”

2. The COM-B Model will help you push back and ask the right questions

COM-B is capability, opportunity, motivation. And if you have those things, it will result in a behaviour change. 

So if someone did come to you and ask for training on time management, Ryan would recommend asking questions like:

What are you noticing? 

What indicates to you that there’s a time management problem? 

“Because that tells me what you want to see as a result of the training or intervention that I’m going to run.”

If you just say yes, no problem and put on a course, you miss the chance to have a strategic conversation where you ask:

• Why is this a challenge? 
• How do we know it’s a challenge? 
• What do we want to see being done differently that would change a particular outcome?

Then you can move through the model.

You ask the stakeholder if they think people aren’t capable of managing their time.

They might say, actually they are, so you move to: do they have the opportunity?

And you might hear: “Well, it is really busy right now,” so maybe opportunity is the issue.

Then the most important piece is motivation and accountability, which Ryan calls the central point to the whole thing.

“No matter what training I put on, when they come out of that training, can you tell me what they are going to be expected to do differently? And how are we going to hold them to account? 

“Because if we don’t do that, all I’ve done is I’ve spent a bit of time putting on a course and I’ve enjoyed myself because I love facilitation.

“But they probably haven’t enjoyed themselves because they’ve been forced onto this and they don’t think it’s an issue, so behaviour change isn’t going to happen.”

3. Slowing down can actually help you be more proactive

“By taking a little bit more time to process what exactly is going on… You’ll probably find that you’re spending more time unpicking an issue… 

“But your stakeholders will see that you’re taking more of a thoughtful approach and they’ll go, wow, Ryan’s actually thinking about this from end to end.”

You’re not just offering training as a solution, you’re understanding the process, the policies, the unspoken rules of that team which sit beneath the challenge.

“When you start to do that and really hone in on what the key challenges are, I think stakeholders are more willing to buy into what you’re selling because you’re not just putting on a course for course’s sake. What you’re actually doing is you’re going, I will help you solve this problem.”

“When you start getting to that point where stakeholders feel like you are helping them solve big business challenges, you’re getting to a point where you’re becoming more strategic and people see you as a strategic partner, not just the learning person.” 

4. Get comfortable with metrics that might make you uncomfortable

“In L&D, we play in behaviour, we play in change management. It’s metrics that make us feel comfortable. But we need to become better at becoming a bit more uncomfortable with some of the metrics.”

“And saying, well, how do I start understanding these metrics and applying them to L&D? So that when I go to business stakeholders, I’m not talking about satisfaction scores or how many people attended the training… I’m speaking to them about things that matter to them.”

“Unless you can connect learning to those outcomes, they’re not going to see the impact that you’re having on the business because they don’t see the link between the two.”

5. Understand your business better than your ambitions

“You might have this really big inspirational journey of: I want to implement big projects like skills frameworks or I want to have more user generated experiences or whatever the case may be.”

“And they’re wonderful thoughts for your development and your strategic mindset in terms of how you’re growing as a professional, but if you don’t understand the business context that you’re working in, you will never get buy-in for these big projects.”

“You haven’t sold it to the business, because you don’t understand what the business is chasing after, so they’re not going to go on that journey with you.”

6. Use a roadmap to manage expectations and communicate how you’re supporting the business

“The things that we all experience as learning professionals, almost as the bread and butter of why we get brought into an organisation, we want to redesign induction, we want something to do with leadership development, and we want to build manager capability.

“I cannot commit to all three of those things and launch all three of those things at once because realistically it means I’m not taking the time to understand the challenge in each of these particular areas.

“Moving from that order taker position to somebody who is more strategic is going to need some buy-in. But you also need to show the business that I am thinking about this, it is coming, it is on my mind the same way it’s on your mind.

“So why not build out the roadmap so your users can see what’s coming? It’s a simple idea, but it helps people see that I am thinking about this, it is coming, and it is on my mind.”

Episode transcript

This transcript was generated using automated transcription software and lightly edited for readability. There may still be minor errors or inaccuracies.

Gary Stringer

Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the In L&D podcast. Would you mind completing that sentence for us?

Ryan Meyer

firstly, Gary, thank you so much for having me. So yes, my sentence is in L&D, if we want more buy-in from the business, we as L&D professionals need to be more proactive.

Gary Stringer

I know this is something you’re really passionate about, this shift to a proactive mindset. So what kind of led you here or inspired this viewpoint?

Ryan Meyer

I think the viewpoint has shifted and changed over the last couple of months and or or let’s let’s go year, year or so. And I think the reason being is because, we’re seeing a lot in terms of our industry talking about, you know, the big shifts and the big changes, and AI is everywhere we go. but I also think, you know, this conversation around tech and what AI is going to be doing and will it be replacing our jobs?

my fundamental thinking is no, it won’t change our jobs, but it will change the way that we execute or we do our jobs. And, if AI is going to, help us sort of get to particular end outcomes, so you know, content creation or design or anything along those lines, that extra time that we’re going to have needs to go somewhere. and where it needs to go is in us being a little bit more proactive in terms of the value that L&D is going to start bringing and the the shift that we need to start seeing in terms of how L&D is perceived.

by the business. So I think all in all, the reason why I’m extremely passionate about this as well is because, we have so many conversations or there’s there’s so many different, viewpoints in terms of, you know, how LD is perceived and, people saying, L&D needs a seat at the table, and people, need to to value LD a lot more. And my response that I say all the time is, okay, but what are we doing about it to make sure that L&D is at the forefront of solving, big challenges or, you know, how are we proving that we do things that are beyond the compliance life raft that we sometimes hold and cling to? so for me, I think the proactivity piece is is for us to to know that our industry is fundamentally changing. And if we want to be the voice that directs how the industry is changing and how our our profession is changing, then we need to be the ones, speaking about how it needs to change.

Gary Stringer

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes it can be a bit paralyzing the fear of change and that stops you taking action and action might actually be the best thing to safeguard yourself against change because you can update your skill set more speedily, you can position yourself differently in the business and all the things like that.

Ryan Meyer

A hundred percent. And you know, I just think, what you’re saying is so, so relevant is if if we are the ones who need to reskill you know, there’s no one better to reskill ourselves than A L&D professionals, right? But if we are the ones who need to be doing the reskilling, we need to be in front of the conversation rather than letting other people define how we need to reskill ourselves.

Gary Stringer

Yeah, I think that is that’s interesting. I’ve not heard anyone make that point, but the narrative of internally, if it’s you’re going to need these skills to do your job effectively in the future, but there’s probably a bit of introversion or introspection to say, actually, what you know, I know my role really well. What are the things I should focus on based on the context of what I know about myself and what I do every day that are going to help me navigate some of these shifts? one of the things people often talk about.

Ryan Meyer

A hundred percent.

Gary Stringer

I think even might have mentioned it there is being positioned as an order taker or kind of a reactive function. and then when we think about being proactive, I think sometimes that’s hard, isn’t it? Because you’re seen as an order taker. And to get through that, there’s a really hard point, I suppose, of having to push back or push through to change the perception. So how how do you approach that or think about that?

Ryan Meyer

I think LD as a function has always been seen as almost the content library. And I think we’ve kind of been responsible for that. So I do think we kind of need to hold the mirror up to ourselves a little bit and go, you know, we are responsible for that. where L&D really started, if if we think about this as, you know, historically or conceptually, is, we realized that there was a gap between people entering into the workforce and, the skills that they had entering into the workforce.

So what did we do? We we kind of you know resorted back to what we know works. So, you know, we created classroom environments in an organization, you know, and we started developing content and theory and and all of this great stuff. and then what happened is we started having, you know, the the digital transformation. And then e-learning was a really, really big thing because now we have massive amounts of content, that we can start, showing people or exposing people to. And we’re almost sort of seeing now a third shift, which is,

It’s not about the massive content banks or, you know, the training or whatever the case may be. It’s it’s learners, who are picking up and, using things like AI tools. And, we’re never gonna get away from, the large language model conversation. But, I think it goes a lot deeper than this, which is I think that individuals are starting to understand where their skills gap really, where their skills gap, sits or where their skills gap are. I don’t think that was the the best way to frame it, but

They understand more about where they want to grow and where they want to develop, and they now have the tools and the resources to get hold of that information a whole lot quicker. So our role is no longer about the massive content bank or, you know, we need a course for X, Y, and Z. Our role is if if that is still part of your role, there’s nothing wrong with it. But I think we need to be the content curators. And what we should actually be doing is going, how does our function?

fit into the wider business strategy? How does our function support the goals that the organization wants to to, that that our that we want to get to? I think L&D professionals are very uncomfortable asking questions around what is the business goal? how do we get from point A to point B? And, realistically, I think if we’re not having those conversations, we will continue to be order takers because people will say, well, you know, I see the business challenge as X

I want you to do Y, because I think that’s what’s going to help me. Now, if you’re just going to sit there and be a bit of a yes, sure, no problem, we can put on a course for X, Y, Z, you’re not in the conversation from the get-go. You’re not having that strategic conversation around, okay, but why is this a challenge? How do we know it’s a challenge? What do we want to see being done differently that you know would change a particular outcome? So I think what we need to do is become a lot more.

open to the fact that we probably need to have a bit more strategic conversations and ask, a bit more in-depth questions when people come to us and come with that order taker mindset. But also just knowing that realistically, if if if we are not seen as somebody who is strategic, the only way that that is going to change is by us pushing back and us having that opportunity to kind of start shifting into that, you know, strategic partner role. It’s not going to happen overnight. People are still going to come and want a course on time management or, all of those different things. But that is not where the value of our role lies. The value of our role, like I always say to people, I’m a professional problem solver. Our role is to solve business problems.

Gary Stringer

Mm. How do you go about that pushing back in practice? Have you got anything you can share about, you know, any examples where you’ve just been able to make that breakthrough and see it shift in at least some capacity?

Ryan Meyer

You y a hundred percent, Gary. sort of my background is my training as an organizational psychologist and I come back to to sort of the behavior models that, you kind of look at and scoff at at university and then you know, you come out of uni and you you do kind of go back and go, actually hang on, now that I see this in practice I can understand how it works. but something really simple. So, when a stakeholder comes to you and says, we need training on, let’s say, let’s take the example that I just used, because I think

A lot of people will have this situation. We need training on time management. Okay, let’s walk this through a little. And the the model that I like to use is the COM-B model of change. And COM-B is capability, opportunity, motivation. And if you have those things, it will result in a behavior change. So in that conversation, I would probably start asking the question around, okay, tell me

What indicates to you that there’s a time management problem? What are you noticing? Because what that does is it tells me what do you want to see as a result of the training or the intervention that I’m going to run. And then you can start walking things through. And you can say, okay, do you think that people are not capable of managing their time? Okay. And then you know the stakeholder’s going to take a bit of time, maybe process it a little bit, think about it little bit more. And they’ll go, maybe, you know what, actually, they are capable, and you can move to the next step, which is okay.

Do they have the opportunity? Well, you know, it is really busy right now. Okay, so maybe opportunity is the issue here. and then the most important piece is the motivation and accountability, because motivation and accountability is almost like a central point to this entire thing, which is no matter what training I put on, when they come out of that training, can you tell me what are they going to be expected to be different do differently? And how are we going to hold them to account? Because if we don’t do that,

All I’ve done is I’ve spent a bit of time putting on a course and I’ve enjoyed myself because I love facilitation. you know, they probably haven’t enjoyed themselves because they’ve been forced onto this and they don’t think it’s an issue. And, you know, behavior change is not going to happen. So let’s walk this through with one another and let’s see what is the best approach to this particular outcome that you want to get to. And it doesn’t just have to be training. It can be, you know, maybe just having a sit-down with individuals and going, we know it’s really busy at the minute. Talk to us about.

How are you prioritizing? what is suck sucking up your time? what is draining the time that you you’re spending on things? And it doesn’t always have to be training. And I think L&D professionals, if we realize that not everything needs to be solved by a course, and even just having a different type of intervention, but still, calling it learning or development or something along those lines, our stakeholders will understand that, I don’t just come to Ryan for training.

I come to Ryan when I see there’s a challenge or I see there’s something that I’m noticing, and I can walk it through with him and he will ask the right questions so we get to the right outcome. Because all that’s going to happen is you’re going to put this training on. Your stakeholders are still going to be upset because they’re still going to see the same issues that they saw before the training. So you pushing back is not just about getting credibility for yourself, but it’s also making sure that you start getting credibility for anything that you put on in the organization. Because You’re starting with, well, what exactly is the problem? And let’s walk it through together so we get to the right outcome.

Gary Stringer

Yeah. I think that professional problem solver mindset is a great one because I would imagine and you can tell me if I’m wrong, but not all problems are defined equally. When people come to you with a problem, some people probably really know what it is and for other people they they’re framing it a certain way. But once you dig a little bit deeper you see that that isn’t the problem actually. Like there’s something else happening and it’s just being packaged up nicely into this thing ’cause maybe it’s easier to communicate to you.

Ryan Meyer

100%. And you it it is one of those those skills that we need to work through in terms of how do we ask the right questions and how do I how do I spend some time and and this was this was a challenge even for me because you know when I started out, or I even look at myself three years ago, the the my response to anything would be like, okay, I’ll do something about it. You know, I’ll I’ll build something, I’ll get something out there. If you just take a bit of a step back and you just

Have a little bit more time to process what exactly is going on and what are the different features that come into this. You will probably find that you’re spending more time unpicking an issue, but your stakeholders will see that you’re taking a bit more of a thoughtful approach and they’ll go, wow, Ryan’s actually thinking, or you know, Gary’s actually thinking about this from end to end. You know, he’s not just asking what training I can put on, he’s asking, okay.

What is the process flow here? How do how do people know that this is what they need to be doing? What are the policies that maybe sit behind this? What are the unspoken rules that happen in this team that make people feel that they have to do something a certain way? And when you start to do that and you start to broaden out and start to really sort of hone in on what the key challenges actually are, I think stakeholders are more willing to buy into what you’re selling because you’re not just putting on a course for course’s sake. What you’re actually doing is you’re going, I will help you solve this problem.

But it won’t just be training. And I need to go on this journey with you. I expect some buy-in from you as well. And this is what I need from you. So it’s not just all on me. You and I need to work on this together. And when you start getting to that point where stakeholders feel like you are helping them solve big business challenges, you’re getting to a point where you’re becoming more strategic and and people see you as a strategic partner and not just the learning person.

Gary Stringer

Brilliant, brilliant. And you you spoke about working back from business outcomes a little bit earlier as well. And I think that is such a big shift. And to be honest with you, someone a few years ago from LD gave me similar advice. And then I took it away and applied it to marketing more rigorously because it’s so easy in like a rollout marketing to be quite fluffy about the outcomes you want to get and to set yourself up to succeed. But really, some of the times where I did really push myself to say, This is the business outcome and if it’s this much revenue we’ll probably need to generate this many leads and if we need to generate this many leads, I need to do this certain thing a certain way. so it’s interesting to hear that and that that’s been helpful I guess in shifting that proactivity but perception as well, working back from the outcome.

Ryan Meyer

I also think that, a big part of this also has to do with becoming a bit more comfortable with things that make us uncomfortable. So I’m going to give you a really good example that, I’ve seen a big shift in my perception, you know, since starting my role, which is, I work for professional service firm, in accounting, audit, tax, and working for finance finance firm if you want to like wrap everything up. I needed to become better at understanding finances. Now when I started in my role, I didn’t ever think that, I need to to understand, how to read a balance sheet or, you know, how to, understand, these different metrics that we don’t play in, because in L&D we play in behavior, we play in change management. It’s metrics that make us feel comfortable. We need to become better

At becoming a bit more uncomfortable with some of the metrics and saying, well, how do I start understanding these metrics and applying them to LD? So when I go to business stakeholders, I’m not talking about, satisfaction scores. I’m not talking to them about, how many people attended the training because a one, my boss would my chief people officer, that is not how we measure value or impact at all. But I’m speaking to them about things that matter to them. So they want to talk about utilization, recovery, GP. Those are things that matter to them. And unless you can connect learning to those outcomes, they’re not going to see the impact that you’re having on the business because they don’t see the link between the two. Now, you might know that listen, if I run this training, I will see an uptake in,

How utilized people are in front of clients because I’m running a session on client experience or speaking with clients or something along those lines. But unless you can say, right, utilization is currently here, so how much time we’re spending on a on clients is here. By the time I finish this training, I want to see a 10% increase in utilization. Everybody all of a sudden starts listening to you because you’re no longer talking about client experience training or communication training. You’re talking about something that is going to lead to a business outcome. And

People start to listen to you more because they think, wow, he’s not just talking in people metrics, he’s talking in the language of the business, and we can understand this as well. So I think a big part of this is know your business and also ask yourself, what are the metrics that my business speaks about that I am a little bit uncertain on or I’m uncomfortable speaking about, and make it your business to understand what those metrics actually mean.

Gary Stringer

gives you so much more context, doesn’t it, in that situation. And messaging is often such a h hard part of being seen in the right way. So, that point you made around communicating what the end goal is going to be in the terms of how it matters to other people. I think sometimes it’s so easy to default into what you’re comfortable with, but you talked about being uncomfortable. And sometimes that’s even in how you communicate. It might feel a bit uncomfortable to start talking about revenue at the start. But to your point earlier, it’s not going to happen overnight. You can start to make these incremental shifts as I’d imagine in how you communicate and the language you use and the metrics you you’re borrowing to do that.

Ryan Meyer

A hundred percent. And you know, we don’t need to know everything, I I think the fallacy of, being an expert in a particular field or or feeling like you are the subject matter expert, whether it’s in learning or something else, I think we we we don’t want to ever get into a position where we want to seem vulnerable from a knowledge perspective. But if you’re not willing to go and sit with some of your heads of service line and, some some finance people in your business and go, I don’t understand X or I don’t understand Y. Can you can you walk this through with me so I can understand it the same way you do? I heard you talking about this particular figure. It does not make sense to me. Can you unpack this a bit for me? When you give people that that sense of I’m still learning as well, and you know, I’m willing to to to to learn a bit more myself.

People almost appreciate a little bit more because they realize that, you’re not just in this to to kind of go through the motions. You actually really deeply care about the things that they’re focusing on or the things that are keeping them up at night.

Gary Stringer

thought about in that terms, but I guess it must be hard in an L&D role to have that sense of vulnerability if you do really come forward and say, like I just don’t understand this, because I imagine most of your day is trying to appear an expert sometimes in things that maybe aren’t that natural to you or you don’t know that well. So I’d imagine, yeah, it can be quite challenging, I guess, to navigate that vulnerability. Yeah. Interesting. That’s what I like about these conversations. I’ll hear it like framed in a that I thought, you know what, I’ve never thought about it in that terms either. But

It again, it’s a lesson I can take away and apply to myself because I often find it easy to default to like a base level of understanding of maybe commercial stuff where going deeper on that would maybe even help me do my job better. And I always think of it as pain now or pain later. It can be painful now and you can push yourself out there and be vulnerable and try and learn. Or it’d be painful later if you don’t get the results you want. So it’s kind of like when do you want to to experience that?

Ryan Meyer

And it’s quite humbling to almost sort of put your yourself in the shoes of your learners sometimes. So, like, people don’t see it behind the scenes, but you know, there I am with Copilot going, what does this particular, you know, thing mean on a balance sheet? Or how do I read X? Or, I’m going very finance, I’m gonna pull away from finance really quickly. So, I would because these are the things that are topical in my mind ’cause it’s not where I naturally see myself sort of, having an impact. But

Gary Stringer

Yeah, that’s okay. Yeah.

Ryan Meyer

let’s let’s look at something else. you were speaking a little bit about marketing. I d I don’t understand marketing. I don’t know the difference between, market activity and market impact and all of these things. It’s humbling sometimes to put yourself in in the shoes of let me start to understand this world the same way that other people do. and when you start to do that and and you start to to to see learning the way that your colleagues or the people that you’re really trying to service in the organization, when you start to see learning in the same way, I think you appreciate the journey that they need to go on as well. Because sometimes, you know, we think about courses and programs and outcomes. We forget about the person in the program, the person who we want to get to an outcome. If you can’t think like that individual anymore, how relevant

is the things that you’re putting on for that particular person because you haven’t taken the time to understand how they’re learning or how they’re making the shift.

Gary Stringer

It comes back to that thing you mentioned earlier as well, that third shift where people are really aware of their own skill set or their own trajectory or where they want to go. And I think part of that is probably exposure to lots of content online and people having personal brands so you can see other people in your space more transparently, to maybe just having that self-help or self-growth kind of culture that you’re seeing a lot more, you know, if you’re on LinkedIn all the time, like I am, you see a lot of this culture around self-growth, and maybe that inspires you to go, you know what, these are the skills that I would need. And

to that point around getting close to people, you probably can’t know all of that if you just don’t speak to people and understand, right, okay, you’re actually you know, y I thought you’d want to go in this direction in your career, but it sounds like maybe this is something else you want to do and that what I need to cater to help you build those skills is completely different.

Ryan Meyer

You’re not going to be the expert in everything, and that’s perfectly fine. What you need to be able to do is link people to the learning that they need in that moment. So, coming back to, speaking about, the whole content bank and all the rest of it, if you do have, access to, all this great content, like, you know, through inrehearsal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, your role at in that

In that moment is not just to direct people to the website to direct people to your LMS. Your role is to curate that content. Go, I really think that this would help you right now. And what you’re doing is you’re you’re not making yourself the subject matter expert. You’re pointing somebody to a resource or to something that they can be doing differently. But what you’ve done is you’ve curated that particular content for their experience. So they still feel like, okay, well, you’re not just, you’re not just throwing me towards

as much as I possibly need. But what you’re doing is you’re saying, I’m thinking these three things. If you do it in this order, you can start to build your capability piece by piece. So, you know, our role, even when you’re not the expert, what what we are still probably thinking through in our head is, how do I build this person’s capability? What does their skill level look like? What would, you know, a beginner skill be versus intermediate versus expert, and start to climb that ladder with the individual. So that it’s not just throwing them towards something. It’s almost like I’m gonna help you create a personal journey so you don’t have to.

Gary Stringer

Yeah. I think that’s the removing friction for people as well. I think the more you demonstrate an understanding of where someone wants to be, the more you can position it in the right way that feels like it isn’t adding a burden to your day, but it’s something that’s gonna be actually quite accessible for me and is going to have a real tangible benefit too. And then I guess that makes it easier to be proactive because that probably snowballs as well. More people see you on an individual level, not just a business, as someone who understands where I want to go and can add these experiences that get me closer to that as opposed to feel like an interruption and therefore maybe I’m more likely to say to other people in the business that this is the experience I’ve had and it’s helped me get further in my career in the in the right direction that I want to go in.

Ryan Meyer

Hundred percent.

Gary Stringer

Something that bridges both of these things, you know, Ram, we spoke about messaging and we spoke about context. You said to me when we kind of had our first call that strategy or how proactive you can be really depends on the business you’re in and the context of that. and you also mentioned this idea of having a roadmap that you can communicate to people in a way to, you know, that works in the context of your business, but is proactive in a realistic way. So tell us a bit more about this roadmap approach.

Ryan Meyer

the first person to kind of put up my hand to kinda go, if I looked at, who I was two years ago, strategy was was was not something that I understood well or knew how to execute. I thought I did. but it is one of those things where, you need to understand that, you need to understand your business more than you need to understand what you want to achieve. so you might have this really big inspirational journey of I want to, implement big projects like, skills frameworks or, I really want us to, do more subject matter experts within our organization and I I want, to have more user generated experiences or whatever the case may be, you might have those thoughts and they’re they’re wonderful thoughts for your development and they’re wonderful thoughts for your strategic mindset in terms of how you’re growing as a professional.

But if you don’t understand your your business context that you’re working in, you will never get buy-in for these big projects that you think are are really, really relevant and you think will have loads of you know impact and value. But because you haven’t sold it to the business because you you don’t understand what the business is chasing after, they’re not gonna go on that journey with you. So I say this to everybody that I was not a big adapter of the skills matrix because I just thought we were doing, you know, competency profiles all over again. But also it does not make sense in my business. It does not make sense for the people who I’m working with day to day. What does make sense to them is they want to know, well, how are we dealing with, the the time old, you know, manager capability.

How are we preparing people for leadership positions? how are we bringing people into the organization and making sure that they’re connecting with the organization early? All things that I think we all experience as learning professionals, as almost, you know, the bread and butter of why we get brought into an organization. We want to redesign induction, we want something to do with leadership development, and we want to build manage manage capability. Let’s just look at those three things.

I cannot commit to all three of those things and launch all three of those things at once because realistically it means I’m not taking the time to understand the challenge in each of these particular areas. However, moving from that order taker position to somebody who is more strategic is going to need some buy-in. But you also need to show the business that I am thinking about this, it is coming, it is on my mind the same way it’s on your mind. So

this was something that I actually heard from another sort of Allen D thought leader towards, you know, I think it was towards the end of last year. and she was just saying, you know, why not build out the roadmap so you know your users can see what’s coming? And I thought, wow, that’s actually such a simple sort of simple idea, simple change, you know. But what it does is it helps people see, I am thinking about this, it is coming, it is on my mind.

Because when you stand up and you’re presenting about what’s launching this month or content that’s coming soon or whatever the case may be, people don’t always look at that and go, okay, well, I can go now or I can do this now in the interim. You know, the first question I’ll get from that is, okay, but when are we when are we talking about manager capability or when are we doing this or when are we doing this? So to avoid that feeling of I’m constantly under the pressure to deliver and to to to put things out as soon as possible. If you draw something out like a bit of a roadmap to go,

These are the big challenges that we’re seeing as a business. And this is how I’m going to tackle them. I can’t get to all of them at once, but what I can do is, you know, quarter one, this is going to be our focus. Quarter two, we’re going to be doing a little bit of this. I also understand that the business is really busy in quarter number three. So there’s no point in me putting any training near this particular point because all it will do is cause disruption, people will get angry, and I will lose impact in any sort of learning intervention that I put on because people are going to be thinking about what.

Why am I not doing my actual job? Why am I stuck, you know, doing this learning program when I know that I could be doing something else? So having that sort of roadmap and laying things out also gives you some breathing room to launch things when it makes sense, but also gives you an opportunity to go and do some work behind the scenes to go, well, what do I actually want this to look like? How do I really want this to land?

Gary Stringer

I think it brings together a lot of the things we’ve spoken about already because I guess when you think about being proactive, it might be that you need to go and solve lots of these things at once and be on the front foot, but actually being proactive can be about managing expectations and when things are going to happen so you can do them to a high quality. And then it makes it

Ryan Meyer

A hundred percent. And you know what? For the users or for our listeners who are listening to this podcast and you know, I was there. I’m gonna give a quick shout out to my boss my boss Greg, who his favorite words to say to me within the first like twelve months of me me joining was, Ryan, you need to slow down. And the reason is because what you’re doing is you’re you’re you’re you’re lessening your value and impact by trying to get everything done all at once. And you’re not actually taking the time to think through how this is going to land and what this is going to look like full term. So, you know, when I started, I was jumping on instant quick fixes. I was jumping on the really quick, well, I’ll just run this course. there’s a communication problem. I’ll do, I’ll deal with that, I’ll sort that out. Don’t worry, I’m on it, you know.

But when you slow down and you take a bit more of a thoughtful approach, you realize that this isn’t going to be solved by one quick intervention. Like I said, pushing back with stakeholders. Obviously, there are going to be times where if you just deliver the course, it will be quicker, it will be easier. I’m not saying push back on everything that you do. What I’m saying is push back on the things that matter. And if you’ve got a really solid roadmap that deals with your business challenges, and you say to people, I just need the time to get this right, people will go. You know what? I’ll give you that time. If this is going to have the impact you say it’s going to have, because you’ve been thoughtful, there is no reason that it needs to be delivered really, really quickly.

Gary Stringer

I think it does really help as well that I can imagine the the point about repositioning yourself. You know, if you are taking time to say, this is when we can do it because we can do it to the best standard, and that means we can take the time to ask the right questions, then you probably are being taken more on board as a strategic partner because you’re saying this is the strategic way to solve this challenge, as opposed to we do it all now. Because I think the ch the temptation is to do loads of stuff really quickly with a quick fix. in the intro in the thought that it might buy you time or you’ll have more time once those things are done. But it’s like an infinite to do list, isn’t it? More things come in and that becomes your to your point of slowing down.

Ryan Meyer

And you what, the cracks just become wider. So you know, you’re plastering over these big really big cracks by just going, well, I’ll just do this and putting something over it. Just doing it sometimes is going to cause you a bigger issue down the line because you now need to re-engage learners into something that you thought you had fixed, and now you’re gonna have to go back on some of the training you’ve already done to go, well, actually that did not solve the issue. And then

it’s it’s it’s it’s a bit of reputational damage to a certain extent because people are going, okay, so I attended this course three months ago, or I attended this session three months ago. You’re now running something again with a different viewpoint. Why did I attend that session in the first place? So, you know, it’s also just giving yourself that ability to make sure that you’re not having you to to to kind of walk things back yourself. And it’s not about saying no either. It’s about saying probably not right now.

So, you know, if somebody comes and says, we really want to do something on this, or, you know, we really think this would be a really good idea, and you’re sitting there going, This will be a really good idea, first things first, go back to your priorities and go, does this fit in with those priorities? Or is this something that I can save and not right now, that this is a wonderful idea, but it’s not going to land right now because of all the other things we’ve got currently going on going on. So it it just gives you a bit more control over what happens and when.

Gary Stringer

Imagine the communication part of that is massive in in how you’re perceived and how it allows you to be proactive because if you are just, you know, you’re not always saying no to things because you don’t wanna be on the opposite end of being an order taker, you don’t want to be someone who says no to everything. But I guess if you’re upfront about it is worth our time, but the thing we’re doing right now is probably more worth our time and that means we’re gonna have to put a pin in it, but it’s been taken on board, I suppose that goes a long way as well.

Ryan Meyer

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you know, I always say to people too, to to my own detriment, I’m not a no person. But I think what we have to learn is, if if we as L&D professionals want to be taken seriously, we need to be able to say, No, not yet, or not right now. We can get to this, but can we just make sure that it ties back to something? Because otherwise all we’re doing is we’re going back to courses for courses’ sake and we become the order taker yet again.

But you need that reputation to to start building those relationships to be able to say no, not right now, or no, not not quite yet. so you do sometimes need to get some of the quick things over the line. But once you’ve got that roadmap and senior leaders have bought into it and they’re going, I understand the vision, you’ve got the vision right, you will have their support so much quicker. and you know, when you do push back on stuff, people understand why.

Gary Stringer

Ryan, I think that is a really nice note to end on because it’s a very practical thing people can keep in mind and and do and go and think about the roadmap. So thank you so much for a great conversation. I’ve personally learned a lot as always. So thank you for coming on the show.

Ryan Meyer

Thanks Gary, and thank you to everybody who listened.