“What if you can’t get the leadership of the different groups to agree on the priorities?” was the question that caused a palpable silence as HR and L&D personnel from a large enterprise customer exchanged uneasy glances about the “elephant in the room".  â€‹

Savvy learning leaders sell ideas and solutions internally. Don’t call them sales people, but the reality is, learning practitioners are always selling; selling a vision, a learning experience, a learning tool to the stakeholders to get buy-in. 

​Understanding and quantifying Scrap Learning is important. However, telling an executive you saved money is not exciting, and in some cases will result in a reduction of budget. Sure, saving money for the company can be the right thing to do, but what if there was a better way to repurpose savings to help the company make more money, and make you look like the hero!

One of the biggest L&D obstacles is getting executive buy-in and funding for learning initiatives, tools, and experiences. One of the best skills a learning practitioner can have is to influence without authority. It is also one of the toughest to master.  

The recent Entrepreneur Magazine article Apathy at the Top: Why Senior Management Has Given Up on Its Salesforce identifies the frustration abound with sales training.  Chances are, whether you read the article as an L&D practitioner or senior management, you will understand why some have given up on sales training.  â€‹

​I am often asked the question (or a variation of) “does the Learning Model Canvas (LMC) work?”   The short answer is…. Yes, if you work at it. â€‹

​All models themselves are just that, models.  They are frameworks or structures to put together solutions.  However, the degree of success actually depends on execution.

​When I read the insightful article Creating a Culture of Learning in 6 Steps by Britt Andreatta, PhD, I couldn’t help but connect her “transformative learning dimensions” to critical components of the Learning Model Canvas (LMC).

How does the modern employee feel about learning in the workplace? The team at Degreed seems to have a good idea, and a Slideshare presentation they posted recently sums it up well. A Degreed survey found 90% of employees would prefer their learning to be self-directed, rather than at HR’s discretion. And according to Bill Jensen and Josh Klein, up to two-thirds of employees report that they meet their learning needs by working around L&D’s offerings. The Change in Control from the company to the participant has broken the monopoly on learning, and it’s up to L&D to adapt to the new environment.

​Ultra-high-end retailers and restaurants don’t always put a tag on their products, or prices on their menus. The attitude towards the customer is, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” L&D has a similar relationship with its customers, but for a different reason: Internal customers might not ask for a price, because they assume L&D will work within whatever budget they already have. This is a problem because without understanding how much they would pay for a new learning feature or an experience, you don’t really know how valuable it is to them. So ask yourself: If L&D’s customers actually had to pay for a service or product, would they?

The Learning Model Canvas is a great tool to initiate tough conversations, but to give real weight to those conversations, you need to find That One Thing, the challenge or problem that can motivate your customer to action. You can’t assume that you will simply stumble upon That One Thing; to find it, you need to be asking the right questions.