5: Identity crisis
So far in these emails, we’ve explored two ideas:
AI is reducing L&D’s ability to rely on improving capability as a way of demonstrating value, and
Businesses are realising that work design is an integral requirement for performance improvement.
And that leaves us with a difficult question: if knowledge transfer and skill building aren’t enough to demonstrate value, why have we built an entire profession around ‘learning’?
Now, for many of us, this is uncomfortable. We’ve spent years, maybe decades, building our identities around helping people learn.
And to be clear, I'm not arguing against learning. Learning matters.
But learning and performance are not the same thing. Learning is the means. Performance is the outcome.
And we've accidentally built an entire profession around the means instead of the outcome!
Take sales as an example. Salespeople are hired to do one job - sell things. Yes, they use different techniques - prospecting, cold calling, networking etc. But we don’t call them ‘prospectors’ or ‘cold callers’ or ‘networkers’. Those are just the activities. Sales is the outcome, so we call them salespeople.
So, why does L&D act differently?
Because somewhere along the way, we confused the activity with the outcome.
And because of the education system within which we’ve all grown up, there’s a mutual, and often unconscious acceptance, that ‘learning’ is how we improve performance.
But here's the thing - the business never wanted its people to learn - they wanted them to do a good job. And under our guidance, they’ve invested billions into courses, and workshops, and programs, and LMSs… Not because they wanted people to learn (even though they said that), but because they hoped it would improve performance.
Learning was never the objective - it was simply the mechanism we thought we needed.
And this confusion is being exposed by AI. Suddenly, businesses are realising learning isn’t the primary driver of performance. People may have the knowledge and skills, but performance isn’t materially improving.
So, clearly a person’s capabilities aren’t always the primary constraint. It’s more likely to be the system in which they operate.
And yet we’ve defined our industry around improving people.
So, that’s where our identity crisis appears - we default to ‘learning’ because:
we know it
we're good at it, and
the business doesn’t question it.
But those days are over.
And so, we have a choice. Double down on an identity focused on the means. An identity which treats an individual's capabilities as being more important than the environment in which they work. An identity becoming less relevant.
Or embrace an identity focused on outcomes. An identity that recognises work design as a powerful and largely neglected driver of performance. An identity in high demand as AI becomes an integral part of everyone’s work.
Because the writing’s on the wall - if we don’t make that change, we may get left behind.
The question is, are you willing to?
Yours,
- Ant
