I’m concerned for the L&D industry, or to be more specific the peoople who work in L&D – the L&Ders.
There is a constant message within the industry that whatever one is doing for a company, it isn’t good enough. That they should have super duper tech in place, automation, a team of robots, endless content or non endless content, AI, a place on the board aka a seat on the table, strategic genius and operational execution beyond compare. I read articles, watch videos, join in webinars and debates and its endless. It promotes the message – what you are doing is not good enough.
In my 20 years working within the industry, I’ve suffered from this so I decided to filter all of the noise and put some blinkers on. Since then Optimus has flourished, coming out of the post covid impact so much stronger – truly reflected in the amazing team we have and clients we work with on L&D projects across the EU, Europe and globally.
I couldn’t ignore all of the noise, it would have been foolish to do so – I do pay attention to technology advances, I am keen to explore utilising AI to provide better services and improve learning, and we do invest time in understanding new entries to the marketplace. It’s about how you consume and use this information however.
With a plethorea of L&D trends and buzzwords, combined with the release of ChatGPT, there is a lot of noise about what will be big this year. Some of it will be valid. However, my advice to you is to celebrate what you are doing and where you are at now.
Don’t worry about what you aren’t doing or haven’t done – keep progressing and moving forward.
Ignore FOMO – determine what your company needs and focus on those.
This blog was written by Blake Henegan, managing director of Optimus Learning Services. To discuss this blog or if you have any L&D support requirements please contact blake@optimuslearningservices.com.
