Budget cuts are squeezing L&D, yet the cost of stagnant management capability shows up in burnout, disengagement and lost productivity. This article argues for shifting from transactional coaching training to enquiry-led habits built into daily work. It shows how to measure behaviour change with operational metrics and protect future budgets.
L&D teams are facing a perfect storm of rising expectations and shrinking resources. As organisations tighten their belts, new research reveals a 22% cut to learning and development budgets; for teams that can’t prove a clear return on investment (ROI), those cuts can skyrocket to 100%.
How can L&D protect future budgets?
This begs the question: what is the true cost of these cuts to workforce performance, and how can L&D protect future budgets by turning their programmes into value-generating engines with measurable success metrics?
The hidden cost of stagnation
When we fail to give managers the tools they need to develop their teams, we anchor the organisation in a “command-and-control” culture. By constantly fixing, solving, and providing answers to every problem, managers act as “Chief Problem Solvers” rather than the “Chief Enablers”. It makes them the ultimate bottleneck.
This creates a double-edged sword:
- Managerial Burnout
Managers are overwhelmed by the “cognitive burden” of solving everyone else’s problems while managing their own - Employee Disengagement
Staff become frustrated by a lack of autonomy and advancement
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report found that managers experienced the largest decrease in well-being, and the global percentage of engaged employees fell sharply by 10% (from 23% to 21%). On the flip side, when employees feel that their manager supports their progression, 74% say it makes them more productive and 71% are motivated to go above and beyond their usual duties.
Improving management capability in a measurable way is imperative if we’re to generate a meaningful return on investment. This is what needs to happen for L&D to measure a positive impact:
Moving beyond ‘transactional’ training
Current ‘tell-based’ training, such as Manager-as-Coach programmes, where managers are taught to conduct formal, sit-down coaching sessions with staff, has a limited effect because this is presented as an extra ‘task’ to already overwhelmed managers. It’s an overlay that simply doesn’t fit into the flow of work because managers can’t find the time required. Teaching transactional approaches like this makes capturing an ROI nearly impossible.
To generate impact, sustained activity over time is needed if we’re to measure the difference between pre- and post-intervention outcomes. This requires a fundamental shift in management behaviour. Equipping managers with coaching-related behaviours they can adopt in routine interactions with employees means that, instead of being an overlay, they can integrate coaching “on the fly”. This could be during a 30-second chat in the hallway, a quick Teams message, or a brief update during a project meeting, instead of needing a quiet meeting room. Making these behaviours a habit contributes to sustainability.
A key ingredient in this shift from transactional to behavioural development is showing managers how to adopt a more enquiry-led approach. When managers learn to ask powerful, insightful questions, they stimulate their employees’ thinking, delegate ownership, and increase their employees’ confidence.
The success of such enquiry-led initiatives hinges on creating an ‘adult-to-adult’ relationship between manager and employee, where vulnerability is seen as a strength and all contributions are valued. For instance, switching from “why” based questions, which can make employees feel criticised and trigger defensiveness, to “what” based questions creates a relationship of enablement and mutual trust.
Hard data for soft skills: Measuring the shift
To prove ROI, behavioural changes must be connected directly to commercial and operational outcomes. Moving beyond ‘happy sheets’, mechanisms for collecting evidence of revenue increases, reduction of recruitment and other costs through improved retention, systems and process improvements, customer and service improvements, and increased productivity and collaboration should be instituted; metrics that matter to your leadership.
Additional measures might include how much of a manager’s time is reclaimed by enabling employees to retain accountability, as well as soft metrics such as employee engagement through ‘pulse’ surveys and 360-degree feedback scores.
For example, LSE conducted research into the impact of managers adopting an enquiry-led, Operational Coaching® style of management. Their results found that managers who learned to adopt this style of management spent 70% more time coaching their team in the flow of work and fostered greater accountability, in turn, winning back 20% of their time. This allowed them to focus on higher-value work and proactively develop their team.
Once data has been collected, it’s important to celebrate milestones by sharing success stories across the organisation to maintain momentum. This can be achieved by visualising the impact through data dashboards that show how behavioural changes contribute to reduced attrition and higher output.
Creating a culture of continuous development
Proving the ROI of management development initiatives doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. By shifting from transactional to behavioural training and tracking the positive impact on commercial and operational outcomes, L&D can embed continuous development into their organisations.
Managers have the skills to identify individual strengths and offer developmental support that traditional training programmes often miss, accelerating skill acquisition and ultimately building a more agile and resilient workforce.
Dominic Ashley-Timms and Laura Ashley-Timms are the CEO and COO of Notion and co-authors of The Answer is a Question: The missing superpower that changes everything and will transform your impact as a manager and leader
