A new TJ video brings together expert contributor reflections on adaptability, business alignment and intentional boldness in L&D. Drawing on themes from the TJ Influence Report 2026, the discussion explores why learning leaders need to focus less on delivery detail and more on organisational priorities, capability and measurable business impact.
Summary
- Adaptability is not an occasional response. It is now part of everyday work
- L&D leaders need to spend less time talking about learning delivery and more time talking about business needs
- Learning, training and development are not the same thing, and clearer framing matters
- Connecting learning to business outcomes is central to L&D’s credibility and purpose
- Boldness in L&D is most useful when it is intentional, thoughtful and commercially aware
- The TJ report’s four enablers offer a practical way to think about readiness for impact
- Smaller, high-quality datasets can still produce meaningful insight when responses are reflective and grounded in experience
These conversations, inspired by the TJ L&D Influence Report 2026, brings together reflections from contributors on what L&D needs now: constant adaptability, stronger business alignment, and a more intentional kind of boldness. The discussion highlights a shift away from focusing mainly on learning delivery and towards positioning L&D as a strategic function that connects capability, performance and organisational priorities.
Including interviews from:
One of the strongest themes in the discussion is adaptability. Not as a dramatic response to crisis, but as an everyday reality. The point is not that organisations transform once and then settle. It is that they are constantly changing, and L&D has to keep observing, responding and adjusting alongside them.
That leads into another important challenge for the profession: where L&D leaders focus their attention. The conversation makes a clear case that senior L&D professionals should not be absorbed by the detail of platforms, content and delivery decisions. Those things matter, but they are not the centre of leadership. The bigger responsibility is understanding the business, shaping conversations around capability, and connecting learning to real organisational outcomes.
The video also touches on the language we use. Learning, training and development are often treated as interchangeable, but they are not. Development exists within organisations and systems. Learning happens within people. That distinction matters because it shapes how L&D positions itself with senior leaders and how clearly it links its work to performance and change.
Another theme is boldness. Not reckless experimentation. Not rejecting technology or adopting it blindly. The more useful form of boldness is intentional: being business-first, open-minded and ready to act with judgement. That is where the TJ L&D Influence Report 2026 and its four enablers offer a practical framework for thinking about readiness, action and impact.
This video is part of a wider conversation about the future of L&D’s influence. It is a reminder that the profession’s value does not come from delivering more learning for its own sake. It comes from helping organisations move forward with greater clarity, capability and purpose.
Video transcript
Transcript from TechSmith Audiate:
Laura Overton: So I love the fact that in the report, there’s this massive thing on adaptability. It’s not that we adapt, but that we are constantly adapting. It’s not that we transform, but it’s, we’re constantly transforming. And it might be on a day by day basis that we’re having to do this. Um, and I think that is the reality, um, that it’s not the emergency. It’s just recognising that every day we need to be adapting. We need to be observing.
Cathy Hoy: I think, really, if you’re looking to almost develop yourself, uh, then if you’re an L&D leader, I would say stop talking about learning. You’ve got a whole team of subject matter experts, and that’s why they’re your team. And they can talk about learning. They can worry about learning. They can worry about what’s the right LMS, what’s the right font colour, what’s the right, uh, session plan set up. You shouldn’t be worrying about that. So you shouldn’t be talking about learning. You should be talking about the business.
Andrew Jacobs: What we have to do is to help people understand the difference between learning and training, which are different, and also between learning and development. Development is exists within an organization. Learning exists within people. So it’s something to do with how we frame, how we work with senior leaders in organization.
Gaëlle Watson: And we definitely need to reposition ourself, not as in content providers, but as in skills and, uh, and actually more at high level framework than, uh, than actually the nitty gritty of the how because this can easily be… design created by, um, other clever tools that are available.
Cathy Hoy: I think there was, um, I think there was a line in the report… It connects the business outcomes and delivers real impact. Now for me, if you’re not involved in those conversations and or leading those conversations, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to do that. I mean and if you don’t do that, why do we exist? I mean, if we’re not connecting learning to business outcomes and driving real impact, what is the point of us? Um, so I think that’s probably for me, that that one line in the report was absolutely crucial.
And, you know, for us, I mean, at at CLO one hundred, it’s pretty much the the core thing that we we do really is is helping L and D leaders align learning more closely with the business, um, and helping them think, you know, more more strategically, more more commercially. So, yeah, that that that all really resonates with me.
Laura Overton: And I love the fact that you’re in your report, you’re you’re flagging…a sense of boldness…um, and courage. And absolutely, I think that’s right. Um, but what I’ve seen in my own research is that boldness that we need to develop internally. Um, it’s actually it’s not smart bold. It’s not shoot from the hip. I’m gonna I’m gonna experiment everywhere. I’m gonna flow a AI over everything, or I’m not gonna do anything with AI, I’m only gonna do face to face from now on in. By the way, that is a standard normal response over the last thirty years to technology of most learning professionals. I told you it didn’t work, and that’s why I’m gonna go back into the classroom. We’ll leave that for a moment.
Um, you know, this…this kind of smart ball, uh, brassy bold action. Um, but you’ve heard me talk about this the sense that what I’m seeing here, and I see it in your report, is this more intentional boldness, this internal orientation of how we see ourselves. Are we business first? Are we facing in the direction that the rest of our organization is facing in? Or are we trying to get them to face our direction of getting more courses and more programs and more, uh, I love you and high NPS course. So business first, being open minded.
And again, your four enablers…um, being they they allow us to be more open minded and how they interlock with each other. Um, so being open minded as an orientation is gonna be really critical about how we even leverage the work that you’re doing, Jo.
Tom Brown: One of the dangers actually of a large sample size is we make bigger assumptions. So say you had thirty thousand people…in in a piece of research and…twenty thousand of them all said the same thing. The conclusion of that report is that that is the thing we need to address… and we are and and that is at the exclusion of the other ten thousand people that did not say that one thing. That’s a that is a, I’ll say it, society wide…standard way of interpreting force. You know?
So I see I think that the small even the starting small sample size is an extremely use is, you know, the way we’re interpreting it is very useful because one, it’s a really high quality in terms of people that are that really deeply understand the learning development industry but with enormous amounts of amounts and time and quality of experience. Um… there’s no flippant responses in here. Uh, these are all reflective of where people are really at, but in the right roles.
Jo Cook: I am so grateful for everyone’s involvement. That’s the impact I want for training journal, but also for us as individuals and learning into development as a team, as a department, and within our organisations.
