The question was never:
“What should we teach?”
It was always:
“What do people need to do their best work?”

The Idea

Within 24 hours, people forget roughly two-thirds of what they just learned. Ebbinghaus documented this more than a century ago and the curve hasn't changed. A single learning event — no matter how well designed — cannot overcome it. What overcomes it is spaced repetition, reinforcement, and practice in context over time. That's not a training design preference. It's a biological reality.

In Practice

Every program I build has reinforcement designed in before the first session happens — not added afterward as an afterthought. Manager coaching, spaced check-ins, job aids at the point of performance, follow-up cohort conversations. The learning event itself is just the beginning. What happens in the weeks after is where retention is either built or lost.

The Idea

Bersin's research on learning in the flow of work and Gagné's conditions of learning both point to the same conclusion: the classroom is not where most learning sticks. Experience sticks. Feedback sticks. Application under real conditions sticks. The job of L&D isn't to create the best classroom experience — it's to create the conditions where learning transfers into the moments that actually matter.

In Practice

I design for the transfer problem before I design the learning experience. What is the hardest moment on the job this person will face, and does the learning actually prepare them for it? That question shapes everything — the modality, the sequencing, the practice scenarios, the manager involvement. The program is a vehicle. Transfer is the destination.

The Idea

I sit with data before drawing conclusions. This is a deliberate practice — not a process step. Some of the most important insights I've surfaced came from pulling information, categorizing it, stewing on it, and asking what the pattern is actually telling me rather than what I expected to find. Organizations almost always think they know what their people need. The data rarely agrees completely.

In Practice

I've pulled organizational performance goals and categorized them by balanced scorecard alignment — then analyzed whether the distribution of self-identified priorities reflected an even spread. It never does. The gap between what leaders say they prioritize and what their goals actually reflect is one of the most reliable diagnostic signals in L&D — and one of the most useful tools for facilitating honest conversations about organizational direction.

The Idea

Professional development budgets are often the first thing cut when organizations face financial pressure — which is exactly why I think carefully about where investment goes. Conferences are genuinely energizing. The hallway conversations, the unexpected connections, the jolt of fresh thinking — all real and valuable. What the research on deliberate practice and spaced reinforcement tells us, though, is that inspiration fades fast without a plan for what happens when people get back to work.

In Practice

I prioritize building the development infrastructure inside the organization — programs that are repeated, contextual, and tied to real work. Internal leadership readiness programs, in-house Toastmasters, manager-led coaching cadences. Significantly more cost-effective than external events, and producing the kind of sustained behavior change that a conference weekend cannot. When professional development is built in-house, it survives budget cuts. It becomes part of how the organization operates.