Show Notes: Ep 08 – L&D's Four Enablers with Jo Cook

Jo Cook Editor, Training Journal Director, Lightbulb Moment

Training Journal: trainingjournal.com Jo's author page: trainingjournal.com/author/jocook Lightbulb Moment: lightbulbmoment.info LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jocooklightbulb

Mentioned in this episode

TJ L&D Influence Report 2026 Introduces the Readiness Enablers Index and highlights practical conditions including stakeholder access, data, experimentation and support. Free to download. Includes a link to the 2026 survey. Download here

TJ Readiness Survey (add your data): linked from the Training Journal homepage at trainingjournal.com

Nigel Harrison, How to be a True Business Partner by Performance Consulting: amazon.co.uk

Cathy Moore, Map It: The hands-on guide to strategic training design: amazon.com

The Sovereign Career Hub

Substack: substack.com/@thesovereigncareerhub Carolyn on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/carolynjshepherd Emmeline AI: emmeline.ai

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Jo is the editor of Training Journal, the profession’s longest-running publication, and the author of the TJ L&D Influence Report 2026. She built it from the voices of practitioners gathered at the TJ 60th Anniversary Conference, at which I delivered the keynote. It is one of the most useful pieces of research the profession has produced this year.

Thanks for reading! but don’t keep it to yourself. Do you know someone who would enjoy reading this post?

Jo’s finding is not that L&D lacks knowledge. The sector has known what good looks like for a long time. Her finding is that most L&D professionals are trying to act without the conditions in place to act.

She calls them the four enablers. And her argument, backed by the research and by a candid story from her own career, is that if any one of them is missing, the whole thing stalls.

This conversation follows naturally from last week’s episode with Andrew Jacobs, and it looks at the same challenge from a different angle. Together they are worth sitting with.

Which of the four enablers do you currently have? Which will you start work on this week?

The companion article, the resource and the solo audio follow later in the week as always.

Listen in, enjoy and take care for now.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carolynshepherd.substack.com