Thank you to my guest Andrew Jacobs

Andrew is a learning strategist and organisational impact advisor, and founder of Llarn Learning. He is a Fellow of the Learning Performance Institute (FLPI). His work focuses on shifting organisations away from training delivery and towards capability, performance and measurable impact. His experience spans private and public sector organisations, from financial services and retail through to local and central government. He is known for a direct, principled critique of how learning functions operate, and for building the conditions where learning happens through work, not around it. He speaks internationally on learning, capability and organisational change. He produces Women Talking About Learning, a podcast listened to in over 46 countries, and writes daily at lostanddesperate.com.

TranscriptYour strategy is already out of date.

Not because you wrote it badly.

Because the pace of change has outrun it.

That is the challenge Andrew Jacobs brings to this conversation. And his answer is not to write a better one.

Andrew is a well respected voice in the L&D sector, a learning strategist and organisational impact advisor, founder of Llarn Learning and chartered fellow of the CIPD. He has spent his career helping organisations move beyond training delivery and into genuine capability and doesn’t mince his words when critiquing the status quo:

“…we've become shopkeepers." Someone in the business asks for a course. L&D supplies it. The doors close. Nobody checks whether anything actually changed.

Andrew argues the function needs to become something different and his advice is super clear - we need to become engineers.

Listen to this week’s guest interview with Andrew to discover how to transform your L&D function and to convert your team into ‘Engineers’.

ie. practitioners who diagnose before they prescribe, who measure impact at 10 days, 10 weeks and 10 months, and who hold the organisation accountable for the outcomes it said it wanted.

And in a world where AI is reshaping work faster than any strategy was built to track, Andrew has something more durable to offer than a strategy document. He shows us how to lean into ‘Principles’ and this surprisingly simple approach could hold the key to your sovereign career.

Click play to hear the full story.

PS. …don’t forget to check out the ‘three little words’ that will change every conversation you have with colleagues asking for courses.

As usual, the companion article and a Jobscaping™ reflection resource follow later in the 7-day cycle, and my solo audio closes out the week.

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Take care for now and Stay Sovereign!

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