Your senior leaders get coaching. Your early careers get apprenticeships. But the managers actually running your organisation day-to-day? They're on their own.

John Gregg has spent over 20 years in L&D and OD across commercial, regulated and nonprofit sectors - most recently as Head of Learning and OD at Alzheimer's Research UK. 

With a small team and a tight budget, he built a management development programme that made it to the finals of the Learning Excellence Awards, competing with some of the biggest names in the industry.

In this episode, John shares what it takes to develop the managers everyone else overlooks, prove L&D's impact when scrutiny is high and shift from a cost centre to a genuine performance function.

What you'll learn:

1. Why your mid-level managers are the engine room of your organisation and what a programme that actually develops them looks like in practice
2. How to shift from a cost centre to a performance function and the language change that makes it stick
3. Why psychological safety isn't a course and how to build it incrementally across onboarding, appraisals, policies and everyday culture
4. The "Big Four" stakeholder model and why misreading each group's agenda is where most L&D impact gets lost
5. Where AI is genuinely moving the needle in L&D right now and where the hype is running ahead of the reality
6. Four pieces of advice for anyone starting out or levelling up in the profession

🔗 Connect with John

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gregg-fcipd/

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter

👋 Come and connect with us

We’re always keen to hear what’s resonating or what you’re seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/

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