“Children are trusting AI coaches more than real people. This is happening at work too.” – Katja Schipperheijn
This was the first thing I wrote in my notebook at this year’s Learning Live. It set my brain whirring.
“We retro our events and process, but not ourselves. We must make space for what we’ve personally learned.” – Me, my final thought at the end of the conference.
Because amongst the inspiring quotes that landed, challenged, and sparked something, comes a wonderful side effect: creative application, reflection, new questions.
The kind of things that normally strike mid-run, or brushing my teeth, or picking apples in the garden. Something about flow state and holding space for ideas.
Such is the beauty of two days to indulge in what we love, surrounded by people who just get it.
It reminds you how much time is spent on autopilot - just doing - and how rarely we pause to simply think.
Coming back to that thinking time, to the playground, feels like surfacing from a long sleep.
So, what’s woken me up this year?
Google’s Daniella Freeman reminded us that what gets rewarded gets repeated. She pointed out the less obvious ways this shows up.
When we promote someone for performance alone, we’re also commending their behaviour. And if that behaviour clashes with our values, we’re saying: our values don’t matter as long as you get results.
You can hardly blame people for thinking virtue signalling is alive and well.
Promotion speaks loudly about culture. If values matter, act like it. Don’t promote people who are technically brilliant but personally awful. Help them grow if they’re open to it. Coachable superstars are where it's at.
Steven Bartlett once said he released a business-wide statement for every promotion, making it clear: this is what good looks like here. A cultural megaphone.
Daniella also spoke about measuring organisational maturity. This got me thinking beyond hard numbers and tangible things, to the more elusive spaces, like how our values show up. What would we see, what would shift, what would people feel if we were actually nailing it?
I often measure what’s easy. This challenged me to get more intentional. To think about phases and metrics and plotting where we are on the journey.
Another gem: if your people are tired of surveys, consider who’s sending them and the impact that can have. The sender signals sponsorship. It's an opportunity to dispel the perception of 'just another L&D thing,' and diversify the ownership of learning.
Day two’s keynote was a crowd favourite. Everyone I spoke to was energised and inspired.
Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes from the High Performance podcast skilfully navigated audience questions with personal stories and guest clips. Slick but grounded.
The most valuable sessions challenge your preconceptions, plant ideas and set off a welcome buzz in your body which demands action. And this one really delivered.
“It can’t all be about the view from the top. It has to be about the climb.” – Jake, paraphrasing a podcast guest.
Things got deep quickly; we explored the idea many of us hold of success, the pursuit of more in the pursuit of happiness. It reminded me of something I recently heard from Mo Gadawt, that happiness is actually subtraction. It’s the freeing up of our time and energy that makes us feel good, not accumulating or, as Jake put it, "the higher mountain."
“It can’t be pain and the pursuit of excellence.” If the journey looks miserable, maybe it’s the wrong path.
Then: resilience. Damian called out when a culture problem is disguised as a resilience issue. “I’ve met loads of people who need to be resilient to work with dickheads. You don’t need resilience in the face of empathy.”
A helpful reminder not to confuse resilience with enduring the toxic status quo.
Another hit: “Failure is the price of ambition.” – Greg Hoffman, ex-Nike CEO. A succinct way of expressing failure as essential learning in the right direction.
When asked to name the most vital and unspoken leadership skill, Jake said, "Child-like thinking. Kids are just so excited to be alive. At some point that joy gets beaten out of us."
Will AI help us unlock more imagination, or will it shrink our brains? Maybe it depends on how we use it. Either way, play and creativity were strong undercurrents throughout the event.
Damian’s top skill? “Kindness.”
I’m still mulling that one. Some of my best work experiences involved kindness - but not consistently. Can it get you to the top? Or is it a luxury of arriving there?
Maybe kindness needs to be strategically rewarded if we want it to rise.
Dr David Bevens (Portico), showed an FMRI study: social exclusion lights up the same brain regions as physical pain. We’re wired for connection.
It reminded me of Gallup’s “best friend at work” question. One or more close connections = higher engagement and retention. But what’s a “best” friend, really? It’s fuzzy.
Belonging seemed simpler - until it didn’t.
David said we often treat belonging as one big concept, when actually, it’s vast and personal. He shared survey results showing how differently people define it.
We assume shared meaning, but we don’t always have it. And what people want is constantly changing.
“Belonging is one size fits one. Tailor-made - that’s our job.” I agree... but it’s daunting. How do you serve everyone, all the time?
David made it feel more doable: know your personas, listen openly, create multiple channels for voices.
“Be a responsive function.” Ensure people feel heard: you said, we did.
I asked how to hear quieter voices. His advice: “Ask them, what’s motivating your lack of engagement?”
My other scribbles include:
A reminder to think about how I’d describe our learning culture.
A reminder to protect time for end-of-year reflection.
A plan to share thought-provoking podcasts with our people managers.
And this approach from Megan Yawor from Knight Frank, during a panel discussion that touched on the power of workplace language: “We don’t call it compliance training, it’s ‘Securing Knight Frank.’”
Learning Live remains my favourite L&D event of the year. Why?
A glorious mix of old friends and discovering new ones. Of bold ideas and validation of tried-and-tested approaches. The opportunity to step away from the noise and engage. A notebook full of magic.