Learning & Development

In today’s workplace, information and insights play an important role in improving learning and development. Companies are no longer relying on guesswork to train employees. Instead, they use what they learn from real workplace activity to understand what employees need, how they learn, and how training can be improved. In a workplace, this information can be collected from different sources such as assessment results, employee performance records, feedback surveys and training evaluations. Firstly, the right information helps to identify learning needs. Before any training is done, it is important to understand what employees need to learn. By looking at performance reports, skills assessments and feedback from line managers, organisations can see where employees are struggling or falling short. This helps in planning training programmes that address real problems rather than assumptions. Additionally, these insights help in improving training programmes. After identifying the learning needs, findings from previous training can be used to design something more effective. For example, if employees consistently perform better after hands-on sessions than after lectures, trainers can shift towards more practical activities. This makes learning more engaging and useful. Tracking progress and measuring results is also made easier when organisations pay attention to the right indicators. Assessment results, quiz scores and performance reviews taken during and after training can show whether employees are improving. This helps both the employee and the organisation understand whether the learning has been successful. If there is no improvement, the training can be adjusted. Furthermore, reliable information supports better decision-making. Managers and learning professionals can use performance trends and training evaluations to decide which programmes to continue, improve or stop. It also supports smarter use of resources, ensuring that time and money are not wasted on ineffective training. For example, if sales figures increase following a sales training intervention, that outcome is a clear signal that the training worked. Beyond this, individual employee records and assessment patterns support personalised learning. Every employee is different and they learn at different speeds. Some employees may need extra support in certain areas, while others may be ready for more advanced content. Tracking individual progress allows teams to tailor learning programmes to specific needs, ensuring that each employee gets the right level of support. Lastly, regular feedback and visible progress encourage a culture of continuous learning. When employees can see their own growth through scores, milestones or manager feedback, they are more likely to stay motivated and engaged. Organisations, in turn, can use what they have learned from past programmes to continuously refine their approach based on what is actually working. In conclusion, using workplace information and insights wisely supports learning by helping to identify needs, improve training, track progress, measure results, enable better decision-making, personalise learning journeys and build a culture of continuous improvement. It makes learning more structured, effective and meaningful in the workplace.

A common question in organisations is, “How much should we spend on training?” It’s an important question because budgets and resources matter. Investing in people is one of the most significant decisions any organisation can make. However, there’s a deeper question that often goes unasked: “What happens to learning after the training ends?” That is where the real work begins. At Lubuto, our conversations with organisations usually start not with what training to deliver, but with what happens after people return to work. Training is an event, while culture is what happens every day. Training often has a clear structure, including workshops, courses, facilitators, objectives, and attendees who take notes and might even feel energised. Then everyone goes back to work. Gradually, things revert to how they were before, not because the training was poor, but because the environment hasn’t changed. In contrast, a learning culture is not an event. It encompasses the everyday experience of work. It’s about conversations between colleagues, how leaders respond to questions, how mistakes are dealt with, and how knowledge is shared. In organisations with strong learning cultures, growth doesn’t rely on scheduled sessions; it happens continuously. You can fund training, but you also have to build culture. Training budgets can be increased quickly; new programmes can be introduced; external facilitators can be hired, and platforms can be purchased. However, culture doesn’t respond to budgets in the same way. Culture is shaped by behaviour, consistency, trust, and the example set by leaders. If people are afraid to speak up, no training will make them more communicative. If mistakes are punished, no workshop will make people more innovative. If knowledge is hoarded, no platform will encourage real collaboration. Culture determines whether learning is applied, ignored, or resisted. This is why we often say that organisations don’t struggle with training; they struggle with translating learning into everyday practice. In organisations with strong learning cultures, learning doesn’t feel like an added task. You can see it in simple, consistent ways: • Teams reflect on what worked and what didn’t after projects. • Managers ask questions instead of just giving instructions. • Colleagues share insights without needing to be asked. • Feedback is part of regular conversation, not a formal event. These practices don’t require large budgets; they require intention. Over time, they compound. The Hidden Cost of Over-Reliance on Training There’s a belief that more training automatically leads to better performance. But without cultural support, something different happens. People attend sessions and learn new ideas, but then they return to environments where those ideas can’t be applied. Over time, this leads to frustration, disengagement, and a feeling that learning is disconnected from reality. Eventually, training becomes something people attend instead of something they use.  This is a costly outcome, regardless of budget size. We have seen this across organisations of all sizes, where the issue isn’t a lack of learning opportunities, but a lack of space to apply what has been learned. Leaders Shape the Learning Environment Learning cultures aren’t built by policies alone; they are shaped by how leaders show up every day. Leaders influence learning by admitting when they don’t know something, inviting input from others, responding constructively to mistakes, and recognising effort toward growth—not just outcomes. These actions signal that learning is valued, not just expected. People notice what leaders do, not just what they say. In many ways, leadership defines the culture. What leaders model becomes what teams practice. Small Shifts, Meaningful Change Building a learning culture doesn’t require a complete organisational overhaul. It often starts with small shifts: • Making time for reflection after key activities. • Encouraging questions during meetings. • Creating space for peer learning and mentorship. • Recognising knowledge-sharing as valuable. These practices may seem simple, but they change how people experience work. Over time, they create an environment where learning feels natural. It is often through these small, consistent actions that organisations begin to see meaningful changes in how people think, collaborate, and grow. This is not to say that training budgets aren’t important. They allow access to resources, expertise, and structured development opportunities. They can accelerate learning when used well. But without the right culture, even the best-planned training will have limited impact. With a strong culture, even modest training investments can yield much greater results. Organisations That Grow, Learn Sustainable organisations are not measured only by how much they invest in training. They are defined by how deeply learning is woven into their everyday practices. These places foster curiosity, allow knowledge to flow across teams, encourage leaders to continue growing, and ensure that improvement is continuous, not occasional. In these organisations, learning is not an occasional event; it’s part of how the organisation operates daily. This is the kind of environment we aim to support, where learning is not an intervention, but integral to how organisations function. The question shouldn’t just be, “How much are we spending on training?” but also, “What kind of environment are we creating for learning?”  In the long run, culture determines whether learning takes root. And when it does, growth becomes not only possible, but also sustainable.

Whenever we run a programme at Lubuto, my favourite part is reading the feedback afterwards. This is not because it is always positive. It isn’t. But because it tells a story. A story of how people felt about the entire learning experience. Over time I have come to realise that the feedback itself is only part of the story. How people respond, how much they share, how honest they are willing to be, and what they choose to leave blank, reveals something much bigger. It reflects the kind of culture they operate in every day. And that is worth paying close attention to. What Feedback Really Tells Us There is a difference between evaluation data and cultural data. Evaluation data tells you whether the content was relevant and the facilitator engaging. Cultural data tells you something deeper about trust, and whether people believe their voices actually matter. When feedback is consistently glowing with very little constructive input, it is worth pausing. Overly positive responses across an entire group can reflect a culture where people do not feel safe enough to say what they really think. Vague answers or forms returned almost blank can signal the same thing. Silence in feedback is still a form of communication. How You Collect It Changes What You Get We have explored both QR codes and physical paper forms at Lubuto, and what we discovered was simple but significant: different audiences receive these very differently, shaped by comfort with technology, access to devices, and even levels of trust in digital platforms. Beyond practicality, the method you choose sends an unspoken message. Handing someone a QR code as they walk out of the door signals that feedback is an afterthought. The goal is always to match the collection method to the audience and context, not simply to what is most convenient for the facilitator. The Questions You Ask Determine the Answers You Receive A feedback form built entirely on rating scales will give you numbers. What it rarely gives you is insight. Questions like “What is one thing from today that you are still thinking about?” or “What would have made this experience more useful for you?” create space for honest, specific responses. They also signal to the participant that you are interested in their actual experience, not just a favourable score. Designing good feedback questions deserves the same intentionality as designing the learning experience itself. Timing and the Invitation to Be Honest By the time a session officially closes, people are already mentally elsewhere. Bags are packed, phones are back in hand, and there are a hundred things competing for attention in their minds. In that moment, a detailed feedback form is competing with all of it and the form rarely wins. Being intentional about when feedback is collected and not just that it is collected makes a real difference. Building a brief reflection moment into the session before the close, while people are still present and engaged, produces a different quality of response than a rushed form at the end. The invitation itself to share feedback is equally important. Participants need to feel genuinely free to be honest. This means naming why the feedback matters, acknowledging that critical responses are just as valuable as positive ones, and creating an environment throughout the day where honest contributions are welcomed, not just at the end. A Mirror Worth Looking Into There is a saying that “Feedback is a gift”. And I truly believe it is. But there is a fair amount of work involved in receiving it well and in making sure what you receive is honesty, not just a ticked box. Getting genuine feedback has to be earned through the safety you build in the room, the questions you ask, the method you choose, and the trust you demonstrate by actually doing something with what you hear. At Lubuto, feedback is not the end of the learning experience. It is part of it. Our L&D debriefs depend on it and we use it to improve how we show up at the next session for our learners.  So the next time you distribute those forms, it is worth asking: Have we done the work to deserve honesty? Because the mirror only works if people feel safe enough to look into it. We would love to hear your thoughts on learning feedback, whether you are participating in designing learning experiences or sitting in the room as a learner. How does your organisation approach feedback after training? Do you feel genuinely invited to share honestly, or does it sometimes feel like going through the motions? What has worked, what has surprised you, and what do you wish was done differently? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Organisations often talk about growth as if it is purely a financial outcome. Revenue grows. Markets expand. Teams scale. But behind every form of sustainable organisational growth is something less visible and far more important: people who are still learning. When organisations stop learning, growth eventually becomes fragile. Processes become outdated. Leaders repeat the same decisions. Teams operate on habits instead of insight. Continuous learning is not simply about training sessions or professional development programmes. It is about cultivating an environment where curiosity, reflection, and improvement are part of the everyday rhythm of work. Growth and Learning Have Always Been Linked Think about any organisation that has adapted successfully through change. Whether it is technological disruption, economic pressure, or shifts in the workforce, the organisations that endure are the ones that continue to learn. Learning allows organisations to: Without learning, growth eventually becomes unsustainable. Systems remain static while the world moves forward. Continuous Learning Is Not the Same as Occasional Training Many organisations approach learning as an event. A workshop is scheduled. Staff attend a seminar. A training programme is rolled out once a year. While these initiatives can be valuable, continuous learning works differently. It is less about isolated moments and more about ongoing practice. Continuous learning happens when: In this kind of environment, learning becomes woven into everyday work rather than added on top of it. Learning Builds Adaptable Leaders One of the most important outcomes of continuous learning is the development of adaptable leadership. Leaders today operate in environments that are constantly shifting. Economic conditions change, industries evolve, and teams become more diverse in experience and expectations. Leaders who continue learning remain open to new ideas. They develop the ability to listen more carefully, reassess assumptions, and adjust direction when necessary. This kind of leadership does not rely on having all the answers. Instead, it relies on a willingness to keep growing. Teams Learn Best When Learning Is Shared Learning within organisations is rarely an individual exercise. When knowledge remains isolated, organisations lose valuable opportunities for collective growth. But when teams share insights, mistakes, and lessons openly, learning becomes a shared resource. For example, when a project does not go as planned, the most valuable question is not simply “Who is responsible?” but rather “What can we learn from this experience?” This shift in mindset allows organisations to transform challenges into learning moments that strengthen the entire team. The Emotional Side of Learning Continuous learning also requires something deeper than intellectual effort. It requires emotional awareness. Learning often involves acknowledging gaps in knowledge. It requires humility and vulnerability. People must feel safe enough to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and admit when they need support. When organisations create environments where curiosity is welcomed and mistakes are treated as opportunities for growth, people become more willing to engage in the learning process. This emotional dimension of learning is often overlooked, yet it is essential for sustained development. Small Habits Create a Culture of Learning Building a culture of continuous learning does not require dramatic transformation. Often it begins with small, intentional habits. Leaders can start by: Over time, these practices create an environment where learning becomes natural rather than forced. Learning as a Long-Term Investment Continuous learning is sometimes seen as a cost. Training programmes require time and resources, and immediate results are not always visible. Yet the organisations that invest consistently in learning often see the greatest long-term returns. Their teams adapt faster, solve problems more creatively, and remain resilient in the face of uncertainty. Learning strengthens not only individual capability but also the collective capacity of the organisation. Growing Organisations Are Learning Organisations At its heart, sustainable organisational growth is not just about expansion. It is about development. It is about people becoming more capable, teams becoming more collaborative, and leaders becoming more thoughtful in how they guide others. Organisations that prioritise continuous learning are not simply preparing for the future. They are actively shaping it. And in a world that continues to change rapidly, the ability to keep learning may be the most valuable strength any organisation can cultivate.

Allow me to open with a deliberate provocation. I have borrowed from Shakespeare’s Macbeth — one of the most canonical texts of the English literary tradition, a tradition that colonialism carried into classrooms across the globe — and rewritten its most famous soliloquy to be about language itself. I chose Shakespeare specifically because of what he represents: the inherited canon that many of us were handed as the standard of educated expression, whether we asked for it or not. The subversion is intentional. “Is this a language which I use before me,The grammar, spellings and sentences toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty Training room from programme to programme To the last syllable of recorded training time… Out, out, brief language… It is a language Used by a Trainer, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing…” Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is the risk every L&D practitioner runs when they fail to interrogate the language they work in. Wikipedia estimates there are over 7,000 human languages in the world, each one a different lens through which reality is interpreted and understood. In Learning & Development, we tend to collapse all of that into one: whichever colonially dominant language powers the organisation. For many practitioners across Africa and beyond, this means designing and delivering in a borrowed tongue — one that arrived not by choice, but by conquest. We are using a borrowed delivery platform. This is not merely a political observation. It is a practical one. Ngugi wa Thiong’o described how colonialism accomplished its deepest work not through physical force but through “the vast naming system of language”, shaping how people identified themselves and their world. If the language of your training doesn’t connect to the naming and norming structures of your learners, then language becomes a filter for learning, not a gateway to it. The terminology we use inside L&D deserves more scrutiny than it typically receives. We use “trainee,” “participant,” “learner,” and “delegate” interchangeably, but each signals a different relationship between the person holding the knowledge and the person meant to receive it. Are learners active agents in their own development? Or recipients? The word you choose has already answered that question before you’ve opened your mouth. If we are not deliberate about language, we may be reinforcing the very dynamics we claim to be disrupting. Genuine Communities of Practice are built on shared and understood language. When trainers and learners do not share a conceptual vocabulary, when the training speaks past rather than to the people in the room, no volume of good content will close that gap. This is the practical weight behind Dr Chipo Ndudzo’s guiding principle at Providence Human Capital: “We are mindful of the language we use.” Mindfulness here is not a soft skill. It is a core design competency that shapes every session before a single slide is opened. The question worth carrying into your next programme design: What language does your learner think in and is your training designed to meet them there?

Training days are exciting for many reasons. For some people, they are a genuine opportunity to widen their knowledge and engage with colleagues on a different level. For others, they become a brief escape from routine, a space to push agendas in discussions or quietly “fire fight” from the back row, or just another chance to simply enjoy what is jokingly referred to as “eating the company’s money.” The room is often full, the conversations are lively, commitments are made, and energy runs high. Yet a week later, once everyone has returned to their workstations and daily pressures have resumed, they find themselves back at default settings. The promised change quietly competes with deadlines, emails, and operational demands and, more often than not, the usual ways of working win. Surely this is not the outcome we intend when we invest in learning initiatives. Why then does it happen? The uncomfortable truth to answer this question is that most organisations treat learning as an event, not a system. You plan for the day. You book the venue. You confirm the catering. You send calendar invites. You prepare slides. Operationally, the event is tight. But learning does not live in the event. Learning exists in the system around it. What happens before people enter that room, and more importantly, what happens after they leave it, determines whether anything truly shifts. Behind every learning experience that “works” is usually a web of invisible work. Conversations with leaders to understand the real business issue, not just the surface request. Clarifying whether the problem is actually a skills gap or something structural. Designing scenarios that mirror real tensions in the workplace. Anticipating resistance. Thinking through how managers will reinforce the behaviours once everyone returns to their desks. This is the part no one sees but this is also the part that protects your investment in learning and development initiatives. Operationally, the reality is that behaviour change outside of most learning experiences competes with daily pressure encountered when one returns to their desk. Deadlines do not pause because people attended a workshop. KPIs do not soften because commitments were made in a circle discussion. Because of this, if learning is not intentionally woven into workflows, team meetings, performance conversations and leadership modelling, the system will always pull people back to their default. Not because they are unwilling. But because systems are stronger than inspiration. Having a learning system in place assumes this tension from the start. It designs for problem solving and reinforcement. It prioritises involving managers and supervisors before the session, not after. It builds in application moments that connect directly to live or real world projects. It creates accountability structures that feel human, not punitive. It recognises that people are not just absorbing content; they are negotiating identity, habit and pressure. All of this requires more than a powerful training day. It requires alignment over an extended period of time. So when we ask a lot of questions before designing a programme for you, or when we propose follow-up sessions, manager toolkits, coaching or reflection checkpoints, it is not to complicate things or keep you in an endless cycles. It is because learning that sticks is engineered — not only to address symptoms, but to solve underlying issues. And the organisations that see real return on their learning spend are not those who run the most workshops. They are the ones who build systems that make change possible long after the food is finished and the slides are closed. Building a learning system is not a one-off effort. It’s a deliberate investment in people, processes, and culture. The organisations that see real impact are the ones that plan beyond the day of training, integrate learning into daily work, and measure success by behaviour and people transformation. Imagine if learning didn’t end when the slides are closed. What could your team achieve if every session became part of a living learning system? We’d love to hear how your organisation ensures learning actually sticks. Share your experiences, questions, or challenges in the comments below.

For years, many of us in training and development have believed that better qualifications, better programmes, and bigger budgets would solve organisational problems. What if that belief itself is part of the problem? This reflection is an invitation — especially to those of us working in learning and development — to pause and examine the assumptions we rarely question about how learning actually works in complex, uncertain environments. It’s written for practitioners who are brave enough to admit that some of our most familiar approaches may no longer serve the realities we face. Like many professionals in this field, we took pride in our qualifications — earned from respected institutions and reflected neatly on our CVs. We genuinely believed that well-designed training programmes were the answer to most organisational challenges. Whether the issue was performance, productivity, or behaviour, training was often the default response. Yet many of the same problems kept resurfacing — even after repeated rounds of training. Year after year, we submitted new training budgets, hoping the next programme would finally fix what the last one hadn’t. The content changed, the facilitators changed, sometimes even the methodology changed — but the outcomes often remained stubbornly familiar. This forced a deeper reckoning. As Dr Father Anselm Adodo warns in his writings on subtle distractive and destructive elements embedded in this type of adopted convention and heritage, we often apply “mop and bucket solutions” to deeply systemic problems. In education, governance, health, and organisational life, we rush to provide answers without first being clear about the questions we are trying to solve. This forced me to confront an uncomfortable possibility: had I been doing the same? Had we been delivering learning without fully understanding the context, the lived realities of participants, or the systems they were expected to return to after the training room? Had we mistaken cleverness for intelligence, know-how for understanding, and technical competence for wisdom? Too often, learning becomes fragmented — high on know-how but low on know-why. Knowledge is transferred, but meaning is not built. Skills are taught, but judgement is underdeveloped. Content is delivered, but context is missing. And when knowledge is divorced from local realities, culture, and lived experience, it struggles to take root. This is where the shift from conventional training to more integral approaches to learning becomes essential. Integral learning asks different questions. It pays attention not only to skills and information, but to people, systems, relationships, values, and purpose. It recognises that performance does not improve in isolation — it improves when individuals understand how their role fits into a wider human and organisational story. …we don’t need alternatives to conventional Training and Development: we need rather an alternative thinking of alternatives. – Boeventura de Souza Santos So the real question becomes this: if traditional training is not producing deeper intelligence, relevance, or local meaning — what must learning become instead? Perhaps the future of learning and development lies not in offering more solutions, but in cultivating better questions. Not in repeating what has worked before, but in designing learning that is responsive, contextual, and deeply human. For those of us entrusted with developing people in a VUCA (Vulnerable, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world, that may be the most important work of all.