A program with a point of view

We do not have a competency problem. We have a capability problem. Organizations have no shortage of frameworks, models, and training.

Yet the human skills they say matter most, like communication, judgment, accountability, collaboration, etc. still break down in the flow of work. Why? Because capability is not built by content alone.

It depends on whether trust, social-emotional conditions, manager behavior, workflow design, and reinforcement systems make those skills usable in real life. In this session, Shawna Cole challenges the idea that L&D's role ends with building competencies. Instead, she positions L&D as a strategic partner in designing the conditions for use that turn skill into capability.

Through a practical case study, table discussion, and a take-away worksheet, participants will learn how to define what success should look like, identify where capability is being lost, and pinpoint what learning, talent, and culture systems must do differently to support it. This session is for learning professionals who want to move beyond content delivery and build human skills by design.

Organizations are sitting on a hidden goldmine of expertise. Yet many still struggle to translate that expertise into consistent capability across teams and roles. Valuable knowledge often remains informal, siloed, or dependent on a few experienced individuals, while L&D teams face increasing pressure to build capability at scale.

This session explores how SME enablement can help bridge that gap.

Participants will be introduced to a practical approach for helping Subject Matter Experts contribute to learning in structured and sustainable ways without turning them into full-time trainers. The session focuses on identifying meaningful learning moments within everyday work and creating opportunities for capability-building where work actually happens. Through guided reflection and a short hands-on exercise, participants will explore how to uncover expertise, identify capability-building opportunities, and support more work-embedded learning practices.

The goal is not to build a complete SME program in 60 minutes, but to leave participants with a clearer lens and one practical framework they can apply within their own organizations.

Nonprofit leaders are navigating unprecedented complexity: technological disruption, shifting workforce expectations, funding volatility, and rising community needs. In this environment, learning that informs is not enough. What differentiates resilient, high-performing organizations is leadership capability: the ability to adapt, decide, collaborate, and build trust under real-world pressure.

This 60-minute interactive workshop introduces a research-based leadership framework, the Performance Pendulum™, designed for the nonprofit sector and grounded in the leadership requirements, competencies, and behaviours that underpin effective executive performance.

Participants will apply the framework in real time through scenario-based collaboration and rapid capability mapping, translating leadership requirements into applied performance that holds up under complexity.

The session positions L&D professionals as strategic partners who can architect leadership systems that reduce organizational risk, strengthen culture, and accelerate transformation. Participants will leave with practical tools to embed competency and capability development into coaching, leadership pipelines, and organizational learning strategies, enabling their organizations to support executive performance that is measurable, sustainable, and aligned with mission impact.

In the “Capability Era”, learning must move beyond information delivery to true organizational transformation. However, transformation is inherently messy. Today’s L&D professionals often face “EQ Debt”, the accumulated mistrust and change fatigue of a shifting workforce.

When participants become resistant or “hostile”, our instinct is often to de-escalate or “park” the comment. This session argues that doing so kills trust and misses critical organizational data. Drawing on a unique blend of legal cross-examination logic and organizational coaching, this session introduces the concept of “Conflict Alchemy”.

We move past generic engagement tips to teach facilitators how to treat resistance as a “Lead Witness” for systemic gaps. Attendees will engage in a high-intensity “Heat Map” roleplay and leave with a practical toolkit to safely navigate friction, transform outbursts into strategic insights, and build the unshakeable trust required for real organizational capability. It is time to move past polite silence and toward strategic candour.

Most L&D professionals know the Ebbinghaus Curve: people forget quickly when learning is not reinforced. Yet many organizations still evaluate training as if the event is the outcome. This session challenges that habit.

Drawing on practical field experience and long-term research into what makes development stick, we will examine why high-engagement programs can still fail to create measurable change and what to do instead. Participants will explore a simple transfer-focused model built around relevance, repeatability, direct-manager support, and evidence of behaviour change. Instead of asking, did participants like it, we will ask better questions: was the learning relevant, was it reinforced, did managers support application, did behaviour change after the session?

Through table activities and a redesign challenge, participants will take a familiar learning program and identify where forgetting, friction, and lack of support are likely to break the transfer chain. They will leave with a practical checklist for designing learning that survives Monday morning.

More than ever, organizations need to prioritize capability building, but there is a barrier that is not getting enough attention. People cannot build capability without capacity, and we are facing a capacity crisis. Workloads continue to rise, attention is increasingly fragmented, and many people are struggling to find the capacity to learn, adapt and apply new skills.

Enter artificial intelligence, arguably the most powerful productivity tool we have ever seen. It promises to help us save time, reduce friction, improve quality and create more space for capability building and other higher-value work. But that promise is not guaranteed.

We are learning that time savings do not automatically become real capacity. In many organizations those savings are quickly absorbed back into meetings, messages, reactive work and rising expectations. In this interactive session, Doug Heidebrecht will explore how learning and development can help turn that promise into the capacity people need to build capability, both for ourselves and for the teams and organizations we support.

The session examines a practical, human-first approach that combines intentional work habits, better capacity conversations and smart use of the tools.