All the L&D Skills = An Impossible Feat?
What does it really take to be successful in L&D?
About a week ago, I posed a "Question of the Day" or QOD on a LinkedIn post that garnered quite a response from all of you.
The question was this: What do you consider the top skills needed for someone to be successful in our field (L&D/TD)? The responses provide quite a bit of interesting insight into our profession.
Success in L&D Requires Strength in Non-Technical Skills
Interestingly, the skills mentioned most frequently, weren't what we consider to be "technical" for L&D or even exclusive to our field. Skills like learning theory, instructional design concepts, and behavior change only had a few mentions.
Here's what made the top 5:
Active Listening
Curiosity
Technology
Communication
Influence
Active Listening
Active listening as a practice is more than just hearing the words that are said. Instructional designer Michelle Puryear, M.Ed. called this being "intentionally attentive."
It involves also picking up on non-verbal cues, making meaning of what is said, and asking thoughtful questions to deepen the conversation and learn more. Listening to what's behind the words. Although this skill could be lumped with overall communication, it still tied with curiosity and technology for the most mentions. Many stressed this as a core skill for anyone in the L&D profession and I must agree.
As digital transformation leader Philip Huthwaite mentioned in his comment, "If we don't listen to our learners, if we don't monitor what is working/not working, if we don't listen to the business, we're setting ourselves up for failure."
Our work isn't about us. If we want to improve the performance of people and businesses through learning and development, we need to truly hear what's missing and what's working. Active listening for the win!
Curiosity
Personally, I think curiosity is more than a skill. It's an underutilized superpower. Those who commented referenced curiosity as a driving factor for success across multiple instances.
Development strategist Mary Rapaport noted the importance of curiosity when diving deeper, "If you are curious enough, you put out the extra effort to get to the root of the problem, learn about its impact, and cultivate solutions!"
While Emma Strong, a Sr. L&D Program Manager, stressed curiosity around needed content, "If you're not interested in learning the content that your learners need to know, or curious about what can make people better at their jobs, I think it would be hard to be successful in L&D/TD."
Several people also stressed the importance of curiosity when it comes to our own professional development in L&D. When answering the question about top skills for L&D success, Corporate VP of L&D, Sandra Ugol noted, "Absolutely curiosity. It might be the topic, the people or tech options but it’s also about an interest in learning yourself."
Curiosity can drive the active listening mentioned as the first top skill, but also our ability to diagnose root cause issues, find out what motivated someone to reach out to L&D, discover what is working and what isn't, uncover new solutions (or problems), and spur our own continuous growth. If we approach every scenario in the spirit of curiosity we can't go wrong. It is indeed a superpower!
Technology
L&D professionals can't succeed without an understanding of current technological trends, options, and their myriad of uses. Because technology shifts so quickly, I anticipate this won't go away anytime soon.
Training and Education Sr. Specialist, Ruth E. Phillips, CPCU, CIC, ITP agrees. "Technology has changed so much since I began training and I am always learning and adapting - it’s not just knowing your subject matter and keeping up with that - its learning new training technologies and being able to change and adapt with them!"
As former head of L&D, Sabina Sulat so eloquently stated, "In this day and age you need a Fearlessness About Technology-- one of my best hires ever was someone who had no L&D experience but was very tech curious."
We can't expect to contribute in the future if we fear the technology that will continue to change and evolve. Keeping our eyes and ears peeled to the latest tech for our field, and remaining open to experimenting, might be one of the best skills we can have in our toolbox. Paired with a healthy dose of curiosity, of course!
Communication
This skill didn't have as much explanation attached to the comments, but its sheer number of mentions landed it at the top of the list. Especially when tied to other skills like negotiation, creating clarity, sharing results and outcomes of learning programs, and collaboration.
Because we are a function that does our work as a partner to others in the organization and rarely exist in our own L&D bubble, I can't foresee a situation where we wouldn't need to master the art of communication in multiple facets. Can you?
Influence
Influence came up many times in the comments, especially the tie to "influencing without authority."
Due to our status as partners in the work of the organization, we generally aren't the ones holding positional power or purse strings. That leaves us with influence as the primary skill needed to create change - from gathering champions, to achieving buy-in from resisters, to leading changes in behavior. All these goals are reached through our ability to influence.
As CRO and former VP of Talent and Operations, Amber Watts🌱 shared, "it's a lot like marketing." The parallel industry where influence is the name of the game.
Additional Notable Mentions
Following closely behind these five most-mentioned skills were adaptability, change management, project management, business acumen, business knowledge, learning agility, and relationship building. All were seen as formidable skills when it came to L&D success.
But even with these top 12, most-mentioned skills, we still haven't scratched the surface of the full list.
That's because there were 52 separate skills mentioned in the comments.
Fifty-two!
That's 52 skills that L&D believes are most important to success. What does that mean?
Success in L&D Requires a Broad Skillset
When I see 52 skills listed as most important to success from this brief, informal poll, it tells me that working in L&D is far from an easy button. What's even more interesting is that most of these skills were NOT related to instructional design, curriculum development, learning science, or learning theory. They were, instead, essential skills that we employ outside of that unique expertise.
To be successful in L&D we do need a foundation in learning expertise. However, if these comments are any indicator, we need to hone our skills beyond those traditionally related to the technicalities of our profession as much, if not more. We need to develop learning and development professionals to be savvy partners, strong leaders, and keen influencers who know how to navigate both inside and outside of our expertise in learning. It's a big job, but I believe we are just the people to do it! Don't you?
Thanks to all those who contributed to this question of the day (QOD) forum on the top skills needed for L&D. Be sure to follow me for opportunities to contribute to future QOD discussions. After all, if we are truly going to make an impact through our profession, it will take all of us learning and working together. Let's keep talking!
