A Better Bike Isn’t the Answer
I love Tom Fishburne’s cartoons. This one landed in my inbox, and I could relate immediately. Imagine these cyclists are members of your team. They’re all pedalling hard, doing their part, and wondering why adding AI hasn’t made things easier or faster.
This is a pattern I see in organizations. Senior leaders have invested significant time, money, and attention in new platforms, piloted tools, and sent people to training. And yet the promised performance lift remains elusive. I attended the Future of Work Conference Canada earlier this month and heard similar concerns about the returns on AI investments. A recent Deloitte1 study revealed a paradox: AI investment is rising but returns remain elusive for many organizations.
This pattern is not new. Long before AI, large software implementations regularly struggled to deliver the value they promised. The technology may have worked, but organizations often underestimated the learning required to change how people think, decide, collaborate, and lead.
Our rush to implement AI is magnifying this pre-existing situation.
Many organizations are treating AI as a tool. To build on the comic, AI as a tool equals a better bike. But the real constraint is how the riders work together. Who decides where we’re going? Are leaders and employees curious and feel free to ask questions? Do people actually understand what the technology is for, and what it is not?
This is where L&D leaders can step in.
To support AI implementation in an organization, the learning function needs to help leaders think beyond tools and individual use. L&D professionals need to become ‘learning enablers’, working alongside leaders to build the conditions where people can develop the skills needed to thrive in our AI future – skills like adaptation, critical thinking, and having a learning mindset to learn in real time.
When leaders cultivate a culture of learning on their teams, AI stops being something people resist or quietly work around. It becomes something leaders and employees can engage with honestly, understanding both its potential and its limits, and shaping how it is used together in service of real work and real outcomes.
The irony in the cartoon is that everyone is pedalling harder when what they really need is alignment, trust, and shared learning.
In your organization, how is L&D supporting leaders to build the learning culture required for AI to deliver value, beyond training people on the technology itself?
1 https://www.deloitte.com/nl/en/issues/generative-ai/ai-roi-the-paradox-of-rising-investment-and-elusive-returns.html
From Delivering Learning to Enabling Culture
I’ve been working with a national insurance company. I know the folks in the L&D team quite well and see how they support the organization. They’ve been in steep growth mode for a couple of years. As a result, L&D runs a multi-day in-person onboarding program every two weeks. The organization has a hybrid model with ‘anchor’ days when staff are in the office. Fridays are set aside for professional development. All staff attend one Friday a month to learn more about the organization, deepen their understanding of the business, and reinforce the corporate culture.
A few years ago, they went through a rebranding initiative to clarify their brand, values and corporate culture. With so many new staff being hired, the brand, values and culture are at risk of becoming diluted. These Friday sessions are one of the ways they are intentionally sustaining it.
What strikes me is how much effort this requires from the L&D team.
- There is strong CEO commitment to culture
- There is a clear expectation that learning experiences must reflect this organization’s culture—not something generic that could be delivered anywhere
- That expectation fundamentally changes how L&D designs and delivers learning
On the surface, this sounds like a content challenge. But it’s not. It’s a mindset shift.
In this organization, L&D is not simply delivering programs. They are actively shaping how culture is experienced, reinforced, and carried forward as the organization grows.
And that requires moving beyond courses and content.
It requires L&D to operate as learning enablers – designing experiences that bring people together, create shared understanding, and help leaders and employees make sense of what the culture actually looks like in practice.
In many ways, this is the work ahead for L&D teams. In a world where content is abundant, and increasingly created by AI, the value of L&D shifts. It’s less about delivering learning and more about creating the conditions where learning, and culture, can actually take hold.
For L&D teams looking to make this shift, here are a few places to start:
- Design for dialogue, not just delivery
Create space for conversation, sense-making, and shared interpretation because culture is shaped by how people talk about work, not just by what they are told.
- Make learning visible in the flow of work
Move beyond events and create simple, repeatable practices leaders can use with their teams to reinforce curiosity, reflection, and shared understanding.
- Work alongside leaders, not downstream from them
Partner with leaders to embed learning into how they lead day-to-day, rather than delivering training separate from the work itself.
In your organization, is L&D primarily delivering learning, or enabling the culture that makes learning (and change) possible?
Not Everyone Experiences the Same Change
My family is in the midst of change. We’re getting one house ready to sell, and our new house has an addition starting in May. When my son came home from university these past few months, he would look around to see what had changed. There’s been a lot of decluttering and purging lately!
I was asked what I would miss about our current house. There are a few things for sure, and lots of anticipated changes that I hope will be positive. We’re moving from the city to the country. I imagine I will enjoy the quiet of the country, but maybe I won’t. I’m a gardener and leaving behind a backyard full of shade plants and a huge magnolia tree about to bloom, so I can embrace a yard full of sun.
I see how each of my family members is processing the change differently. My son was so focused on his first year at university that it hardly registered that this was happening. He’s going to be the most nostalgic – this is the only house my kids have ever known. My husband grieved a while ago and now has a more ‘heads-down, get-through-it’ mentality. My daughter oscillates between excitement about her new room, which will be a great improvement over her current one, and sadness about leaving everything familiar, safe, and secure. Admittedly, I’m so focused on everything that needs to be done that I am ignoring the emotional side of the change. I fully expect it will catch up with me, and that there will be some grieving ahead.
In 2025, I attended the I4PL National Conference and Trade Show and attended a session on change. I remember the presenters from Orchango offered a refreshing and practical way of thinking about how people respond to change.
They moved beyond the familiar labels of supporters, fence sitters, and opponents and introduced a more nuanced lens – one that recognizes that people respond to change based on very different concerns. Some are focused on the technical aspects of the change, while others are paying close attention to the human and political dynamics unfolding around them.
Orchango described a ladder of commitment and resistance with six personas.
Supporters
- Helpers – Genuinely want the change to succeed and focus on whether the mechanics will work.
- Campaigners – Equally supportive, but more attuned to how people are experiencing the change and who needs encouragement, reassurance, or clarity to move forward.
Fence sitters
This is where differences are most pronounced, and where leaders often misread what is happening.
- Skeptics – Raise hard questions about feasibility, risks, or unintended consequences. Their challenges can sound like resistance, but they often come from care and concern.
- Wind watchers – Focus less on the change itself and more on who holds power and which way influence is flowing. They wait, observe, and align once a direction feels safe.
Opponents
- Foot draggers – Quietly slow progress through passive resistance.
- Torpedoes – Actively work against the change by undermining confidence or creating negative narratives.
Orchango’s personas aren’t intended to label people, but to help leaders identify where to spend their time and energy when implementing change. Engaging some groups too deeply can stall momentum. Ignoring other groups can do the same.
If I think of my family and our upcoming change, I can see these personas in my family members. I’ve been very focused on the technical aspects of our change, so perhaps have been a Helper. Dave and the kids have been more in tune with what is being lost and what feels uncertain, and reflect a mix of Campagners, Skeptics and Wind Watchers. Thankfully, we have no Opponents, but Orchango’s framework makes me realize I should focus on my Fence sitters as we continue to work through this.
What change are you navigating at work and how could these personas help you focus your time and energy?
In case you missed it
I’ve shared some additional posts online. Here they are, in case you missed them.
- Coaching to be less operational and more strategic (video link)
- Insights from Future of Work Canada (video link)
- Coaching practices to be still, tune and ask questions (video link)
