Reality check
We talk a lot about how hard it is for older professionals to find work. For younger ones, it’s hard too, just different. The door eventually opens, but what they find inside often doesn’t match what was promised.
Maybe they stay silent because they can’t afford to speak up yet. Not if they don’t want to be seen as difficult before they’ve even started working.
The paradox: after fighting so hard to get in, they leave when expectations aren’t met. Job hoping, resulting in job hopping. Average tenure: 1.1 years. It's learning, trial-and-error. A costly way to learn, for both sides.
I’ve made that mistake too. I once thought I could handle a slower, non-commercial environment. I couldn’t. And I didn’t have to.
The key is self-awareness and transparency. Applicants knowing what kind of environment helps them do their best work, and companies being realistic about who they are right now, not just about who they want to be.
If both sides were clearer, hiring would be cheaper, learning curves shorter, and frustration lower.
Capability building doesn’t start with training. It starts with helping people and organizations understand themselves so they can make better choices before they end up in the wrong place.
Do you know where you thrive?
And if you can influence the hiring process where you work - are you transparent?
Source: According to Randstad’s Workplace Blueprint 2025, Gen Z’s average job stint in the first five years of their career is 1.1 years. At the same time, postings for entry-level jobs have dropped by 29 % since early 2024.
Urgency is not progress.
Leaders often mistake speed for momentum. Activity feels reassuring. It gives the illusion of control and AI reinforces that illusion. As decision scientist Gary Klein said:
AI can process language and mimic fluency. But it doesn’t feel risk... Judgment requires skin in the game . Not digital - neural.
In capability building, I see the same pattern:
When leaders feel pressure, they launch more training because if feels like the safe option, instead of finding out what’s really needed. That’s bad judgment disguised as decisiveness.
When employees feel pressure, they freeze - especially in cultures where action-bias is rewarded.
The result? Shallow execution. Confusion. Burnout. Everyone doing. No one progressing.
I’m absolutely pro pace but only when it’s strategic, anchored in business goals, and linked to desired behaviours. Agility in L&D isn’t about action. It’s about learning and changing. Knowing where to invest energy, and where not to.
Time is like money. We’re careful with budgets, yet careless with hours. But here’s the difference: You can always earn more money. You can’t create more time. Building capabilities doesn’t take time. It takes direction.
Yes, move fast. But know why, know where, and know when to stop.
How do you deal with urgency culture? What has helped you to progress?
For anyone interested in the background: this
Forbes article by @VibhasRatanjee inspired my post.
Learning in the flow of work
Some ideas only become trends once leaders finally feel the pressure to act on them.
“Learning in the flow of work” is trending again. McKinsey calls it the future of the Chief Learning Officer. But for many of us, it’s not new. We’ve been doing it: helping people learn while they work, not after.
Still, it takes real work. Someone must define what good looks like: the desired behaviors, the right decisions, the new way of working. That clarity doesn’t come from data or systems; it must be defined, communicated, and reinforced.
What puzzles me: just when learning becomes business-critical, some companies dissolve senior learning roles. I’ve spent my career in strategy, where learning is a lever that connects business goals with human growth and I’m grateful for that perspective.
Is learning in your company strategic or tactical?
Source:
McKinsey People & Organizational performance
Skill-based hiring is the next big idea.
But the most skilled group - older employees - are often screened out.
Even when inclusion was on everyone’s lips, older employees were not the focus. Now, with the return to performance, they’re pushed to the edge.
If skills really mattered, older employees would be first in line.
Decades of practice, pattern recognition, resilience.
Instead, they’re treated as the exception. Skills, yes - but only for people under 50. Or is it already 45? Even when they keep their jobs, they’re rarely seen as talent.
Hiring follows the gatekeepers. Years ago, HR came from universities and hired people like them. Later, when technical college grads entered HR, the gates shifted.
My observation: There are no gatekeepers for older candidates.
This is not only a huge personal problem. It’s a waste. Excluding older workers raises personal and social costs (purpose declines, health suffers) and we all pay the bill. Companies may think they save in the short term. Re-hiring data says otherwise.
What could be done? Hire one 55+ and measure the outcome in comparison to younger ones. Run age-blind screening. What else?
If you have positive experiences or ideas, please share. It’s urgently needed!
People don’t skip training because they’re busy.
They skip it because they don’t feel it solves their problems right now.
Leaders wanted me to “just offer training because people were waiting for it.” They weren’t. They said they had no time. But the truth was: they had time for other things - their priorities.
I found out that they felt capable, but excluded. Not at the table for strategic decisions. Reduced to firefighting. Why invest in more skills that weren’t useful in their daily reality?
The turning point was not another technical course, but a training on how to become more influential. Suddenly they saw the benefit. They engaged. And from there, a learning culture started to grow.
That’s what training design is really about: creating an emotional trigger. Helping people see why it matters, how it connects to their own success, and what’s expected of them.
Mandatory training might get people to show up, but it won’t get them to care. They’ll tick the box, but they won’t learn - because learning is change. People don’t change based on what they say. They change based on what they feel.
If people only change when they feel something special - how do we uncover what that is?
The toughest question in L&D: “How do you measure impact?”
Hours. Budgets. Completions. We keep measuring what doesn’t matter. What matters: when people work and behave differently. When they progress. This can be measured.
The catch: you must define success before you start. Not just the official KPIs and slogans. I cross-examine until we surface what people would actually call success - the thing they’ll quietly judge the initiative on.
Example: Marketing Excellence.
Officially: a vague definition of “excellence.”
Unofficially, what the leaders believed would make the difference:
· Every local team uses the same corporate tools.
· Presentations align with global standards.
· No more reinventing campaigns locally.
These weren’t abstract KPIs. They were the leaders’ personal benchmarks. They believed this would drive efficiency, not some vague “performance improvement.” All measurable and, crucially, felt as success on the ground.
I learned this the hard way. After a stellar work performance, my manager told me: “But you didn’t do X.” We’d never discussed X. It wasn’t in my KPIs - but it was her hidden benchmark.
Since then, I strictly start with the outcome, not the input or the process. We define the behavior shifts we want, agree on evidence, then build learning around that and measure against it.
What was your biggest surprise in how your manager or clients measured the success of your work?
The traditional career ladder is outdated.
For decades, careers were defined as moving from junior to senior, from expert to leader, from single contributor to team leader.
But jobs, titles, and functions change faster than ever. Some disappear entirely. That’s why careers - and capability-building initiatives - look more like flight routes: long-haul or short, with stop-over, detours, solo or in groups. It’s not just up or down. It’s about where you want to go - and how you get there.
✈️ Every career takes its own route. Every learning journey, too.
Has your career been more about climbing or connecting routes?
Leaders asked me to “make people capable.” But the team didn’t feel incapable. They felt overlooked.
They were invited late after decisions were made. So they worked harder, joined every meeting, tried to be visible… and burned out.
What made the difference wasn’t “more training.” It was finding the right combination of capabilities:
Business acumen: Understanding the problems their business colleagues were solving.
Influencing skills: Framing and asking in a way that shaped options, not just supported them.
Context awareness: Reading the room, knowing when to step in, and when to hold back.
Here’s the key: That combination is different in every organization. Some capabilities are universal. But the ones that make a difference are the ones tied to your company's strategy, vision, and culture.
✔ Capabilities aren’t copy-paste.
If you build the wrong ones, you stay busy.
If you build the right ones, you move forward.
Are you building capabilities that move people forward - or just keep them busy?
Want to be seen as a trusted partner and as someone whose voice matters?
Being helpful doesn’t automatically make you respected. Many capable professionals struggle to protect the space to use their capabilities. The shift comes when you learn to say no - clearly, respectfully, confidently.
Saying yes to everything makes you look supportive, but not influential.
Saying no builds trust, focus, and credibility.
Every no is actually a yes to what matters most:
✔
Your priorities
✔ Your energy
✔
Your reputation
Assertiveness isn’t aggression. It’s clarity, honesty, and respect for yourself and others.
That’s how you establish yourself as a leader whose voice matters.
How do you say no in a way that builds respect rather than resistance?
“Our faces are stories we’ve been telling ourselves for years.”
Whenever I pulled a face, my late mother used to warn me: “Be careful! If you keep looking like that, it might stay.” Her words stayed with me - and my face tells a story, too.
Recently, I completed a training on reading faces and decoding human behavior. One of the striking takeaways:
"Our thoughts and emotions don’t stay inside. They literally shape our faces over time."
Take Keanu Reeves. His face is almost free of the usual markers like greed, arrogance, dishonesty, envy. It radiates calm authority and trust. And if you’ve read
John Kraski’s post about him, his actions only confirm what his face reveals.
For me, the training wasn’t about “spotting” others. It was about understanding others and myself.
I noticed that when I’m overly critical of myself, it shows up in a subtle upper-lip movement, a trace of disgust. I don’t want to walk through life like this. My mother was right. It might stay.
The lesson?
- Our thoughts are powerful.
- They show up in ways others can see.-
- With awareness, we can change them: unlearn, relearn, and literally reshape the way we show up.
How do you want to show up? What do you want to unlearn or relearn?
No decisions. No goals. No clarity.
I once worked in a “self-managed” team. No formal managers, and a “goals are bad” mentality.
The idea? Empowerment. Agility. Psychological safety.
The managers (who technically weren’t people managers anymore) came to me and said: “My team isn’t capable.” When I asked what was missing, they replied: “You have to find out. It’s a self-managed team.” …
What happened?
- Without clarity, there was no learning.
- Without tension, no development.
- Without decisions, no direction.
That’s why I stand up for clarity, goal-setting, decision-making, and responsibility. And of course: for learning. Real learning.
Today, I help build structures that enable transformation and progress.
How do you create an environment where people actually grow?
You can force people into training but not into adaptation and learning.
I keep seeing learning hours used as KPIs in L&D - but time spent is only part of the picture. What really matters is what changes.
Hours, budgets, and licenses are important inputs IF they lead to real capability. And that’s the hard part.
Learning is a shift in how people adapt, think and act.
I've had people join my training on their day off. Not because they had to but because it solved their problem at work, right when it mattered. That’s what I aim for.
It’s not about offering more. It’s about offering what actually helps - fast, clear, and worth their time.
What if we focused less on activity and more on progress? That’s where the real reward is. Happy to connect if you’re navigating a transformation.
If Working Feels Heavier Lately - It Might Not Be You
Most people I meet are committed, busy, and trying their best. And yet, more and more say:
“It’s too much. I’m working all the time, but I don’t feel like I’m moving forward.”
When you look at workplace reports, you’ll find a long list of trends. Three of them keep showing up and they seem to fuel each other: meaning, attention, and belonging.
1. The Meaning Shift
There’s a lot of talk about moving from presence to contribution, from effort to impact. But it doesn’t feel like we’re there - yet.
Instead, I see a growing tension:
- Employees want more purpose, autonomy, and flexibility.
- Many leaders still rely on visibility, activity, and control.
The result? Environments where presence is still used as proof of performance. Activity over impact. And a quiet, growing frustration that your work doesn’t really count.
2. The Attention Crisis
We have endless tools to connect, learn, and communicate - and also endless interruptions from pings, chats, and dashboards.
Most employees aren’t unwilling to learn. They’re just overwhelmed with multitasking and reacting.
- Browsing instead of reading.
- Surface work instead of deep thinking.
And here’s the paradox: The skills we need most - like critical thinking - depend on something increasingly rare: real focus.
The cost? We don’t grow and develop as much as we want or need to.
3. The Belonging Gap
Even in well-meaning environments, many people feel disconnected from their team, their purpose, and sometimes themselves. Especially younger employees report higher levels of loneliness than ever before.
And yet, we all want the same thing: To feel seen and Included. To be part of something that matters.
The risk? Quiet withdrawal. High turnover. Work starts to feel like something to get through, not something to shape.
🔄 It’s all connected.
These trends don’t stand alone. They reinforce each other:
- When meaning is unclear, trust drops.
- When trust is low, people hold back.
- When attention is scattered, progress stalls.
- When progress feels pointless, belonging and motivation fade.
That’s what makes hard work feel heavier, not just more.
What I do with this:
I am not a fan of “10 skills for 2025” lists but I love looking at trends. Not because they predict the future, but because they reflect where people are struggling now. That’s the best place to start: What’s getting in the way?
In my work, I support people and organizations to:
Refocus on what really deserves learning.
Be effective and impactful.
Create space where people feel seen, heard, and capable.
What about you?
What makes work feel hard for you or your team right now?
Maybe it’s one of these signals. Maybe it’s something else entirely. I’m curious.
