A third of UK workers say their own organisation gets in the way of them doing good work. Four in ten managers would rather not be managers. So why does L&D keep building interventions that ignore the possible situational causes of poor performance?
Robin Hoyle is Head of Learning Innovation at Huthwaite International and has chaired the World of Learning conference for about fifteen years. In this conversation he makes the case that training doesn’t stick because the system around it is broken, and that the profession measures what is easy to measure rather than what matters. His answer? Focus on transfer, not completions.
Robin chairs the World of Learning Conference at the NEC in Birmingham on 6–7 October, closing the second day with a keynote on AI, adoption and agency.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
- Robin Hoyle at Huthwaite International: https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/author/robin-hoyle
- Robin Hoyle on TrainingZone: https://trainingzone.co.uk/author/robinhoyle/
- “The performance illusion: why training doesn’t stick” (23 July 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/the-performance-illusion
- “Why isn’t leadership training making leaders better?” (28 April 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/why-isnt-leadership-training-making-leaders-better
- “2026 in L&D: Transfer and transferability” (6 January 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/2026-learning-development-predictions
- “AI isn’t coming for your job” (29 October 2025): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/ai-isnt-coming-for-your-job
- World of Learning Conference & Exhibition, NEC Birmingham, 6–7 October 2026: https://www.learnevents.com/birmingham/conference/programme/
- Robin Hoyle, Complete Training: From Recruitment to Retirement (Kogan Page, 2013)
- Robin Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations: How to Create a Continuous Learning Culture (Kogan Page, 2015)
- Geary Rummler and Alan Brache, Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart (Jossey-Bass, 1990)
- Ipsos Karian and Box, Work on What Matters — survey of 5,000 UK employees, May 2026: https://ipsoskarianandbox.com/report/work-on-what-matters/
- Ipsos Karian and Box, “Are we working on what matters? What 5,000 UK Employees told us” (15 May 2026): https://ipsoskarianandbox.com/insights/are-we-working-on-what-matters-what-5000-uk-employees-told-us/
- Fifty years of SPIN, Huthwaite International: https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/fifty-years-of-spin
- Subscribe to The Learning Hack: https://linktr.ee/learninghack
- Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting