Getting the Message Across: Building a Learning Culture at Board Level

When organisations say they want to “create a learning culture,” there is often more talk than action. Often not realising a learning culture is not something to create, it is something that already exists. It may however, not be the desirable learning culture. So the instinct then is often to launch a new programme, roll out another platform, or run an internal campaign. These are visible, measurable, and reassuring.

But culture does not live in programs and systems. It lives in behaviour, in the signals leaders send every day: what gets rewarded, what gets ignored, and how mistakes and successes are handled. Employees take their cue from these patterns, not from what’s written in a strategy document.

This is where Learning Leaders encounter their hardest challenge. They can put enormous energy into initiatives, yet if the board does not view learning as essential for performance, the culture stalls. The signals from the top remain mixed, and employees draw their own conclusions: learning is optional.

The real issue is not lack of effort, but lack of alignment. Learning Leaders often explain their challenges in terms they know well: learning objectives, course completions, adoption rates, skills frameworks. Boards, however, work with a different perspective. They focus on company growth, productivity, risk, and customer outcomes. Unless we connect to that perspective, even the strongest learning initiative risks being deprioritised the moment delivery pressure rises.

So the critical question is not: How do we create more learning initiatives?

The critical question is: How do we make learning culture an agenda item at board level? At OEB this December, we will explore this shift together in the Learning Leader Lab: Getting the Message Across at board room level. It is exactly the type of thing mostly learning leaders struggle with. So this is a closed, invitation-only session will be facilitated by Donald H Taylor, Henriette Kloots, and Geraldine Voost.

In small groups, participants will work on familiar barriers to learning culture, the ones almost every Learning Leader recognises, and reframe them as if they were addressing their own board. The focus is not on tools or systems, but on discussing the dialogue that should be taking place: how to position learning in board-level terms so that it becomes a leadership responsibility, not just an L&D concern.

This is not a session for everyone. It is designed specifically for senior Learning Leaders, with a maximum of 25 participants, to ensure focus and open, peer-to-peer exchange. The learning café setup will encourage discussion, reflection, and practical insight. The kind of dialogue that rarely happens in larger conference settings.

If you are a senior Learning Leader attending OEB and would like to join, please let the organisers know. With limited seats, participation will be confirmed by invitation.

Because culture does not change through programmes alone. It changes when the people at the top table see learning not as a cost, but as a driver of performance. And that shift only happens if Learning Leaders can get their message across.

Written for OEB 2025 by Geraldine Voost and Henriette Kloots