How the Success of L&D Depends on the Position It Holds

Structure in a messy world

When you travel, whether across the world or just through your own country, you’ll notice that most villages and cities weren’t built with a master plan in mind. Often, a church appeared first, then a doctor, a few shops, and gradually homes clustered around them. People settled where it was convenient, and over time, the town expanded outward in an organic, almost accidental way. From above, these cities don’t always make sense: some streets twist unpredictably, certain districts feel like mazes, and you might even find two dentists right next to each other while other neighbourhoods have none.

But what happens when a city isn’t allowed to grow haphazardly—when it’s deliberately designed from the ground up? Think about New York. If you look at the map of Manhattan, you’ll see that is actually designed. Its map reveals intention. Someone (probably more than one) has thought about the right way to structure the city and made a plan to create it like that. Streets are neatly numbered, intersections form orderly grids, and every block has a clear structure. Unlike the messy sprawl of organically grown towns, Manhattan reflects foresight, logic, and planning.

Why am I talking to you about cities and the map of Manhattan?

How L&D begins

L&D grows organically too. Nobody starts a company and begins with L&D. You need to grow the company. You need to have people first. And then these people need an onboarding, because all of a sudden “employee number 1” can’t educate all new employees anymore. And the company needs a leadership program, because hierarchy was created and these leaders also need development. And then the L&D function is born. Not because we deliberately started it, but we needed someone to coordinate things. And Sarah from HR recruitment was eager to support learning in the organisation, so we gave her the job. But Sarah doesn’t know what L&D really is or what it entails and she builds the L&D function at the best of her abilities.

Fast forward a couple of years. Sarah is long gone and things in L&D are not going well. The company has grown rapidly. Suddenly IT is doing something with learning, because they are implementing a new system and quality is pushing a lot of compliance training out. Business stakeholders are buying and organising training without going through L&D. Now the L&D team is organising a learning week, with a lot of no-shows, because people were already too busy with “learning”. Obviously, this is a stereotypical story, but from experience we can say this happens a lot. L&D isn’t designed and positioned; it grows organically. And that can become messy.

The good news is, L&D is not like a city. It is not cemented in the ground and we don’t have to move churches, maybe some metaphorical ones. We can take a step back, look at what it looks like now and make changes.

And we need to. Because if learning is not organised in a way that makes sense, it impacts all learning in the organisation. Employees are overloaded with e-learnings and trainings with no coherence or quality control, they lose interest fast, and L&D’s reputation is at stake.

The problem with the problem definition

Ever since we have encountered this issue with organisational structure in our work we have struggled with naming this particular problem. Some call it learning governance, which not only includes the structure, but also how decision-making happens. And then all of a sudden it is a huge project. Some call it learning architecture, which reminds others of IT architecture and makes us think about an LMS/LXP infrastructure. Like with many other issues in the learning industry, ask ten people the definition and you will get ten definitions.

Why is it hard to find a shared name for it, in which people immediately understand what you mean? Usually, because we have a hard time pinning down what it is exactly. But most organisations recognise the issue. For years, we have worked with L&D teams on a diverse range of topics and this conversation continues to surface. And when we took a deep dive and suggested changes to their structure, a lot of their issues in their L&D function were solved. So, for the time being we have decided to call it the L&D organisational structure. And with that we mean not on the L&D function or team itself, but how L&D is organised from an organisational structure point of view, which includes all other entities involved in offering learning too.

Back in control

The organisational structure around learning determines how L&D is positioned. How L&D is positioned determines it’s success. And that positioning too often is a consequence of everything that happens in the context of the organisation. Whether there is money, whether there is growth in the organisation, whether there is a hiring freeze or a need for skilled employees fast. Sometimes even only because the CEO loves learning or thinks it is a burden. And we know L&D is what the organisation needs it to be, but it doesn’t mean you have to sit back and wait for the organisation to determine who you are. Because if you do, it will often push you in the position of being an order taker. If you have a vision and strategy of what you want to be with the L&D function for the organisation, you take back control over your own destiny. We have seen organisations where the entire organisational structure is being reorganised, L&D professionals continue to do their daily work and wait for directions on where they are positioned. We would like to argue you need to lead the conversation of where you stand. And hereby we encourage you to lead the conversation on your organisational structure and your position in the organisation. Before being made obsolete.

How to structure L&D

There is unfortunately not one L&D structure that is the magic bullet for all organisations. We have seen organisations go from centralised learning to decentralised learning and back every 5 years or so. The reason for this is that both solutions have their benefits. What works best usually depends on the maturity or the current situation of the organisation. So the best organisational structure for your L&D function is the one that works best for your organisation. That sounds like terrible and obvious advice, but it is the truth. Context is like always key.

So if you want to redesign your city map to make sure you position yourself better, you need to first analyse how learning is structured now. We deliberately chose the word “learning” here, because there is probably also learning offered outside of L&D. Can you discover all the entities that are involved in learning? Do you have an idea of what they are doing in learning? And if you do, are these aspects that should have been with L&D or are they fine as is? Only if we have a proper idea of the current situation and of the current organisational context can we begin to think about what we can change to make it better. We always do this by creating a desired image. What if you were, like the designer of New York, in charge to design it the way it makes most sense to you? What would it look like? And then we create a talking piece that you can take to your stakeholders. After the structure is clear we very quickly move to roles and responsibilities and decision making and all of a sudden before you know it, we have a new learning governance that runs more smoothly.

A case example

It is not easy making a case for this topic to be honest. It is something L&D professionals recognise, but find hard to get on top of. They are also often underestimating the influence they have in this. And because of the messiness, we often can’t see a way through the maze easy. So we make it as easy as possible. Let me give you an example. We were asked for the due diligence of a L&D function for a medical healthcare provider. Basically, they asked us to come in and assess the current situation, which often happens when they feel L&D is not making an impact. What we saw was one learning manager working really hard to keep afloat. She had some help, from a learning coordinator and someone managing their LMS, but was mostly running around. She was also kept in the dark on things. Quality was responsible for compliance trainings, where most of her L&D budget went. But they wouldn’t share their portfolio with her, the frequency and length of their offering and whether the money was in fact well spend. So we asked her to draw a picture of every entity she knew was involved in learning, offered some kind of (formal or organised) learning, and what cooperation with them looked like. A messy picture with a lot of unclarity. And then we asked her to paint a picture of her ideal situation: What if she could design it from scratch given the current context of the organisation? Long story short, the new picture was quickly approved by the board and her life as a learning manager changed completely. More importantly the L&D function changed in a way that had so much more impact on the organisation. Who doesn’t want that!

Let’s stop the fragmentation—and build a smarter, stronger learning organisation together.

We are bringing this exercise of designing the structure to you at OEB. If you would like to have a deep dive into the organisational structure of your L&D function and discover whether you are set up to make an actual change? Join our session, Becoming a business partner: How to position L&D strategically. The result? You create ambassadors for learning in your organisation, reposition L&D and get that seat at the table.

Written for OEB 2025 by Henriette Kloots.


Join Henriette for her How To “Becoming a Business Partner: How to Position L&D Strategically” at OEB25.