L&D has been treated as a corporate fulfillment center for too long, delivering training on demand with little room for strategic influence. Dr. Keith Keating has seen enough of the order-taker mindset.
As Chief Learning and Development Officer at BDO Canada and author of The Trusted Learning Advisor, he argues that L&D will never establish genuine business impact unless it stops acting like a service desk and starts operating like a trusted business partner.
“An order taker in L&D is like a pharmacist filling that prescription without even knowing the diagnosis,” Keating said. “Stakeholders come to us with a solution already in mind. ’We need training on X, we need learning on X,’ and the order taker delivers it without questioning whether it’s the right approach or even the right solution. But what if the prescription is wrong?”
The analogy is as painful as it is accurate. Organizations waste time, money, and effort when they treat learning as a passive function instead of a proactive force that can drive business outcomes.
Keating’s warning is clear: the world of work has changed, and L&D can’t afford to keep running on outdated assumptions.
L&D’s Identity Crisis
The order-taking mindset isn’t a recent development. It’s a relic of the industrial age, when training existed to solve immediate production issues. Managers would spot a problem, issue an order, and expect the L&D team to fill the order. That legacy—like the ADDIE model and Level 1 smile sheets—still haunts L&D today.
Keating said, “If you think back to the manufacturing, industrial revolution, a manager would identify an issue on the line and say, ’Go train them to move this widget here.’ That mindset just perpetuated and continued, understandably so, until we became knowledgeable and started to understand, ‘Oh, there’s a science to learning, to what we do, to why we do it, to how we do it.’ Yet many still operate without that foundational knowledge.”
Too many organizations still see L&D as a transactional function rather than a strategic one. The result? L&D teams remain stuck in a reactive cycle, producing training programs that treat symptoms instead of addressing root causes. It’s inefficient. It’s also a credibility killer.
From Training Provider to Business Partner
Keating believes L&D must embed itself in the business—not as an instructional provider, but as a critical partner in workforce planning, performance improvement, and strategy execution.
“A trusted learning advisor is a strategic business partner who is embedded in the business, who knows the business just as good as the stakeholder, if not better,” he said. “That’s my personal goal—for me and my team, I want to know the business just as good, but better than them. I want to speak their language, know their goals, their challenges, and where the industry is heading.”
To shift from order taker to trusted advisor, Keating developed the IDAD Model—Intake, Discovery, Analysis, and Decision. Instead of fulfilling requests without question, L&D professionals should use each request as an opportunity to diagnose real business challenges.
“If we haven’t been proactive already, we reframe that request as an opportunity for collaboration. Instead of just immediately accepting the solution as it’s presented, we initiate a consultative dialogue. Worst case scenario, we validate what the stakeholder brought us. Best case, we uncover deeper issues and solve them effectively.”
The goal isn’t to reject stakeholder input—it’s to partner with them in solving the right problems. The best L&D teams deliver measurable business impact.
Empathy and Active Listening
Shifting from order taker to business partner requires more than business acumen. It requires empathy, curiosity, and active listening. Keating’s doctoral research uncovered a harsh truth: leaders outside of L&D often struggle to prioritize learning because they’re overwhelmed by more immediate fires.
“A CFO once told me, ’I have so many fires at my feet that I’m trying to put out. I can’t care about what you care about because I can’t see past these fires.'” Keating recalled. “‘Help me see past these fires. Stop sending me Excel spreadsheets with ROI data I can’t use. Tell me the real stories.'”
The message is clear: L&D professionals need to stop leading with learning metrics and start leading with business relevance. Learning teams that understand their stakeholders’ challenges—and connect solutions to business objectives—earn trust. Those that don’t get ignored.
How L&D Builds Influence and Impact
Becoming a trusted learning advisor doesn’t happen by accident. It requires deliberate action. Keating lays out three essential steps:
- Strengthen Your Knowledge Base: “We need to be rooted in science. We need data. We need empirical evidence,” Keating said. L&D professionals ought to be well-versed in learning science, business strategy, and workforce trends to establish credibility that then drive genuine business outcomes.
- Invest in Qualitative Research: “L&D teams must actively engage with learners and stakeholders to understand their challenges,” Keating advised. “Conducting regular research ensures learning strategies align with actual business needs.”
- Embrace Design Thinking: “It’s one of our most important tools,” Keating said. “It shifts problem-solving from reactive to proactive, helping teams uncover deeper insights before rushing into solutions.”
Each step builds competence, credibility, and confidence. When L&D teams know their business, gather real insights, and solve meaningful problems, they earn their place as strategic partners.
L&D’s Future
L&D professionals face a choice: keep reacting or start leading.
Trusted learning advisors don’t just take orders. They help shape the direction of the business. They translate learning into business results. They solve problems that stakeholders haven’t even identified yet.
Keating sums it up best: “It’s about our relationships, our conversations, and our ability to advocate for alignment and true partnership. When we embrace that, we genuinely drive value.”
The question isn’t whether L&D can be strategic. The question is whether it’s willing to step up.
Watch the full interview with Keith Keating and Dan Pontefract on the Leadership NOW program below, or listen to it on your favorite podcast.