The L&D subtraction strategy: Why simplification wins in 2026

Host: [00:00:00] Welcome to Talent Talks, the L&D podcast about the future of work and the talent driving it forward. Today, learning leaders are expected to do more, do it better, and do it faster than ever before. To strengthen teams, scale training, and to show results. Because when learning works, businesses move forward. 

Together, we’ll explore what that really means for L&D in growing organizations, what to rethink, what to refine, and what to double down on. I’m your host, Gina Lionatos, and this is Talent Talks.

Talent Talks is brought to you by TalentLMS. The easy-to-use training platform that helps growing businesses launch faster and see results sooner. [00:01:00] Learn more at talentlms.com.

On today’s episode: 

Lavinia: My question would be, if you’re only producing content, do you actually have a seat at the table to lose? We’re chasing that seat at the table, and the way that we’ve chased it was through doing more and pleasing more people and creating more training, creating more content. I don’t think we have a seat at the table when we’re in that position.

Host: What if the hidden problem in L&D right now isn’t a lack of learning, but too much of the wrong kind? In a world of endless content, growing expectations, and limited time, many organizations are finding that more training doesn’t always mean better performance. To explore this, I’m joined by Lavinia Mehedintu, co-founder of Offbeat, an organization dedicated to helping companies find fresh ways to create [00:02:00] learning experiences that truly drive performance.

Stay with us.

Lavinia, welcome to Talent Talks. I’m absolutely thrilled to have you with us today. 

Lavinia: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited as well. 

Host: Excellent. So, Lavinia, we are living in what’s often called the Information Age. It’s changed how we communicate, how we consume, and especially how we work. So it’s no surprise that learning at work can feel overwhelming between constant change, competing priorities, and an endless stream of content. Before we get into what’s driving that and how to fix it, what does simplified workplace learning look like to you? 

Lavinia: Oh my God, that’s a very hard question because I don’t think there is such a thing as simplified learning, [00:03:00] but I think we always need to go back to the problem that we’re trying to solve.

And that’s actually a question that we advise L&Ds to ask as well, and to try and get as specific as possible about that. You know, does it look like in terms of behavior, what does it look like in terms of metrics, you know, so there is a way to kind of think about that ideal scenario, and then you need to reverse engineer and think of, you know, how are we gonna get there?

And that’s where I guess we can think of simplified solutions. But I also think it depends a lot on, you know, what the problem truly is. 

Host: Yes, absolutely. And I think there is kind of this traditional bias within organizations, perhaps to value more rather than less. Why do you think this kind of bias exists?

Lavinia: I think [00:04:00] it’s, we’ve been taught to think that showing action means showing progress somehow, and showing more means that we’re actually doing more, whereas I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes it’s about this term in behavioral science, and it’s called subtraction. You don’t need to add things to improve performance or to improve a process and so on.

You actually need to subtract things and yeah, just look more systemically at the way that we design learning. But to answer your question, I do think that we live in this, you mentioned, information overload, and this tendency to do and do and do, and not sit sometimes with ourselves and reflect maybe more than we’re doing at the moment.

Host: In terms of this kind of simplification and how we get there, I [00:05:00] think now with AI, L&D teams actually can create content faster than ever. Do you think this potentially makes simplification easier, or do you think it just makes it easier to add more and to create more content, thereby kind of, I guess, presenting a bit more of a threat to our subtraction strategy?

Lavinia: I like how you asked that question because I think you know where I’m going. I’m gonna go with my answer. I do think AI can, I’m not saying that it will, but there is a risk. That we’re gonna end up basically adding more of what we know doesn’t work. And I’m not saying, I mean information and knowledge and content has its place, but what I’m worried is that we’re gonna double down on it instead of, you know, just like I was saying, looking at the broader system [00:06:00] and figuring out other ways to improve performance.

So, yeah, I would rather go towards your second option. I think it makes it harder for us to think of subtraction as one tactic, but maybe other things as well. 

Host: I think it forces us to be a lot more intentional with what we go about doing and creating and not creating. So let’s think a little bit more about kind of some steps to get towards this more simplified state, how we can kind of work towards getting there.

Let’s imagine I am the head of a very small team of L&D and I’ve been tasked with streamlining our company-wide training. What kind of criteria do you think I could be looking at when it comes to trimming the fat, so to speak? How can I kind of go about deciding what goes and what stays? What perhaps might be the questions that I should be looking to answer to help guide [00:07:00] me?

Lavinia: The first thing that comes to mind is what’s the business impact that we are looking for? And that’s a really hard question to ask, but that’s the one. I think L&Ds we’ve been looking to position ourselves as business partners and performance enablers. And yeah, that’s the first question.

What’s the business impact? And trying to answer it. Again, with metrics, not just opinions, it can be metrics about the business performance, you know, customer feedback or revenue or cutting costs. And it can also be metrics about our people strategy, right? Like it can be retention, it can be, you know, engagement, or whatever it is, right?

So, trying to nail down that business impact. The next thing that I would actually ask would be, what did we try so far? Like, [00:08:00] were there other things that we thought of to move that nail to progress with that metric? Just to figure out how much interest there is. To move that metric, because we hear, and I bet you’ve heard this from other L&Ds and you’ve seen this in your company as well.

Like, there are so many stakeholders that come to L&D thinking that L&D has the solution. When we drill down on what they’re trying to do, we realize that we have nothing to do with that solution. Right? So we tend to get overwhelmed. And we, if we say yes to everything, it just gets too much.

But to go back to my point about other options, when we see that stakeholders have tried other options, it’s also a signal for us that they’re truly interested in figuring things out. And then I guess the last thing that I would ask is how many [00:09:00] people we are touching with this solution, because sometimes we can bring about like really small solutions, some things that are repetitive, some templates that we build that don’t take as much time maybe. And you know, the important thing is to leave the biggest chunk of time that we have available for those business priorities. So making sure that we touch as many people as possible is also important.

Host: Okay. You have said so many things there that I wanna unpack, but I’m gonna go step by step. So let’s say I’ve successfully created a training program that a) meets a specific need and b) has lost some of that excess baggage that it may have had at the beginning before I kind of looked at how to streamline it.

As you know, though, things are always changing and there are always new demands that come in. So once we’ve [00:10:00] simplified our catalog, let’s say, what kind of steps, boundaries—I’m not sure the right word—could we put in place to make sure that that bloat doesn’t happen again over time? 

Lavinia: Yes. What I’ve seen L&Ds doing is adding some sort of intake forms for every stakeholder to fill in, right? It gives them the opportunity to think through the problem before they come to us. So I think that’s like the first, the most simple thing that you can do. I’ve seen intake forms that have like four questions, so they’re not very complicated for the stakeholder to fill in or for the L&D to later on analyze to figure out what are the next steps. So the intake form is the first thing.

And the next thing, which is, let’s call it softer, I would say, [00:11:00] is being brave to saying no to requests that are either unclear or they clearly have no L&D solution. And I think, the second one is the hardest one to do when, as an L&D, you’re trying to prove your worth in your company, because I do feel like that’s where we are, at least right now, saying no might feel very risky, but at the same time, long term, and the reality doesn’t give us an advantage because as you, as you mentioned earlier, doing more doesn’t mean doing better.

So in time it positions us again as those order takers, whereas companies, truly, even though they might not say so, they truly want strategic partners from L&Ds as well.

[00:12:00] So intake forms, which is very practical and tactical, and saying no, which is very personal and the hardest thing to do. 

Host: Absolutely. In your experience, how do you think L&D leaders could decide or kind of approach those areas where they think saying no to a training request is the best way forward?

Lavinia: You know, sometimes just sitting down with the stakeholder and analyzing the problem together with them and asking, you know, questions like, okay, what else is blocking this behavior to happen? Or, you know, this metric to move forward and so on and so forth. Sometimes that’s enough because you give them the space to realize themselves that an L&D solution is not appropriate.

So I would say it’s the easiest way and then I guess saying no can either come in with a simpler solution, you know, like, okay, we won’t be [00:13:00] doing this in as much depth as maybe other programs that we’re doing. Here’s a template, here’s a resource that you and your team can navigate on your own.

And I guess if I were to think of the third option would be, interestingly enough, we do have the ability to analyze these problems and figure out other solutions ourselves, right? Like, we know if L&D is not the problem, there might be a process problem, or there might be a tech problem or, you know, like other things that stakeholders might not have figured out for themselves.

And we can actually suggest those solutions ourselves. You know, maybe we are not involved in designing it, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot say out loud, hey, maybe you should look into this instead. So the no doesn’t feel like a transactional way of, you know, [00:14:00] working with the stakeholder, 

Host: It looks like a much more considered and… 

Lavinia: Exactly.

Host: … A more considered no, and I love that you touched on, you know, kind of speaking with the stakeholder, which it’s often, you know, like the head of a department or a manager. And something that we will be talking about in an upcoming episode as well is the manager multiplier and the role that the managers play.

You know, can potentially play when it comes to upskilling and training as well. And that’s, you know, a whole other force multiplier when it comes to L&D, right? I think that there’s always this concern for a lot of L&Ds, which is if we kind of stop being that content production function, does it become harder for us to justify our seat at the table?

I would argue that if you are becoming more of a strategic resource for the business and very clearly stating why you are and are not doing things, I think that there is something to be said for that. But I’d love your [00:15:00] take on how L&Ds could perhaps consider this concern that they may have. 

Lavinia: My question would be, if you’re only producing content, do you actually have a seat at the table to lose?

I haven’t seen any L&D team, you know, in that position. I think the question is more… We’re chasing that seat at the table, and the way that we’ve chased it was through doing more and pleasing more people and, you know, creating more training, creating more content. I don’t think we have a seat at the table when we’re in that position.

I’d have a love-hate relationship with this idea of the seat at the table, because what does it even mean? It means that we’re in those rooms to at least hear what people are saying and figure out what the priorities are, why they’re changing, and so on. So I think you have a better chance to be in that room if you [00:16:00] position yourself more strategically rather than being this content creation factory. 

Host: Very, very interesting. I wanted to kind of step into the area of skills visibility. This is something that we’re kind of focusing on quite a bit at the moment in terms of our product and also our customers.

And our L&Ds in general are obviously all talking about skills, and we actually also ourselves, so we run a lot of researches at TalentLMS. We recently ran one around skills visibility, and we surveyed both employees and managers to kind of get a sense of, you know, how different audiences are kind of viewing, I guess the area.

I think a lot of what we’ve been talking about today as well kind of points towards that shift from content to capability, right? Looking at impact, but I think there’s still a bit of a disconnect out there. So in our research, 90% of managers say that they understand their [00:17:00] team’s skills. But only 69% of employees agree.

So before we even get to, you know, skills-based learning, how should organizations think about building real skills, visibility in a practical sense, of course. 

Lavinia: It’s very hard, or at least that is my take. I am sorry, I’m not the kind of guest that will have any easy answers, which can be frustrating. I think it can be easy in the sense that if you have a clear idea of what the future of the organization even is, a clear idea in the sense of, okay, we have a direction, right? Then it gets easier to map what do we need to get there? And part of that answer will be skills, right?

So that’s one point. Like, where are we going? And then to where we [00:18:00] are. I was just having a discussion with an L&D the other day, and we were talking about how much should we trust the answer of a self-assessment like… I have this skill…. right?

Host: It’s very subjective too, right? 

Lavinia: It’s very subjective.

Right, right. And of course you can reduce that subjectivity by doing like 360 and so on, but it gets very complicated because at the end of the day, you end up with, like, a manager needing to go through a huge list of questions every three, six months, you know?

But something else that she said that I found really interesting is what if instead of measuring like perception about like performance of that skill, we would measure confidence. Like how confident are you that you have this skill? And wherever, whenever we put forward our learning solutions, we can start with a [00:19:00] benchmark, like how confident are you now? And then measure the same at the end.

How confident are you after you’ve gone through this program or whatever it is. Right? And we can, we can see that difference. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I think it’s a better way, right? But back to your question, it’s for me to simplify it, it’s like, what roles do we have?

Because we’re still looking at roles, as much as we would love to think that in the future we won’t have roles, people are not used to that, right? What roles do we have? What are the skills that these roles need to have? Always start with the technical skills because those are the ones that people are the most familiar. And then to that, you can add behavioral skills, and you can add, I don’t know, other layers.

Something that I found that it blocks people is that they spend sometimes months, I swear to [00:20:00] God, like six, nine months to figure out this perfect framework. And then they show it to people, and they learn that the framework doesn’t match the reality in any way. So I would rather think very quickly through it, show it to the organization, ask for feedback, and basically adjust depending on what people say as well.

In that way, you make the skill framework visible very quickly, and you also show that you are willing to adjust it, right? So again, this is what I have in mind, and I do know that AI is helping quite a lot, and I think it will help even more in the future with, again, figuring out where people are by connecting to, you know, multiple tools that they’re, they’re using and, and relying maybe less on self-assessment or 360 [00:21:00] to, yeah, figure out where your organization is.

It’s a very… you don’t have any easy questions for me today! 

Host: We don’t ask the easy questions. We already know the answers to those. I think something that’s also there, which I don’t think we’ll unpack it today, but is also those hidden skills, right? 

Lavinia: It’s so interesting that you’re bringing this up because this was one of the topics of conversation that I had again, with someone else yesterday, and I think it goes back to building with them.

I think they know the best what those skills are, and I think you just need to give employees the space to reflect on all the skills they have, not necessarily the ones that they’re using in their day-to-day job, but things that maybe they could use, but they do not because they don’t know how maybe, or, you know, they’re not aware that they could be [00:22:00] using those.

And this is something that April Ryan, I think—I hope I’m not butchering her name—talks quite a lot about when she talks about career portfolios, and this idea of bringing your whole self to work isn’t just like a fluffy idea, but it is beneficial from the skills standpoint as well.

And there was this person telling me, hey, I was not in L&D; she was in customer service, but she had so much leadership experience from volunteering opportunities she had throughout her life and career. And she couldn’t use those skills because it was like they had such a rigid framework and rigid way of working that she just didn’t have the opportunity.

So I think it also, again, it comes down to psychological safety. It comes down to how you want your employees to show up at work in a very transactional way or in a way that they actually, you know, they bring everything to work. 

Host: Yeah, sure. In [00:23:00] our skills visibility report that I mentioned before, only around a fifth of respondents said that the company actually uses a centralized system to track skills, which isn’t hugely surprising, I would say, at this stage.

But I would hope that if we were to ask that question in 12 months from now, that number would increase. So in the spirit of still seeking simplicity and subtracting wherever we can, do you have any kind of ways that you’ve seen companies build skills visibility without adding more complexity? 

Lavinia: I mean, it’s just using the tools that you have available and using the tools that people are already using, right? And then, you know, once you feel like people are ready for something more complicated, more complex, or you want more complexity out of your skills framework, you can always add additional technology to it. But yeah, using the tools and the communications channel you already have available and people are already used to that.

I think that’s something that I’ve noticed. 

Host: Yeah, I think, yeah, you’re spot on with kind of utilizing the tech stack that is already kind of the system of record in the business. I think for us at TalentLMS, that’s why we’ve kind of built it right into the TalentLMS that our users are already using.

Because if it’s not there, if it’s not done in an easy-to-access, centralized way, it becomes even more out of reach, right? And we really believe in the impact that this can offer businesses of all sizes. I think also, you know, perhaps skills visibility and skills assessment is something that traditionally might be [00:24:44] considered only for bigger organizations.

But I think that as organizations grow, there’s so much benefit to having done it from the earlier phase of the business and kind of having it baked into the process and having that information on your core group of employees as it starts to grow, rather than having to do, you know, 500 people at once.

So, Lavinia, I mean, firstly, it’s been such a joy chatting with you. I think we’ve kind of, like, covered so many things, and we’ve kind of gone a little bit off track, but I think that’s kind of my favorite part of the process as well.

What’s really obvious to me from this conversation is that you’ve got your own philosophy on how learning works best, and in turn, you know how it should be designed, which, you know, if you’ve got a strong point of view on an area, this is, you know, what we love to kind of unpack more.

I imagine that comes with a lot of research and a lot of practice in your field. What I would love to ask is if you have any examples from your own working [00:25:43] life where stripping back, potentially saying no, potentially having to push back on a request. Where stripping back was the right solution, and one that kind of maybe is something, an example that sticks out to you in demonstrating, like, wow, less really can be more?

Perhaps it was early in your career, maybe it was a win, a failure, would really love any kind of examples that you have to share from your own personal experience. 

Lavinia: Yeah, I have something that comes to mind and might be very relatable actually for L&Ds. Because I think like the L&D at some point in their career will touch leadership development, right?

And in my previous company, we had quite like a big history doing leadership development, and we had to redesign the program, and everybody at some point needs to redesign a leadership development program. And we just said, do we need to redesign it as it is now?

I mean, let’s go back to the basics. What are we trying to actually do with this program? [00:26:44] Because there’s a difference between improving leadership performance and improving leadership development. And what we were asked to do was to improve leadership development, right? Regardless of the impact on performance. So we, we just took a step back, and we said, hey, let’s not do it as we have done it so far, you know, like these huge leadership development programs engaging all the leaders and, into, you know, six and nine months on different layers…

And we just asked, you know, what are the metrics that we’re trying to improve here, and what are some simple ways we can do so very quickly? So, yeah, I guess just… And it’s hard, you know, I have to say, it was hard for us because of that tradition saying, telling people we’re suddenly not doing something they were used to [00:27:44] anymore.

It was a big challenge to convince people. What helped us was going back to the metrics and the problem that we were trying to solve, especially because it was a company that was looking at data very, very carefully, I would say. 

Host: So what was the end outcome? Was it that you just didn’t do the training? Was it that you changed the approach to how the training was done? 

Lavinia: We still supported leaders; we changed the approach. It wasn’t, again, it wasn’t this huge program that leaders would sign up for, and then they would go through a list of predetermined sessions.

We rather took things quarter by quarter, and we were planning things like, okay, what kind of sessions can we do for all our leaders? Right? Regardless of their seniority. Are there workshops that we were doing before, but we don’t wanna do any longer because they didn’t pay off? So I would say that it was [00:28:44] a change of approach in the way that we planned, but also a change of approaching the methods that we were trying to use and doing way less training than we had been doing up until that point.

Host: Did you also change the metrics that you were traditionally looking at? 

Lavinia: Yes. So up until that point, we were looking at NPFs, as an NPS for the workshops that we were doing and completion rates, right? Like those were the metrics. And starting from that point, we were looking at our engagement survey, which was built in-house.

It was very, very complex and it had many questions that were, if you like, read them, you realize that could be impacted by the manager. So we created what we call this manager index, and under it, you know, set questions regarding clarity about goals, clarity about role, how [00:29:43] much feedback was exchanged within the team, what else we had, like how much my manager supports me in developing myself, my team’s processes, and so on and so forth.

So everything that could be impacted by a manager, right? So, when we redesigned our approach, we started tracking that every six months because that was the cadence of the survey as well. 

Host: A great example of how changing the approach saying no to the status quo actually brought, you know, a much stronger impact in the long run.

Thank you for sharing that example. And Lavinia, thank you so much for joining. I’ve really, really enjoyed today’s chat. I hope you have too. I think that there are a lot of very, very useful and actionable insights that our audience will value too. 

Lavinia: Thank you so much, Gina, for having me, and yeah, I hope that the conversation will be helpful in some way.

Host: Training that [00:30:43] isn’t tied to skills is hard to measure and even harder to improve. TalentLMS Skills helps you see your team’s strengths, spot gaps, and assign the right training all in one place. So you’re not just delivering training; you are building lasting capability. Thanks for tuning in. In the next episode, we’ll be exploring the middle manager and their ability to champion talent.

You can find Talent Talks on all podcast platforms. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode.