How to get buy-in for learning when you work in L&D

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5 ways to influence (without formal authority)

If you work in L&D, it’s likely that every year you’ll find yourself making the case for learning.

You know the value of learning and how vital learning is to both individual development and ultimately the delivery of the mission of the organisation.

It’s your special subject! You could sit in the Mastermind arm chair and answer all kinds of questions on everything from Action Learning Sets to the Pareto principle, quoting Covey and de Bono as you go.

But a large part of your role is about getting everyone else in the organisation on board with learning.

Each year there is another budget cycle and another call for you to justify the spend to people who are not L&D professionals. Perhaps there are new priorities this year, new leaders, new budget challenges, new staff, new risks and new learning needs. Either way, it’s on you to explain why investing in people isn’t optional.

When the organisation makes the decision to invest in learning, it is investing in in its people. Again, you know this. And while on the surface it may look as though you are merely seeking approval for a training programme, you’re not.

You’re asking colleagues to believe it’s the right use of limited resources. You’re asking for investment in people, behaviour, and how things get done. You’re seeking a way to navigate change, create new opportunities, retain the best people and make things happen. That’s the message you need to get across.

The challenge is you don’t control most of the budgets, and you may not be the decision maker. You don’t manage people directly, and yet you need to work with your HR colleagues to shape how managers behave and how culture develops.

We know L&D people care deeply about learning. We do too. But not everyone in your organisation shares that instinct. After all, they have their own expertise and priorities to worry about. In charities especially, every spend is scrutinised – quite rightly.

To help you get your message across and secure the much-needed buy-in for your L&D plans, here are five practical ways to strengthen your influence:

1. Start with what matters to them

One of the easiest ways to lose influence is to lead with your solution, to start with what matters the most to you.

Let’s imagine you’re in an SLT meeting. You want to introduce a new managers’ programme. You’ve thought it through carefully. You have done your research, had early conversations with suppliers, diagnosed learning needs and outcomes, and have a good idea of what resources you need to make it happen. This programme will need SLT to both sign off on the budget, and provide sponsorship. Their engagement could make all the difference to the learners. Your HR Director has already agreed to it in principle and wants you to get SLT on board.

But the CEO is worried about delivery slipping and people taking time out. The Finance Director is watching costs. The Programmes Director is concerned it won’t be practical enough for their people.

If you start with:

“We’ve designed a six-month management development programme…”

You’re asking them to switch into your world.

Instead, start with theirs:

“You’re busy, and we have limited resources. We’re seeing inconsistent management practice that’s slowing decisions down and pushing problems upwards. We need to make sure our people, all of our people, can do their best work. Managers need to get the best out of themselves and others. Your senior managers are bringing issues to you, that you would rather they resolved themselves.”

Now you’re talking about something they already care about; their time and energy.

Influence grows when people feel understood before they’re persuaded, or pushed.

2. Don’t talk about training; talk about outcomes

To really engage people in learning they need to be granted time and space, and to see learning as a priority for themselves and the organisation as a whole. In many charities, managers are stretched and pulled in many directions. This makes it hard for them to take time to attend training. They may escalate problems and issues to Senior Leaders that they don’t have the confidence to manage themselves. Senior Leaders then have less time too for their priorities.

However, you know that mission delivery relies on people having the knowledge, skills and capabilities to do their best work  and these need to evolve over time. Having these in place builds confidence and competence. Growing your influence therefore means talking about learning in a different way. Instead of relating learning to time spent on training (inputs), reframe your message to focus on outcomes.

Link training to learning outcomes that have an organisational impact. This could include:

• Fewer issues being pushed upwards
• Clearer expectations
• More consistent management behaviour
• Less firefighting for senior leaders

3. Be flexible in your approach

Not everyone is convinced by the same thing. As we’ve seen above people have different needs, worries and perspectives. They also like to process information and understand things in different ways. Just like a well-designed training programme has a variety of approaches and methods to engage learners, you need different approaches to engage decision makers. If you use the same approach with everyone, you reduce your chances of landing well.

Some leaders prefer a short paper with clear numbers. What is the investment in time, money? What engagement scores are you tackling? What will the change look like in numbers?

Others will want examples and stories: do you have testimonials, case studies, internal stories you can use?
Some want the information quick and to the point: what is the purpose of the programme, in one line?
Others need to talk it through: what questions might they have, how could you encourage those?

Strong influencers notice how people prefer to communicate and adjust. That doesn’t mean changing your message. It means choosing the clearest way for that person to understand it. If you don’t know the preferences of the decision makers you are attempting to influence, who could you ask? Who has worked with them before and had success?

4. Have the conversation before the meeting

If you’re hoping to win support from a group of decision makers for the first time, there’s plenty you can do to prepare them. Successful influence usually happens before the formal meeting. How you prime your colleagues can make a huge difference. This is another great way to find out what matters to them and what their communication preferences are.

Taking the example above, you’ve already included the HR Director in your thinking. This is a great start. There are other people who could help you too. This could include:

• Check in with the Programme Director about management challenges; share some examples with them about the ways the course can address those, and what a practical approach will be. Highlight tools, approaches and what has been shown to work before. Ask them what they like and dislike. Find ways to accommodate their ideas and alleviate their concerns.

• Ask Finance what level of detail they’ll need and how best to demonstrate that in the meeting. Ask them what has worked with other organisational project spend. Ask them what frustrates them, so you can come up with a solution for that too.

Now the proposal isn’t landing cold. It’s already been shaped with key people in mind and means the conversation in the meeting can be all the more productive.

5. Don’t get defensive

Influence in organisations rarely comes simply from hierarchy. It comes from credibility and steadiness.

Lots of L&D people in charities and non-profit sectors don’t have formal authority over the decisions they’re trying to influence. Decisions ultimately rest on someone else’s shoulders. This means decision makers might ask questions that can feel challenging, repetitive, or not respectful of your expertise and experience. That can feel frustrating. However, from their perspective they need to know their input is valuable, and not dismissed because they have a different perspective to you. Credibility looks like:

• Knowing the context; what matters to people in doing their jobs, the realities that they face
• Being consistent, even under pressure
• Staying calm when challenged

Let’s imagine the CEO in the meeting says:

“Shouldn’t managers already know how to manage? I never needed a programme like this”

This requires calmness and care. You don’t want to imply that managers have been incorrectly hired or promoted, pointing to a failure somewhere along the line (and possibly by the people in the meeting). You also don’t want to offend the CEO! You need to take care not to come across as defensive about your ideas and the programme overall. Instead, value what they are saying, and try:

“That’s a fair question. When you made that transition to management, what did you find challenging? What would have helped you at the time? What are you seeing from managers now that’s causing concern? What challenges do you think they are dealing with?”

Now you’re diagnosing a shared problem, without blaming anyone. You’re seeking a solution together, not defending a course.

You may need to repeat your case more than once. You may not always get immediate agreement. That’s part of working in charities where scrutiny is high and resources are stretched.

But influence isn’t about being louder or more senior. It’s about being calm under pressure, thoughtful about multiple perspectives, prepared and outcomes focused.

Being in L&D can feel lonely. If it would help to talk through a particular conversation or meeting with a decision maker that you’re preparing for, or a proposal you’re shaping, we’re always happy to think it through with you. No obligation at all, we know that working alone is tough. Our consultants are happy to have a chat, to be your sounding board and give you space to explore it with another L&D person.

Contact us online and we’ll get back to you with some options to start the conversation. It’s free, confidential and if we can’t help, we’ll direct you to someone who can.