Future L&Ds are Gardeners
Future learning designers are gardeners.
Gardeners know they cannot make a plant grow. They can only set the right conditions (soil, water, nutrients, sun) for the plant to grow.
Now picture a gardener who behaved the way most of us in L&D do.
They'd count seeds planted instead of fruit grown. They'd mandate that the plants grow fast, then call a full bed a good harvest. They'd log litres of water poured and hours of sun, and present that as proof the garden was thriving.
Absurd in a garden. We do it every day.
Ship the course, tick the completion and call it impact. All of that is the planting. None of it is the growing. We've quietly agreed to measure the part we control instead of the part that matters.
🌱 So what does a learning gardener actually chase?
Conditions, not content: The manager who makes room practice. The framing that makes the idea land. The friction quietly removed. That's the soil.
Evidence in the work, not in the room: A gardener checks for fruit weeks later, not for attendance on planting day.
Less control, on purpose: Learning cannot be forced. A learning gardener’s craft is setting the right conditions and then getting out of the way.
A gardener would never confuse a watered plant with a grown one.
So what are we actually measuring? The watering, or the growing?
