L&D leaders are constantly finding new ways to turn business challenges into opportunities for learning, growth and impact.
In episode 100 of The Business of Learning, recorded in person at the 2026 Training Industry Conference & Expo (TICE), Jazmin Webster, chief learning curator at the Quality Experience, and Chris Cassell, director of North America training and development at Align Technology, share real-world L&D success stories and lessons learned from their experiences.
Tune in now for insights on:
- How L&D leaders can use training to address real business challenges
- What it takes to move a learning initiative from idea to execution and make it successful
- The lessons these learning leaders have taken from their experiences and how they’re shaping their work going forward
More Resources:
The transcript for this episode follows:
Sarah Gallo: Hi, and welcome back to “The Business of Learning.” I’m Sarah Gallo, a senior editor here at Training Industry.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: And I’m Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, editor-in-chief. Today we’re sitting down to record episode 100 of the podcast, and we thought: What better way to celebrate this milestone than to celebrate learning leaders themselves? In this episode, you’ll hear real-world L&D success stories from your peers that we hope motivate and inspire your own efforts.
Sarah Gallo: It’s an exciting milestone, and we couldn’t be here without our listeners and sponsors, so thank you for tuning in and making it possible. And to kick us off, we have Jasmine Webster, who is chief learning curator at The Quality Experience. Jasmine, thanks for joining us.
Jasmine Webster: Thanks for having me.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Yes. Welcome, Jasmine. Thank you for being here with us today. If you could, to kick us off, can you walk us through an L&D success story that you’re particularly proud of?
Jasmine Webster: Thank you so much for having me today, and I really think it’s a huge accomplishment that you’re at your 100th podcast. I would be honored to share a success story with you that connects with the topic I’m here to share with Training Industry, and that has to do with onboarding. Oftentimes, organizations and individuals think about onboarding as an event, an instance in time that happens. I like to think about onboarding as a continuum, as a cycle, as a continual evolution of an employee’s experience with your organization. And I was honored to bring about a program that helped to evolve the concept of onboarding from a single instance to a moment that happens over the journey of an employee’s life cycle with some pharmaceutical companies that I’ve worked with in the past. And that ties directly to how you develop an individual, and not just thinking about people management or leaders that are at the C-suite level. We’re also talking about frontline employees and employees that might be looking forward to developing themselves and being a better version of themselves. So onboarding connects with that because you are also helping that individual craft their learning journey. Thinking about when you start, what is it that you wanna learn more about? What areas of the organization are you curious about? And if you’re not sure, that’s okay. You can try out some things so that you can develop a better sense of what this company and what this organization is about. So one of the proudest moments I would have to share is about the specialist talent program, and that was an individual contributor development opportunity where we were able to bring about 40 specialists through this program, and about 50% of them were raised in their level from, say, specialist one, specialist two, tech one, tech two, and even a little percentage of those individuals ended up going over to people leadership as well because they didn’t know what they didn’t know about being curious about that.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Yeah. I’d love to hear kind of what sparked that initiative. What business challenge were you experiencing, and how did this training initiative become the solution?
Jasmine Webster: Well, that’s a very fantastic question because it ties directly to feedback that the individuals were giving the organization about development opportunities. The employee engagement data were showing that individuals were looking elsewhere for opportunities because they did not see a progression path for them outside of people leadership, and that’s perfectly okay. Not everyone wants to develop on that people leadership or manager pathway. So this organization decided they were gonna do something different. It started off actually with a smaller initiative within two functional areas. I worked in the manufacturing company department, and they started off with a quality assurance team and also an operational team that combined into this cohort so that we could test the program out. So, you know, advice I would give to anyone: If you’re thinking about doing a larger initiative, make sure you do some type of pilot test with a group that’s interested and curious about championing that development opportunity for their employees. So my quality leader at the time was highly interested, and that was the first team that we started with and had some huge success.
Sarah Gallo: That’s great. Must’ve been great to have that champion for learning as well.
Jasmine Webster: Oh my gosh. That’s huge. Having a champion is also one of those critical things, and I was so proud to hear that Training Industry’s data is showing that leaders are actually championing more and more of those development opportunities. So, you know, it’s very important.
Sarah Gallo: That’s huge. I’d love if you could walk us through what the path from initial idea to execution looked like and what really ultimately made this initiative a success.
Jasmine Webster: Yes. So to start off, you have to establish a plan. You know? Planning mode. You have an idea, you have some inspiration. What could this look like? What experience do you have with building a program at this scale? This was a global pharmaceutical company that had eight sites globally, different cultures, different languages, and how do you ensure that we can offer this program at scale to all of these sites around the world? So starting off with an idea, starting off with the set of champions that were going to help support the program, and then also establishing some framework for scope and governance of the program. And that’s where you can tap into some of those project management skills that you might need. And also that stakeholder influence. So understanding who the program is really for, understanding who this program is going to serve, and then also understanding what business objectives this ties directly into. And that’s how you can get your stakeholder buy-in early. The earlier you can get that stakeholder buy-in, the better. And, you know, I would say the next step after you have the clear governance structure, you have your milestones set, you know who your supporting team is, you can then work toward developing a plan for yourself to make it more of a bite-sized approach. You know, don’t try to eat the whole elephant at the same time. So you wanna start with bite-sized development of the program. What are you going to need? Who are the speakers, or what other departments or functions might you need to involve? What tools do we already have in place that we can leverage? This particular organization leveraged the Insights profile assessment, and this was the very first time these employees had the opportunity to learn more about themselves and the way that they communicate and their personality styles. So we leveraged that as an opportunity for them to first learn about themselves before they formed teams during the actual event itself. So, you know, this kind of just gets you into the mindset of planning the actual length of time that you’re going to need to deliver the project and really just ensuring you have those milestones in place.
Sarah Gallo: Definitely.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Nice. And as you developed the initiative, did you run into any roadblocks or challenges along the way? And how did you navigate that?
Sarah Gallo: She’s nodding like, yes.
Jasmine Webster: You know, projects, there’s never really an opportunity where a project is probably gonna run 100% smooth, and there are going to be a few challenges along the way. And in the world of manufacturing and operations, time is of the essence. Having individuals that are not active in their daily tasks can have an impact for operational leaders and also for overall processes. So having that in mind was one of the most difficult things in terms of planning and ensuring that the resources were available. Because this was also a global company, we had to manage across various time zones. So we had participants that might be participating from, say, China, where we have other participants from the U.S. or from Europe, and so we were managing across multiple time zones, and that also presents some level of challenge. I would also add that when we looked at the outcomes of this program, we wanted these individuals to be proud of what they’ve accomplished during the talent accelerator. And one of the outcomes was that they would actually solve a business problem. They were to propose something that is an itch or something that’s bothering them in their daily work, and they would propose a solution to that and actually walk through the steps of what it would take to implement that solution. Then they would present that to the executive leaders of the company. So this was a huge opportunity for them to showcase their work. So again, we have to struggle, you know, trying to manage the challenge of working with the schedule for those executive leaders and ensuring that we had enough time to allow those talents to shine.
Sarah Gallo: Yeah. Definitely. Jasmine, as you’re looking back and reflecting on this initiative, what was the biggest lesson you took away, and how do you plan to apply it going forward?
Jasmine Webster: The biggest lesson is that each individual desires to be a better version of themself, whatever that looks like, and it’s unique to each and every person. Your version of best is different from my version of best, is different from their version of best. And helping someone to, even if it’s just, move a slight nudge or a slight inch in the direction of what better can be very impactful. You know, I had individuals in that program that looked back and looked at the relationships that they made, looked at the business aspects that they learned that they had never touched before. You know, when we work in large companies and we tend to get very focused into our area or our function or that siloed thinking and approach, it can really blind us at times. And I would say that the biggest outcome of this program was being able to see and participate in helping those individuals to remove some of those blinders, and then for them to see the bigger picture, and also for them to be able to become a little bit better version of themselves.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: That’s great. Love that. Well, on that note, Jasmine, thank you so much for sitting down with us and sharing your story with our audience.
Jasmine Webster: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Again, congratulations on your 100th podcast.
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Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Next, we’re sitting down with Chris Cassel, director of North America Training and Development at Align Technology. Chris, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Chris Cassel: Thank you.
Sarah Gallo: To get started, could you walk us through your L&D success story? What business challenge were you looking to solve, and how did training become part of the solution?
Chris Cassel: The business challenge was about midway through last year. We had a new VP that covers all the Americas, and he was trying to get a single view on our coaching reports. Canada, U.S. and LATAM all had different competency libraries, different coaching reports, so there was no way to roll everything up into one. So I was brought in on a project as a stakeholder, really, to work through that. And where I came in was that you can’t have a single form for a single dashboard without a single competency library. Like, that’s the root of the problem that we have. So I said, “I’ll take it.”
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Yeah. Nice. And so, kind of going through this initiative, what did execution look like from that beginning idea stage through development and delivery?
Chris Cassel: Well, I had to sell in the concept because the leaders of the three areas, Canada, U.S. and LATAM, didn’t believe that you could have a single competency library. But, like, sales is sales, you know? How it presents itself could be different, but the basic competencies and skills that ladder up to them can be consistent. So I built a prototype to prove it. That’s how I operate, is rapid prototyping. So I get something over, let people scrum over it, and then fix it, right? So I did that. I presented it and won the argument that we could have a single framework. That’s what I needed, right? So some people had something to look at. So then I had a project team of managers throughout the regions to help me actually build it. At one point, we were trying to figure out how to get our sales methodology in there, how to work that into the skills in a coherent way, and it wasn’t working. And one of the regional managers said, “Why don’t we just put the competency library in the framework of our methodology?” Which was a good idea, and I hadn’t thought of it, which is unfortunate for me. And learned from it. So we framed it up that way, built that out, sold in and gained agreement on the structure of it. So the competencies laddering up to the sales methodology, the skills that laddered up to the competencies. We had an agreement across the region that that was the model that we were gonna go forth with. The reason why that works, and it’s the same reason why a common sales methodology works, is ’cause the details can change underneath. So the concept was same competencies, same skills, but the observable behaviors, the indicators, can vary. Why not, right? So if the co-travel form goes down to the competency and skill level, and then the behavioral indicators inform the language that you’re gonna use to deliver the written feedback in, then you could have nuances not only U.S., Canada, but you can have nuances between roles. You can have nuances if a regional manager wants to work in their own behavioral indicator. Well, go ahead, right? So when you have that framework that everybody agrees on, then you can build out. Some of the behavioral indicators are like, in one of the skills we’ve got four, another we’ve got, I think, 13, 14. And then with version controlling, we can iterate that over time as roles change. So it should future-proof for the next several years at least because of the way that we set it up.
Sarah Gallo: Definitely. How did you go about sort of identifying those skills and behavioral indicators?
Chris Cassel: Well, the skills, we took what we had from previous competency libraries that we agreed on. And then we built out, not what are people doing now, but what does the job need to look like? So, you know, you can do a KSA investigation into what people are actually doing on the job, and that’s very helpful. But then you take that information and say, “Should we be doing these things, or should we be doing something else? Should there be a little bit more focus, for example, rather than doing everything?” So we built in a couple of the things that we hadn’t before defined as skills so the managers have things to coach, like meat to coach, you know, like negotiation skills. That was built in before, but not called out as its own skill. Or prospecting. What does that look like at Align Technology? So that’s how we built it out, just like what are the skills that are needed in order to go forward? And then what are the observable behaviors? And we eliminated proficiency levels. I know that’s not what we’re supposed to do, but it’s like one lens. This is what the job looks like. You’re either doing it or you’re not. Or we have four ratings. You’re not doing it, you’re doing it partially, you’re doing it well, and you’re exceeding expectations. And that gives the RMs one lens to look at the job. So if it’s a TM job, this is what the job looks like, and then they can choose the skills and then the behavioral indicators or the observable behaviors based on the skills that they want to focus on. So it gives them some agency in how they want to coach based on where they want or need their team to go.
Sarah Gallo: Very cool. Were there any challenges or roadblocks that your team faced going through this initiative? And if so, how did you navigate those?
Chris Cassel: Yeah, there were big ones, and they delayed the launch by a quarter. So late last year, when I started, I ran the operations team, and then in early December, moved up to run the entirety of the team. So I had a new job I had to focus on, and then we did a go-to-market shift where everybody’s job changed, and all the managers who I was working with had new jobs too. So it was like, “Okay, let’s just table this for a little bit.” So we still introduced it at a January regional manager, conceptually, and got the buy-in for that, and then just kind of put it on the back burner, just deprioritized it. And then on April 1, I have a new team that is a training force that’s kind of embedded in the organization. They all started on April 1. I brought them in ’cause they were coming directly from the field doing the jobs. And said, “Hey, can you guys clean up the mess that I made and finish this project up?” And they did. They brought people in and turned it around and gave us a finished product within a couple days. So once I had the team to do it, we were able to execute. It’s still on a spreadsheet. So it’s not, like, branded and doesn’t look fancy. But the words are there. The co-travel form is there. People are using it. We’re getting feedback on things that we can add or remove or maybe are redundant. That’s why it’s important to get things out there. Things don’t have to be perfect to launch. Just get it out there and have people using it.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: How long, kind of from start to finish, I guess, was — let’s say — I don’t think you’re finished per se.
Chris Cassel: Yeah. Never finished.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: But how long have you been working on this?
Chris Cassel: I think the overall project initiated, it was either late summer or very early fall. You know, like September or around that area. We moved the work forward pretty well through November until, you know, things shifted. And then it stalled, and then we launched at the beginning of April. So if you take out the quarter of dormancy, four months. No, not even that. Three months? Okay. Maybe. If you add in the time that we had to table it, then you’re looking at about three quarters, two and a half quarters or so.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: In terms of rolling it out, what kind of feedback are you seeing and changes you’re seeing in the work?
Chris Cassel: Well, it hasn’t been out there that long.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Right. So I didn’t know if you had any early-stage feedback.
Chris Cassel: Haven’t had much feedback on the model itself. I created a feedback form for that purpose. The only feedback I got through that was there was a glitch in the form itself, which I don’t own, but we were able to get that. It was, you know, a good vehicle for that. I’ve heard generally positive feedback on it. I’ve gotten, not through the form, but via email, some ideas to add some things, and we’ve added them. And there is one aspect of how our retail interacts with our special markets that we felt that we needed to build into there. So generally it’s going well. The feedback has been good. It’s a very easy framework to work with. And then the dashboard, we’re starting to see the trends. So the dashboard was built in trends with people over time, trends between teams of where directionally the competencies are going, and that’s just beginning to emerge.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: That’s exciting.
Chris Cassel: And so it’s too early to really give you any insights from that.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: But that’s quite an accomplishment.
Chris Cassel: It was fun.
Michelle Eggleston-Schwartz: Kind of looking back, are there any lessons learned, like things you learned along the way that kind of stick out to you?
Chris Cassel: The big one that I mentioned earlier: Don’t be so rigid and academic with training. I was like, sales methodology is this thing, competency framework is this thing, and they’re separate. And it took somebody not in training, a regional manager, saying, like, “Why don’t we just make it like that?” For me to go like, “Well, yeah, duh.” Like, it can be whatever we want it to look like. Get out of your own training and how you view the world and just simplify it. So that was the biggest takeaway, and I’ve taken that into other decisions. Like, you can do training without saying training words and doing… you know, you can humanize things.
Sarah Gallo: Yeah. Definitely. I like what you said earlier: It doesn’t have to be perfect to launch. You can launch something before it’s perfect and still see results and progress from that.
Chris Cassel: For sure. I believe that that’s the only way to operate.
Sarah Gallo: Great. Well, thank you for sitting down with us and sharing your success story, Chris.
[Outro]
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