Building Champions and Earning a Seat at the Table

"You have to find your sponsors. You have to start with things that you are capable of solving today."

That line from Becky Willis, Founder and Chief Learning Officer at Tractus Learning, captures the discipline at the heart of this conversation: influence in L&D is earned, not requested. As the author of 7 Steps to Better Learning Engagement, and former Learning Strategy Leader at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Becky has spent her career helping organisations, including clients such as HP and Dell, prove that learning only matters when it’s tied to business results.

This conversation centres on what Becky calls strategic engagement: the idea that learning succeeds only when it solves real business problems and shows up in real business data. She makes the case that L&D teams asking for a seat at the table are asking the wrong question entirely. The table doesn’t exist until you’ve earned it by delivering measurable outcomes stakeholders actually care about. She challenges learning leaders to stop starting with courses and instead begin with data, executive sponsors, and the priorities keeping business leaders up at night.

Her perspective is both candid and practical. L&D shouldn’t lead with a training request. It should lead with a diagnosis. It should build champions across the business, communicate its value like any successful brand, and resist the temptation to bolt AI onto broken systems and call it transformation. As Becky puts it, a dinosaur with wheels is still a dinosaur.

Some curious takeaways:

• A seat at the table is earned, never simply requested
• Sponsors matter more than the systems you try to build
• Solve real business problems before you reach for training

Episode highlights:

(00:00) Welcome to Harald’s Curious Corner

(01:08) Why engagement is strategic, not just classroom training

(02:14) Becky's path from business roles at HP into L&D

(03:37) What "working" really means for learning and talent

(04:39) The onboarding turnaround at a manufacturing plant

(05:23) The 40% improvement in retention, time, and safety

(07:12) Finding a sponsor who believes in learning

(11:44) What's changed: AI and the crisis in L&D value

(15:43) Why "a seat at the table" is the wrong ask

(19:09) The dinosaur on wheels problem with AI and LMS

(22:31) What actually makes someone a true champion

(28:53) Where most L&D teams sit on the maturity model

(36:17) The HPE case study: growing engagement to over 50%

Connect with the guest:

Becky Willis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckywillis/
Explore Tractus Learning: https://tractuslearning.com/
Explore Becky’s book, 7 Steps to Better Learning Engagement: https://www.amazon.com/Steps-Better-Learning-Engagement-Business-ebook/dp/B0GHDTRPFZ

Follow me on the following sites:

Harald Overaa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haraldovera/

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