Catalysts: The Leaders Shaping the Future of Learning and Growth

From Cost Center to Catalyst: Dr. Keith Keating on Redefining the Value of L&D

• Jacob Ratliff

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In this episode of Catalysts, I’m joined by Dr. Keith Keating, Chief Learning & Development Officer at BDO Canada and author of Hidden Value: How to Reveal the Impact of Organizational Learning.

Keith is a powerhouse in the world of learning strategy—a practitioner-scholar who believes L&D shouldn’t just defend its worth, but amplify its impact. We dive into what it truly means to be a trusted learning advisor, why L&D needs to stop chasing surface metrics, and how to lead your team out of the “order-taker” trap and into strategic partnership.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why L&D’s real power lies in creating value—not just delivering content
  • How to move from reactive defense mode to proactive business alignment
  • Why metrics like butts-in-seats are holding us back
  • The science of learning—and how to make stakeholders care about it
  • How to build trust with both leaders and learners
  • What most orgs get wrong about reskilling, equity, and inclusion
  • The role of visibility, storytelling, and self-belief in shaping the future of L&D

Keith’s journey—from high school dropout to doctoral scholar—is a testament to the life-changing power of learning. And his message is clear: L&D isn’t a support function. It’s a strategic driver. But only if we choose to show up that way.

🎧 Tune in for a deeply human, sharply strategic conversation that will leave you thinking differently about what you do—and why it matters.

Connect with Dr. Keith Keating on LinkedIn »

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Hey there and welcome back to Catalysts, the leaders shaping the future of learning and growth. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and this is the show where we spotlight the bold thinkers, builders, and leaders who aren't just responding to change in our industry, they're actually driving it. And today I'm really excited to be joined by Dr. Keith Keating, who is the Chief Learning and Development Officer at BDO Canada. where he's leading the charge in shaping a future-ready learning organization, one that anticipates market needs, enables agility, and fuels continuous growth across the firm. He's also a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, the author of The Trusted Learning Advisor, and most recently, Hidden Value, How to Reveal the Impact of Organizational Learning, a powerful new book. written for every LMD leader ready to stop defending learning and start amplifying its strategic value. Keith, thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm really excited for the conversation we're going to have. My pleasure. I appreciate you creating the space for these conversations. Thank you. And I want to dive in with uh pretty big questions. So I know you've just launched Hidden in Value as of uh the date that we're recording this three days ago. And you've described it as a love letter to learning and development. What was the moment or realization that sparked the idea or helped you see the need for this book? I would say it's born from a mix of urgency, but hope. So the spark, fortunately or unfortunately, was actually the rise of GEN.AI. It is starting to force this really hard truth into the spotlight. And that is, for a while we've called ourselves a knowledge economy. But I believe that because of the tools, knowledge alone is no longer our differentiator. Instead, we're shifting from a knowledge economy to a value economy. And that's a really seismic shift. It means that we've got to start asking not just what we know, but how are we actually using what we know to create value? And so for us, I think it's both a challenge and it's also an incredible opportunity. And I wrote this book to help our profession evolve so that we just don't survive this shift, that we lead it. Because everyone in the organization should be thinking about value creation, value seeking, measuring value, telling the story of value. It's not just us. So I'll share with you, I didn't start writing this for L &D. I started writing it. for everyone in general. And I just found as I was writing, all my analogies and thoughts and stories were so L &D specific. And then I wanted to narrow the scope to focus on L &D. But the truth is, this is applicable for everybody. We all need to be thinking about the value economy. In my own experience, I've definitely seen how learning and development can kind of be considered a pair of hands or order taker, right? Rather than a strategic business partner. And truthfully, you say that it's more broadly applicable. The same can be said for other uh internal functions, HR, IT, finance, right? The list can go on. uh But specifically around learning, Believe it's the opening line for the book is stop defending learning, start amplifying its value. And I see that very much in line with what you're describing here. So I'm curious, can you unpack that shift for us and maybe talk a little bit about why you believe L &D is still stuck in a bit of a defense mode? We've been in a defense mode for decades, probably, I don't know, since our inception. We were trained to deliver learning, not to demonstrate its value. So we've mastered instructional design and facilitation and content development, but we weren't necessarily taught how to connect what we do to business outcomes. So then when we're asked to show our impact, we fall back on these surface level metrics, know, butts in seats, satisfaction scores, completion rates. We even look to Kirkpatrick or Phillips ROI. They're fairly easy to gather minus the ROI piece, even though it doesn't tell the full story. And so when we can't clearly articulate the business value, we end up getting pushed into a corner. And then we're defending our budgets because now there's budget cuts and we're trying to justify our existence. And we're, trying to explain why learning matters. And so we're always on that defensive side. We're always reacting and that defense posture keeps us reactive instead of strategic. And so it limits, it limits our influence and it ends up reinforcing this perception that we are a cost center. rather than a value center or rather than a value creator. And so the shift that I'm trying to call for is simple, but it's powerful. Let's stop trying to prove that learning is important and let's start showing the value that it creates. So that means that we've got to speak the language of impact, the language of outcomes, the language of value creation from the point of view from the business, not just from our own point of view. Ultimately, when we amplify our value instead of defending it, we move from being seen as a cost center to a catalyst of change. And that's where we belong. Yeah, and it sounds like I'm kind of drawing out two sides to it, although I'm sure there are more. One of which is that L &D has a marketing problem, quite frankly, and how they, you I have a marketing background, so that's where my mind goes is, you know, how are we communicating the big result, the long-term impact? But also there's a behavioral aspect too, in terms of how we partner with the business, whether, you know, an internal client or... an external one. Would you say that's a fair assessment? absolutely. Just from the marketing perspective alone, we struggle with telling our story. Telling our story in a way that's meaningful for other people, but then getting them to tell our story. So we tend to just stop at that first checkpoint of, we got to get out there and tell our story and tell our story. We can tell our story all we want to, but if we're not getting other people to tell our story, we're missing out on that amplification. I remember one CFO telling me specifically, have so many fires at my feet. I can't care about what you're doing. I'm sure that what you're doing is important. I know learning is valuable, but I just don't have time to care about it. You have to make me care. And it was such an eye-opening moment for me. was like, yes, we get so caught up in our own stuff. Like, Another example is we tend to say L &D is the first budget that gets cut. Well, you know why we say it's the first budget that gets cut? Because that's all we know. We see the budget getting cut, it's our budget, and we immediately think that's the first budget getting cut. Again, in my doctoral research, that was one of the questions that I was trying to uncover. CFOs largely said, I don't think about your budget. Your budget is hidden somewhere else. Your budget is either in HR or it's in the businesses or the service lines. Very rarely does learning have a budget that the CFO sees. We're in something else. So yes, our budget is being cut, but so are other budgets. Marketing's being cut, HR could be being cut, IT could be being cut, but we don't see any of that. We just see... oh our budgets and so we think, oh, this is happening to us. But it happens to any support function in the business. If you are non-revenue generating, your budget is the first one to be cut So then that begs the question, could we be revenue generating? But that's a discussion for another time. So to answer your question about marketing and being a better business partner, yes to. And I know that, you know, showing impact as someone in L&D is a conversation that I have often. And it's something I've always struggled with. And I know for a fact that I'm not alone because I've talked with so many other L&D professionals who really struggle to show that impact. So in your view, what am I and what are we getting wrong about how we think about showing impact and what's the mindset shift that we maybe need to make? think many learning leaders get wrong is the focus, not necessarily the effort. So we've been conditioned to look inward. And that means that to evaluate our programs based on how they were delivered, how many people showed up, how well was the content received? Do they like the air conditioning and the food? That's program focused thinking. But... The real impact isn't about what we delivered. It's about the change that happens as the outcome of it. the change because of it. And so the mindset is to stop measuring the learning and stop measuring the value. And that means we've got to zoom out. We've got to ask, how did this initiative move the needle for the business? What problem did it solve for the business? Does it close a capability gap? Is there some sort of improvement, a performance improvement that it strengthened culture, that it reduced risk? And if we can't answer these questions, then we need to pause. and realign before we build anything new. And it also means shifting from being a service provider to a trusted learning advisor. And that requires more curiosity, more collaboration, and even the courage to say no when something doesn't drive value. And that's one of the questions that I'll ask my business partner directly is, what value is this creating? What business problem is this solving? And we have that discussion together so that we have that shared language. Because impact isn't a metric, it's a mindset. And once we adopt that mindset, the measurement strategies will follow. Yeah, and I know, you know, in my own experience, being seen as a strategic business partner rather than a vendor or a service provider can be really challenging when it feels like you're maybe being held at an arm's length. And so I'm curious, you know, what recommendations might you have for someone in that situation who is really trying to show up in that way? but feels like they're really not getting the full picture. My first recommendation would be to read the Trusted Learning Advisor because that's every single page in the Trusted Learning Advisor is literally about answering that question. But for time's sake today, I would narrow it down to the relationship and the relationships that you build with your strategic partners. Being a trusted learning advisor does not happen overnight. It's not something that we get to say or determine that we are. It's ultimately down to the relationships and the trust that we build with our stakeholders. And trust takes time. And it's not pushing our own agenda. often find L &D has their own agenda. They have the things that they want to get done because they feel it's valuable. we're not here... to support our own beliefs and our own projects and initiatives. We're here to support our business partners and our learners. And our learners need to be at the forefront of everything that we do. so besides building the relationships and trust with stakeholders, it's also with the learners. It's going out and doing qualitative research with your learners to find out what problems are they having, what big rocks are in their way, what's keeping them from being successful in their job, and figuring out how we might be able to support that. Excellent, thank you. And I know that you have, over the years, led pretty major global skilling and re-skilling initiatives. What do you think most organizations underestimate about what it takes to do this work well? Time? relationships and language. I think that there's this idea that we're like a car wash. You just bring your dirty car up to it, you run it through and then it comes out 15 minutes later, squeaky clean. And that's not how learning works. Learning takes a significant amount of time. And going back to your marketing roots, we know the power of seven. You have to hear something seven times before it actually starts to stick. We know that there's learning transfer and learning sustainment, spaced repetition. I would say, now that I'm talking out loud, the biggest area that is a misconception is that there's a science to what we do. There's a science to how we do it. There's a science to the way that we learn, learning sciences, and so many practitioners don't understand this. And then those that do tend to keep that information in a silo. Meaning I know this, what we're doing is applying the science of learning. And you tell your stakeholder that, do you think that language resonates with them? No, it feels. bit uncomfortable because it's not something that they're used to. Like, you're doing the science of learning. Like, it's some magic trick. I don't know what that is. Instead of bringing your stakeholders along with you on the journey. And so, for example, one book that I always encourage my team and anyone to read, and even my stakeholders, is Peter Brown. totally drawing a blank. I just moved the book. uh Make it Stick, the Science of Successful Learning. Because it breaks it down in such a beautiful manner, storytelling, research driven, that helps you understand how to apply the science of learning and why we need to apply it. So long story short, would be understanding that we have a science to what we do, why we do it, how we should do it. And then taking people along that journey, because I think that goes directly back to the defensiveness. Because if someone is like, OK, let's not do it this way. But you're like, but it's the science. Then you're starting to like, I've got to defend the science. got to maybe even show that I'm an expert in this whole learning thing that we're talking about. So I hear it definitely going all back to the defensiveness issue. Yep, and so a book club is a really easy way to bring people along with you on that journey, but again, making it relevant to them. So if I went to my stakeholder and said, hey, we're doing this cool L &D book club book, do you want to join? Of course they would say no. Instead, what I did was find out which stakeholder had children under the age of 18. because I struggled with learning growing up quite significantly. And I know that had I had this book, it would have changed the way that I studied and way that I learned. And so I reached out to my stakeholders individually to say, hey, I know you have a couple of kids that are still in school. By chance, are any of them struggling? Because there's a book that I really recommend that you read that will help you with that potential struggle. And so it's relevant and contextualized to them at that point. And it's not just an L &D book. So you've made it much more broadly applicable. I love that tactic. That makes so much sense. And it really kind of goes back to this is another way of amplifying value for your stakeholders. You're not just supporting them in this role. You're supporting them in another area as well. As a parent, exactly. And you mentioned that you had trouble learning uh as a child and you've talked about your own journey from dropping out of high school to earning four degrees. How has that shaped your view on the role of learning in an organization? When you're the one that is counted out, overlooked, underestimated, it changes how you see people. It makes you hyper aware of those invisible barriers that others might be facing. And it makes you ask questions like, who are we missing? Who's not being thought of in this learning experience? And so for me, I'm constantly rooting for the underdog. because I am one. I consider myself one, I will always consider myself one. And part of that is a superpower for me because I can look across the landscape and be more empathetic for those that we might be missing. And I know firsthand what learning. can unlock when someone is giving the chance. For me, learning changed the trajectory of my life. It gave me confidence. It gave me options. When you learn how to learn, your future is unlimited. So for me, it gave me a future that I didn't even know was possible. And that's why I believe so deeply in the work that we do, is I've lived its impact. And so equity and opportunity They're not side conversations. They're central to our purpose. And learning shouldn't be reward for a few. It should be the catalyst for many. And it's our job to make sure that no one gets left behind. And so you mentioned that you have this kind of superpower or skill in being able to see who's being left out, see what's missing. And I think that's something so many of us could do so much better. So I'm curious, what could someone like me or another L&D practitioner do to be more aware and mindful in seeking out, finding what's missing. in this picture. So let me flip it back to you, not to put you on the spot, but when was the last time you went to your frontline workers to ask them? Yeah, exactly. But it's been a minute. You're right. So anytime I can, I'm talking with learners and one of the questions is I'll ask them, hey, when was the last time that you were nominated for a program? How do you feel the company has invested in you? And I find people all the time that will say things like, I've been here for 10 years and I've never had any formal learning or I've not had any investment. Now you can dig down deeper and then you can find out what do they mean by investment because I'm sure they've had compliance and regulatory training, but they may not see that as an investment. so it's having these conversations to help identify and dig a little bit deeper to unpack what some of those conversations are, because even sometimes just the conversation alone is meaningful enough, not to discount the learning opportunity, but they feel seen in that moment. And I have asked... So for example, the person recently said, I've been here 10 years and I've not had anything. My next question was, well, has anybody come to you to talk to you about this? Has there been, you know, do you know where to go to nominate yourself? Do you know where to go to sign up? Do you know the tools you have available? And it was like, no, no, no, no. And so that gave me insight as well as to some of the struggles that frontline employees are having in terms of where do they even go when they want to learn or need to learn. Yeah, and it sounds like so much of the responsibility to seek out those opportunities is put on them when they're in a position where they're just trying to barely get their work done because they're working so hard. And, right, we have this perception of like, like the resources, they're there if you want to seek them out. Usually I see that pretty often, but the onus is always on them. Mm-hmm. rather than on us as learning professionals to bring it to them. Yeah, and to be able to have more consultative conversations, like for example, the LMS. I'm sure almost all of us have either an LMS or some type of digital library. Personally, I would not go in there to look for something because it's so overwhelming. How do I know what to go to? I do a search for maybe leadership and I get 3000 hits back versus our team taking time to curate the top 10 resources and not just digital content, but could be podcasts, could be newsletters, it could be websites, it could be videos, books, whatever it is, curate this so that it makes it easier for them. And we've been talking about curation, we've been talking about micro learning for years. least the organizations I've been involved with are still not there. Getting there, but still not there. It could always be... I mean, I use this as a, I think an amusing example. have a good friend who's an executive for a health care company, regional health care company. And he, I was asking him about their LMS and he was talking about how, you know, this kind of thing that everyone in the organization hates and how the director of learning called him up and said, Hey, like you need to do this mandatory module. Like, because we, for compliance, basically. And he went and he looked up the module and it was what to do if a patient goes into labor in the clinic. This is someone who's never, you know, never gonna ever be in that situation. But that's his extent of experiencing the LMS is something that's totally irrelevant. It's a, he sees it as a waste of his time. Yeah, exactly. trouble and you have to go and do this and it's like, me get through as quickly as possible. And so we see that a lot with, you know, the modules that are, you know, compliance, technical, et cetera. uh I'm curious when it comes to things that are more, you know, soft skills, leadership development, content, do you tend to see people get more excited about that or do you see them kind of still dread that uh as much as they do like a compliance module? I can only speak for my organization really and where I am right now. They are hungry for it. They appreciate it now. Let me rephrase that. I'm not talking digital content. We've had digital content available for years. The in-person and virtual, if in-person is not available, I have programs that have waiting lists, 150 to 200 people long. That's one of the reasons why I love the organization for where I am is they're hungry for learning. And so it's a great learning culture experience. So short answer is yes, I see people very engaged and willing to invest the time. Yeah. And I'm really enjoying seeing a little bit of a resurgence almost of instructor led training or in-person training prop probably in part due to coming out of the pandemic. Um, but seeing people's energy when they show up in a room together, many of whom probably don't even see each other on a daily basis. and really what's able to happen in that room is they're practicing together as they're developing new skills together. It's important because it doesn't only make the learning more effective, but it builds connection, which I um recently on another episode, someone mentioned like, yeah, learning is a connector. Learning is a key part of building that connected culture. So I want to zoom out a little bit because you had pretty significant impact in your organization. And it's also pretty clear just from Clancy's or LinkedIn profile that you've built a pretty powerful platform for yourself. So I always like to ask how have you thought about visibility, thought leadership, and generally using your voice to shape the industry? Michio Kaku, who's a nuclear physicist, once said, knowledge is useless if it's not shared. And so my goal is to share whatever knowledge I gain that has helped me to hopefully help others. But to be honest, I don't think of myself as a thought leader. I'm a practitioner scholar. And that means that I want to stay close to the work because that's where the real insight comes from. I want to be, I want to be rooted in research and education and science, but doing the work. And I don't want to speak in theory or from the sidelines. I want to be in it. Sleeves rolled up. doing the work, wrestling with what's working, what's not, so that when I share something, it's real. It's my personal story. It's relevant, hopefully, to them, depending on the context of where they are in their organization or their journey. And I've been fortunate enough to have a platform, but it takes a lot of work to build. It just doesn't happen. mean, on average, I would say I spend an hour a day, if not more, like for a book launch or something, to build that platform. And I use it to be transparent, to say, here's what we've tried. Here's what we got right. Here's what we didn't. And I share because I believe that in this profession, I want for me personally to be a spark of hope or encouragement. especially when I see so many of us feeling burned out or overlooked or unsure if this is worth it, because it is worth it. However, what we do is hard. It is absolutely hard. There are days where I get frustrated as well and I question. And I have this post-it note that I keep next to my laptop. I don't know if you can see it or not, there it is. And I've had it here for years, not the same one, but different iterations of it. And it says, learning changes lives. And that's what we do. And that's what I want to remind everyone in our profession of, regardless of your functional job title, what we do is change lives. Now it may not feel that way every single day. I have multiple degrees, I've written multiple books, I'm still treated like an order taker from time to time. I'm always dealing with problems, but that's what we do. It's like, imagine a doctor waking up one day and thinking, oh, I hope I don't have any patients to deal with at work. Like that's literally their job is to solve problems every single day. And I'm not trying to equate us to the medical profession, but just using that analogy that for us problems are always going to exist. That's what we do. We're problem solvers. We're solving problems through learning and development, which ultimately allow us to change lives. Thank you. so I'm curious for L&D professionals who want to become that trusted learning advisor and really step confidently into that role, if you could give them one piece of advice, what would it be? You mean besides read the book? It would be starting to shift how you see yourself. You're not just a learning and development practitioner. You're not just an instructional designer. You're not just a facilitator. You're a performance partner. You're a capability builder. You're a driver of growth. But ultimately to be seen as a trusted learning advisor, you have to start acting like one. And that means that you've got to get curious about the business. You have to learn how does your organization make money? How do you ask better questions? How do you focus on what matters most to your stakeholders, not what matters most to us to learning? And it means that you've got to step outside of your comfort zone. Sit in on business meetings, volunteer for cross-functional projects, learn the language of finance and operations. At the end of the day, influence doesn't come from having all the answers, but it comes from showing up with the right mindset, with building trust, with consistently connecting what you do with the business needs. And then lastly, I would say, don't wait for permission. No one's gonna come to you. and ask you to do all of this. This is what we should be doing organically. This is what we should be doing by default. Trusted learning advisors are not appointed. No one's going to anoint you, but they emerge when someone shows they're ready. So if you're busy waiting for somebody to invite you to the table, stop. Build your own table. and invite them to come and sit with you. Thank you so much. That's such a great note to end on. I have one more question though, which is that for folks who want to connect, explore your work, and especially grab a copy of Hidden Value, where should they go to do that? I don't want to promote any specific book organization, so it's available at any book organization of your choice, where you get your books. And in terms of connecting, LinkedIn is a great way to connect. I'd love to share and learn on LinkedIn. You can also check out KeithKeating.com, otherwise LinkedIn. Excellent, and I will throw those links in the show notes as well. Keith, thank you so much for being on here and sharing your wisdom and passion for this work. It's been so valuable for me personally, and I know it is for the listeners as well. My pleasure. Thanks again for creating the space for us to share. Thank you and if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if today's conversation got you thinking about how your own presence online could better reflect your expertise and the caliber of your work, that's exactly the kind of work I help L &D leaders with. So you can check that out at executivebrandbuilder.com. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time on Catalysts.

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