Spending time with other learning leaders at the LTEN Learning Executive Forum this year, I kept coming back to a simple but uncomfortable realization: We’re all really good at designing effective programs.
But the work in front of us now is bigger than that. It’s not just about what we build. It’s about the system we’re building, and whether that system can consistently create value.
That’s a higher bar. And it requires a different mindset.
Flexible Innovation
This year’s forum was held prior to the LTEN 2026 Annual Conference in Kissimmee, Fla. The Disney Institute team helped welcome the learning executives to the events with a day focused on innovating the Disney way.
One idea that stuck with me, especially through the lens of Disney’s creativity framework, is that innovation isn’t an event. It’s a cycle. And not a clean one.
It doesn’t move neatly from idea to execution. It loops. It evolves. It doubles back. There’s imagination, but also testing, refining, expanding, and just as importantly, stepping back in to rework what no longer fits.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how often we still treat learning as linear: define the need, build the solution, launch it, measure it and move on.
But nothing about the environments we support is linear anymore. Strategy is shifting faster. Roles are evolving in real time. The half-life of relevance is shrinking.
So, the question shifts, from how we design a great intervention to how we stay in motion: how we build something that adapts alongside the business.
Creativity in Context
Another idea that resonated: everyone is creative.
That’s rarely the issue, especially in learning & development. The real constraint is the environment we create: the signals we send, the space we allow (or don’t) and the friction we unintentionally introduce.
In that sense, the role of a learning leader is changing. We’re not just shaping content. We’re shaping context.
We influence whether ideas move or stall, whether teams engage or disengage and whether something sticks, or simply passes through.
What Disney Gets Right Isn’t Just Creativity. It’s Discipline (and Belief)
The Galaxy’s Edge example made this clear.
It’s easy to look at something like Disney’s 14-acre immersive Star Wars world and think this is creativity at its best. But what’s actually behind it is discipline, clarity, consistency and intentionality at a level most organizations don’t sustain.
There’s a clear narrative guiding every decision. Nothing feels disconnected. The experience works because the vision holds.
The people delivering it aren’t just trained. They’re invested. Disney calls this “canteening,” a sense of belief and ownership that elevates execution beyond a checklist.
And importantly, it’s never treated as finished. It’s continuously refined and evolved. That’s part of the model, not a signal it wasn’t right the first time.
The Shift
What I’m hearing more, and feeling myself, is a shift from designing solutions to orchestrating systems.
Less about building standalone programs and more about ensuring everything connects:
- Strategy to experience.
- Experience to the team.
- The team back to outcomes.
It’s not without friction. But if we aim for this level of connection in how we work, the possibility to get there feels closer than ever.
Innovation Scales When People See Themselves in It
If there’s one thread that kept coming up at the Learning Executive Forum, it’s this: Innovation scales when people see themselves in it.
Not abstractly, but in a practical way. They understand the "why." They feel ownership. They have room to shape what it becomes, and believe it’s possible.
Final Thought
As we come out of the 2026 Learning Executive Forum, this feels like a moment to pause and ask: Are we designing programs, or are we designing systems that consistently produce value?
Because if learning is becoming the operating system for how organizations adapt, and I believe it is, then what we build must move. It must evolve. It must connect.
And it must create the conditions for something bigger than the program itself.
I’d challenge each of us to believe in what’s possible, intentionally create the right environment and build a learning ecosystem that can keep pace with the speed of change.