This Week in LxD: Coaching, Belonging, and the Quiet Power of Presence
- marleegeiger
- Jun 2
- 4 min read
Five new stories signal a return to human-centered learning—where connection, reflection, and continuity reshape how we design experiences at work.
This week in LxD, the noise level was lowered. I didn’t look at any flashy platform launches or headline-grabbing AI. Instead, I looked towards stories about something simpler and truer: coaching, connection, and continuity.
I often say that my greatest strength as an LxD designer is being a translator. I take highly complex topics and make them consumable by anyone. But I also protect what’s worth preserving. Trust, reflection, and curiosity are the true human roots of learning, and that’s what I’m looking at this week.
As a leader at Volkswagen Group, Ariadna Masip Pablo didn’t turn to coaching because she needed to fix something; instead, she turned to it because she wanted to listen more deeply to herself, her data, and her team.
Her story was featured this week in the Financial Times and is emblematic of a larger shift in LxD. Executive coaching is no longer a luxury. Nor is it a leadership reward. It’s becoming an integral part of performance design.
What this means for LxD professionals:
I talk a lot about feedback loops. I fell in love with the concept of feedback loops back when I worked at Apple and have taken it with me ever since. But is coaching a loop?
Slow, deliberate, and deeply learner-centered. We have to stop thinking coaching is external to our learning systems. It’s a formative assessment in its purest form, and it works best when it’s scaffolded, not siloed.
After years of Zoom fatigue and asynchronous modules, something surprising is happening in executive education. People want to be in the same room again.
In-person open enrollment programs rose from 14% in 2021 to over 60% in 2024. Some think that it might be because no breakout room will ever replicate the feeling of community, or because sharing a meal with someone will always matter. Conversation isn’t a UX, it’s a practice.
What this means for LxD professionals:
This doesn’t dismiss online learning. Online learning is needed more than ever in a fast-moving society. But it is a reminder that presence can still hold power.
Consulting agency CarringtonCrisp discovered something that seems both obvious and under-acknowledged. Graduates of elite programs want lifelong learning, but they don’t always want to go back to their alma mater to get it. Only about 30% of those they talked to plan to return to their alma mater.
The reasons are also obvious. The offerings feel flat, the price point is high, and the content is generic.
What this means for LxD professionals:
For us in LxD, we are always thinking about designing for “the learner”, but we never think about how we keep the learner. We need to keep being relevant if we want loyalty from our learners. Through material that grows as the learner does.
If you wouldn’t re-enroll in what you just designed, then why would anyone else?
Bias isn’t always obvious, and it can spring up even in well-meaning designs. Sometimes it’s an example we didn’t vet, the scenario we defaulted to, or an image we chose because it “looked clean”.
KWGlobal’s reminder is quiet but vital. The absence of intentional inclusion is a design choice and one that I think we overlook.
What this means for LxD professionals:
Being bias-aware in our design isn’t just about being politically correct; it’s about being pedagogically sound. People show up more fully when they see themselves in the material, and more empathetically when they don’t only see themselves.
As LxD professionals, we need to stop only workshopping this once a year. This needs to be baked into all of our design choices.
Okay, okay. I said I wasn’t looking at AI this week. And ye, this is an article about AI, but not in the usual way.
This week, business schools like ESSEC, Trinity, and Imperial emphasized something radical. They’re teaching AI not just as a tool, but as a cultural inflection point. One that demands ethical fluency, creative thinking, and reflection.
What this means for LxD professionals:
AI can do a lot, and it’s definitely helpful. But it can’t tell us what we should care about; that’s still our job. The real frontier isn’t going to be generating content, it’s going to be shaping agency. That means we’re not just designing learning environments, we’re designing learning philosophies.
And those don’t live in code. They live in questions.
Your Next Step: Reflect, Redesign, Reimagine
This week, the through line wasn’t tech, it was trust. From coaching to classroom presence to bias-aware design. The message is clear. People learn best when they’re seen, supported, and given space.
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