November 20, 2025

Future-Ready Organisations Will Be Nurturers

What does it look like for organizations to invest in their long-term futures, rather than in short-term gains? ​ From today’s teacher, ​Aman Zaidi​

We are excited to welcome Aman Zaidi as this week's guest writer for Mini Lessons! Aman is a former Head of Operations who likes to move his cheese. He moved into Learning & Development, motivated by a strong desire to utilize his Strength of “Developing People”. He has headed business units that employed over 600 people and netted an annual turnover of £ 5 Million. In his workshops, not only do participants experience exceptional facilitation: they get to draw on his practical experience as well.

Today, Aman offers a call to action to leaders to re-center human experiences—despite the allure of centering robots, AI, technology, and profits. We hope you enjoy Aman's interpretation of "student-centered learning" in organizational contexts.

I have a story for you.

​

At 8 years old, Cristiano Ronaldo was playing for Andorinha, a small local club in

his native Madeira. At 10 years of age, talent scouts encouraged him to move to

Nacional, a bigger club with better training facilities so that his abilities could get

the right attention. Another 2 years later, he and his family were persuaded to

leave his island home and move to Sporting in Lisbon, where coaches like László

Bölöni helped hone his talent into the powerhouse he ultimately became.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s story is not only about talent; it is also a story about talent

development. Excellence is as much nurture as it is nature.

​

If corporations desire sustained excellence they may want to embrace the act of

nurturing. Once talent has been identified and put into their role, it is the job of

the system to ensure that the talent is getting everything they need to succeed –

practise, rest, nutrition, coaching, sleep.

​

Some of this is done by the Learning & Development function. However, much of the daily practise and coaching takes place on the job, and is the responsibility of

the line manager. And the rest, sleep, nutrition and healthcare needs get taken

care of when the line manager, department head and the human resource

function put in appropriate policies and ensure that they are adhered to. Raw

talent only turns into sustained excellence when the entire system comes

together like a well-oiled machine supporting talent at every step.

​

For this, we have to reimagine organisations. We cannot think of them as places

whose purpose it is to create creams, cars or code and of people as resources

secondary to that purpose. Instead, we must see organisations as places which

identify, hone and enable talented people into teams that are capable of

delivering outstanding value repeatedly.

​

As part of this endeavour, we also need to reimagine the Learning & Organisation Development practice. The nudge to reimagine organisations as

enablers of human thriving must come from us practitioners. We must help our

colleagues, whose expertise lies in production, finance or sales, to see this

vision. The L&OD function must take on overall responsibility for nurturing – not

just individuals but the entire system.

​

It will require us L&OD professionals to think of ourselves very differently. Not as

order takers or solution providers, but as leaders who will advise our colleagues on the type of organisation we must build in order to attain excellence and stay

relevant.

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Such an organisation will be able to duplicate the seemingly unending talent

pipelines and sustained excellence that the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari,

Manchester United have delivered decade after decade.

​

Remember – Performance is delivered by talent. Talent is nurtured by systems.

Systems are built through intent. We have to bring that intent.

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