L&D can no longer operate within the same boundaries as in the past. As the world and workplace grow more complex, disciplines blur, and learning from others becomes crucial to staying relevant.

We met Bin Sou, Senior Learning & Development Specialist at Printify, earlier this year when he hosted a highly successful case study session at our Leadership Development Fair. What stood out beyond the case study was his focus on new approaches rather than conventional L&D methods. This piqued our interest － what molded him into the L&D he is today?

In this article, we explore how Bin uses experiences from customer support, product management, and life to create impactful L&D programs. His story is filled with practical advice and real-life anecdotes, hopefully inspiring L&D professionals to wander outside their day-to-day.

“This exposure to countless individuals who attempt to understand Wise as a product has helped me establish a nuanced expectation of typical things that make sense to people. It has helped me considerably to get a head start when it comes to learning design before I present it to my stakeholders for the first time.”

Read on! I’ll let Bin take over and explain how he navigates his career so far, and the lessons he learned and later applied to L&D.

Turning customer support experience into L&D gold

Lesson 1: A deep understanding of stakeholder operations enhances the effectiveness of L&D programs

My first proper L&D role was that of a Training Specialist for a B2B customer support team. When I started, I was eager to improve the pre-existing training process and felt I knew exactly how. Although I lacked formal training in fields like organizational psychology, I was confident in my intuitive sense of what needed change. I had many ideas, such as introducing more frequent and realistic opportunities to practice difficult phone conversations.

However, upon starting my role, I quickly realized that my stakeholders—customer support managers—weren’t very interested in my ideas. They were more concerned with how well-organized my “source of truth” Google Sheets were and the clarity on topics covered during the three-week training program.

A few months in, I was frustrated and scared. I sensed that I was losing the unspoken “vote of confidence.” Each time I tried to reach out on Slack, I felt like talking to a digital vacuum. My posts stood there cold without reaction or comments. While I sat behind the monitor in the comfort of my room, I felt exposed.

I was ready to quit and look for another opportunity until a senior team manager kindly reached out to me. I remember our first meeting well. She initiated, “I’m gonna be honest—things are not going well.” She then explained the lack of communication and trust between the managers and me and outlined her plan to fix it. Things turned around for the better after we spent half a day exchanging operational details. I learned how customer support operated: the number of agents stationed per hour per channel, how to communicate when pulling agents away from their shifts, why they needed to know when trainee agents would finish the process, and why they cared so much about the Google Sheet.

Since that meeting, slowly but surely, our working relationship improved. At first, it was actually like learning a new language. And this language was very different from the ones I spoke. I was fluent in “experiential learning” or  “reflection to action” but they were fluent in “number of agents stationed per hour”, and “number of agents ready to pick up a phone call per month.” And, at first, learning their language and priorities, felt bitter.  I felt like they were missing the whole point of what learning is about. But, over a period of time, I spoke the customer support operations language as fluently as they did.

The value of learning their language paid off concretely when Customer Support Managers were venturing into the unknown themselves. As the client base for Wise grew, they saw the need to outsource simpler cases to agents abroad. And, before they could put outsourced agents on duty, they needed to be trained. As we worked together, I demonstrated that I knew the operations relevant to the project as well as they did. And, as I gained their trust by demonstrating my familiarity with their priorities,  they were open to my ideas, paying attention a bit more to the learner experience (e.g. extending lunch break to 1 hour). They saw my priorities as their own too. At last, I was their learning business partner.

As Learning specialists, we often find ourselves trapped in a cycle of feeling underappreciated and overburdened by our stakeholders. And the burden to initiate steps towards them seems to be always on us. It’s a two-way street, isn’t it? Not to mention their indifference towards priorities typical in the L&D world. This can tempt the most saintly L&D specialist to adopt a condescending attitude, “they don’t know what they’re talking about.” However, we must fight this attitude at all costs because, in my view, it contradicts the essence of learning.

To underscore this point, I want to mention a quote by philosopher Esther Meek that I recently encountered: “If knowing is care at its core, caring leads to knowing.” While I acknowledge that knowing and learning are not identical, I believe it's reasonable to substitute "knowing" with "learning." If learning is care at its core, caring leads to learning. Therefore, when we endeavor to facilitate learning for our clients and stakeholders, how can we achieve this without first caring for them?

Lesson 2: Acknowledging emotions is just as important (if not more) as the transactional part of an experience

As a customer support agent, you're tasked with facilitating productive and pleasant conversations that solve customers' problems. Security protocols, identifying the issue, and presenting a relevant solution are implicit. However, a successful call is one where the conversation is both emotionally and practically productive. Achieving both in a single call is challenging when dealing with consecutive calls from strangers with whom you share minimal context. I aim for customers to trust Wise more through this experience and to resolve any issues caused by our service.

As L&D specialists, especially as facilitators, we face similar challenges. We have defined learning objectives but depend on collaboration for success. Managing content, administering activities, and keeping schedules require logistical gymnastics, yet we must reserve space to prioritize learners' emotional experiences. How do we ensure their curiosity and safety? When learners share vulnerable experiences related to the topic, how do we respond appropriately to the gravity of their pain?

Through countless calls, I've observed an unexpected phenomenon. Sometimes, due to banking regulations, I can't resolve the issue prompting the customer's call. Truth be told, in such situations, there is nothing I can do to fix the problem at hand. While my hands are legally tied, my emotional (soft skills) are not. I may not resolve the transaction issue or guarantee a deposit's arrival date, but I can acknowledge the customer's problem and empathetically listen to their concerns. Although I didn’t play the role of a therapist, customers can find the experience therapeutic.

Similarly, for L&D specialists encountering complex problems with layered business and relational contexts, clear-cut solutions are rare. When a learner openly shares a problem they're facing during a learning session, I pause, bite my tongue, and resist the urge to panic. It's evident that I can't solve this problem. Yet, I remind myself that solving their problems isn't my role at that moment. Simply acknowledging a problem as a facilitator adds value for learners. It may seem minor, but for them, it affirms their ability to perceive and evaluate situations accurately. This affirmation can motivate learners to resolve the situation independently.

Embracing a product-first mindset

Lesson 1: Learners, just like product customers, are on the lookout for coherent experiences

My job was identifying the learning gap, providing information, and giving steps to execute the task. Customers needed a comprehensive understanding of the product, not just the features they would use. Before price, speed, and convenience, coherence was the first hurdle. Customers had to understand the product to take action. With Wise, they wanted to feel like rational decision-makers, needing to know how features connected, how Wise compared to traditional solutions, and why it had certain features.

Based on my experience, the “How does it work?” questions took the longest. We even had a whole category for them.  For example, I recall facilitating the learning process of an elderly customer. She needed to understand that physical interactions (visiting the bank, checks) were not necessary for a secure and efficient transfer. This phone call took more than an hour. For these customers, my job was to identify the learning gap and provide enough information to address the gap. In a way, I was helping them find the missing piece that left them “puzzled.”  In such a way, Wise, while it’s a financial transaction, was a psychological experience. Before the customer wanted to make a decision as a rational agent, they wanted to feel like a rational agent.

Exposure to such cases taught me to prioritize a sense of agency for our learners. Imagine being asked to get into a car, not being told where you’re headed, why you’re headed there, and how long the trip would take. I would guess that such an experience resembles those being kidnapped. But, when we’re not careful, while we may not be kidnapping them, we may give our learners a similar experience. Learners may never ask, but, they need to know what will happen, when it will happen, why it happens, with whom it happens, and why the group was chosen.

For example, recently, I made the decision to deliver training to a sales team through a 1-hour session on Tuesday morning and another session on Thursday afternoon over a period of a month. I foresaw that this wasn’t what they expected based on their experience with the L&D team. Therefore, during our kick-off session, I took the time to explain that this setup allows for this learning opportunity to be minimally invasive to their day-to-day routine. And, on Thursday afternoon, we can unpack the full implications of the content covered earlier that week. When they heard this thought spelled out, I saw them relax and nod along to what I had to say. I interpret this to be them positively responding with their restored sense of agency in this foreign learning design landscape. They feel safer to explore and connect with me and others.

Lesson 2: Co-creation of experiences increases the ownership & engagement both in product and in learning

A couple of years after leaving Wise, I remember running into a former stakeholder of mine who still works there. Our conversation of catching up with one another bled into a conversation of how the product is doing - how many features are added, the things it’s able to do vs not able to do, how fast the product grew, etc. As I walked away from the interaction, it oddly felt like he was updating me about our niece.

I don’t think comparing the pattern of the conversation between the colleague and me to a conversation between two uncles is a stretch. We compare our work to the labor that’s gone into raising a child quite often. Marie Curie is known as the mother of radioactivity. I often heard my colleague refer to his project as his “brainchild.” Like so, we find that only parenthood as an analogy does justice to the efforts, stress, and hours that went into the work.

Then, when a stakeholder and I create something together, that work is our child. And, in the context of that particular task, project, or process, we are bound together. After all, this is an analogy so when the work is done, we’re free to go on our way. But, that experience of giving birth to, nurturing, and tending after the work is a genuinely rewarding and worthy experience.

In Learning and Development, the priorities of my stakeholders are just as important as my learning and development priorities.  While I may be the expert, I see all good attempts of collaboration as co-creation that require full participation on both sides.  I may draft the learning objectives but I want my “client”  to inform and review them. I may propose to do the asynchronously with good reasons but I want to hear my stakeholder’s perception of this proposal. This certainly risks giving away a certain amount of control and even worse losing control over the project that I’m responsible for. Like a parent, growing as a learning professional means learning to discern when to invite their agency or to drive the process forward without their input. Despite its ambiguity, I still see this as a worthy challenge that results in truly our learning product.

Drawing lessons from the world around and world within

Lesson 1: Being picky with the people you pay attention to, because they will influence your vision of the world

We no longer hunt for content; we are fed content. Platforms like YouTube, driven by hyper-analyzed algorithms, often know our content palette better than we do. While I’m not familiar with all the factors they consider, I know my actions—scrolling speed, clicks, likes, comments, subscriptions—shape the quality of my feed.

I view the relationship between content feed and content consumption as akin to the relationship between soil and crops. Creating fertile soil for crops is more challenging than urban dwellers might appreciate; rich soil necessitates a mix of organic and inorganic nutrients. Similarly, when I consume content, I remind myself that I’m not just absorbing information into an inconsequential abyss; it’s becoming the soil that nurtures my thoughts. And, much like in agriculture, good soil yields robust crops. Likewise, thoughtfully curated content leads to quality thoughts.

But why should learning professionals bother with such self-discipline? Because I believe that while L&D experts may not be subject matter experts in every field, they can become content connoisseurs who set standards for clients or companies. In a world of endless learning opportunities, this role offers the chance to establish benchmarks for what's considered gourmet, premium, overpriced, or budget-friendly—a remarkable opportunity.

As an L&D specialist, I have a responsibility to continually refine my palate. Similar to a sommelier who discerns much about a wine from a single sip, I aim to grasp the implications of an idea from a brief encounter. This approach assumes that I maintain a personal criteria for quality and a drive to explore the vast realm of learning. And, ultimately, I can serve as a guide to our clients.

Lesson 2: North Stars can be helpful in navigating unpredictability and reducing risks

Following the North Star can seem as unrealistic as "follow your passions." L&D specialists face constant uncertainty and often struggle to establish themselves as strategic business partners. Projects are frequently discarded due to cost cuts or lack of stakeholder support. However, we're not just order takers. Even if we're not recognized as strategic partners, we can act like one. But how do we navigate unfavorable power dynamics, financial uncertainties, and shifting priorities?

We navigate and stay oriented by focusing on our north stars. To illustrate, I want to share the north stars I’ve followed to launch a project to assess leadership practices at my current company.

Leadership Culture Health Check

I developed the "Leadership Culture Health Check (LCHC)," a tool that diagnoses leadership practices by asking managers and their teams 12 questions about the frequency of positive leadership behaviors. At the end of the cycle, we provide a report with the team's average score and the difference between the manager's self-assessment and the team average (the self-awareness score).

However, when I started the project, I didn’t know what the result might look like. But I did know a few things. I wanted the assessment to be an honest opportunity for leaders to grow. To achieve this, the assessment tool needed to be credible, create intrapersonal tension within a manager, maintain a descriptive tone, and prompt a genuine encounter between a manager and the team.

Northstar 1: Credible

For the tool to be insightful, it needed to be a reliable indicator of a leader’s performance. Ensuring a watertight process—covering participation rates, the questionnaire, and the report—was crucial to prevent skepticism.

Northstar 2: Descriptive

In our undergraduate studies, the distinction between description and prescription was crucial. A descriptive statement is "this chair is red," while a prescriptive statement is "this chair should be red." As an L&D specialist, I’ve found that specific, nuanced descriptions with implicit prescriptions work best. Thus, I crafted questionnaire questions to start with "How often does your manager..." For example, "How often does your manager communicate the team's vision?" This approach emphasizes frequency (description) while implying the behavior is desirable (prescription). The leadership framework turns prescriptive "shoulds" into descriptive "is" statements, making descriptive statements powerful for presenting ideas.

Northstar 3: Tension

By tension, I mean an internal one, not interpersonal, though there was some of that too. Building on the North Star of credibility, a trustworthy process leads managers to conclude, “this report is about me and my leadership practices.” This understanding encourages leaders to ask growth-oriented questions. For instance, a senior product manager might think, “What can I learn from this?” This creates an ideal internal tension: either ignore the report (which isn't feasible since it’s shared with their manager) or move forward and grow.

Northstar 4: Encounter

Leadership impacts people, and change as a leader comes through genuine encounters with those you lead. To support this, the report includes self-assessment scores, team average scores, and the difference between the two, known as the self-awareness score. This gap highlights the difference between a manager's perception and their team's perception, encouraging exploration beyond typical interactions. Genuine dialogue between both sides is essential for finding sustainable solutions, as neither has all the answers alone.

Yet, as an L&D specialist, I know this is not natural nor easy to do without encouragement. This is where the Leadership Development comes in after the report has been sent out. Through a 90-minute session, I ask reflective questions that follow the reflective model, “what, so what, and now what.” Here are a few examples:

• Reflect on the past few months. What has it been like for me as a team lead? What has it been like for my team?
• So what could I have done differently to get a more desirable outcome?
• Now what does my team need to hear from me at this point?

My aim, or a Northstar, of this particular post-report session, is to ensure that they’re able to truly encounter each other’s honest opinions of one another.

The funny thing about using North Stars as an analogy or technique is that they are never the destination of the journey. When a sailor sets out on the open sea, the goal is not to reach the stars but to land on the other side of the ocean. Locals at the destination will not appreciate the sailor’s North Star. The investors in the trip will only care that the sailor arrived, and the residents at the destination may not even notice the sailor’s arrival. In fact, they may not welcome the sailor at all. But the sailor knows that the North Star guided him there. While the star was never the destination, the journey has been all about it.

Your lessons learned from Bin’s story

Meeting people and learning about their journeys it’s not beautiful just because. It’s beautiful because you get to unpack what makes them who they are, what makes them successful, and maybe steal a bit of their playbook for yourself.

Here’s a recap of the 6 lessons we learned from Bin:

• A deep understanding of stakeholder operations enhances the effectiveness of L&D programs
• Acknowledging emotions is just as important (if not more) as the transactional part of an experience
• Learners, just like product customers, are on the lookout for coherent experiences
• Co-creation of experiences increases the ownership & engagement both in product and in learning
• Being picky with the people you pay attention to, because they will influence your vision of the world
• North Stars can be helpful in navigating unpredictability and reducing risks

We hope you’ll take away at least one lesson and apply it to your own world.