I began this book with a crisis, some worry and some concern. The catharsis of writing has unfortunately done little to assuage this anxiety; indeed seeing it all in black and white has probably only served to heighten my feelings. My concerns were two-fold: the lack of progress in improving the standing of corporate learning, despite significant amounts of effort and activity; and a horrible suspicion that some in the learning field may feel that the difficulties we face are just skin-deep, matters of presentation and positioning.

In the preceding chapters I have made the case against this skin-deep theory of the crisis in corporate learning. I have shown how the stark and painful reality is that from top to toe something is not right. When nearly half of learning functions do not have a clear and mandated mission; when the development of learning solutions is weighed down by traditional academic approaches on the one hand and dazzled by the shiny promises of new technologies on the other; and when only 10 to 15 per cent of learning functions are monitoring the impact of what they do, how could it be otherwise?