The most profound insight I heard this year was this: “If you are on the wrong train, headed in the opposite direction of where you want to go, then speed becomes your enemy.”
As we close out 2025, speed is the defining feature of our industry.
The last year saw exponential leaps: AI reasoning models are becoming indistinguishable from human experts, Quantum computing is moving from theory to application, and virtually unlimited storage prototypes are shifting our concept of data availability. These are not incremental changes; they are cumulative accelerants.
The question for every leader is not, Can we keep up? The question is, Are we accelerating in the right direction?
The Risk of Cognitive Offloading
The great promise of these advancements is enhanced human capability. The current reality, however, is the paradox of Cognitive Atrophy.
We are seeing early signs of misuse where teams and individuals are relying on these powerful systems to do the thinking for them. The intellectual capabilities we seek to augment are actually being outsourced. If systems handle the labor and the cognition, we risk losing the critical judgment, problem diagnosis, and human agency that drives innovation and sustains competitive advantage.
When you cannot distinguish real information from deepfakes, and when the workforce is encouraged to rely on systems for diagnosis, the organizational effect is chaos masked as efficiency. This is the ultimate “wrong train”—we are using tools that amplify output while eroding strategic thinking.
The True Cost of Misalignment
This technological frenzy is the perfect environment for “Solution Smuggling.”
In the noise, L&D teams chase requests, build courses, and plug gaps without a verifiable connection to the business problem. They are working hard, but not always on the right problem. The most significant L&D failure is not a lack of budget or content—it is misalignment stemming from early, un-governed decisions.
If you are moving forward with AI-driven velocity but your training initiative is aimed at the wrong performance gap, you don’t just waste time; you compound the organizational problem faster.
The imperative for L&D leaders is to guide the organization by installing the strategic governance necessary for precision. We must move from being a “content factory” to being a “performance engine.”
Introducing the DOMINO MAP™: Precision in the Age of Acceleration
The sheer pace of technological change demands that we stop guessing and start engineering results. We need an operating system for L&D that is disciplined, auditable, and capable of proving its value.
This is the purpose of the DOMINO MAP™—our strategic alignment system for Learning and Development.
The DOMINO MAP™ is not a gimmick or an instructional design methodology. It is an operating model for precision in L&D.
It has nothing to do with the visual of dominoes falling. Instead, it provides the governance backbone that ensures every investment decision is rooted in evidence and tied directly to the business outcome.
The DOMINO MAP™ provides leaders with the necessary control by:
- Diagnosing: Seeing the true drivers of a performance issue instead of treating symptoms.
- Aligning: Creating a direct, auditable line from the business problem to the learning solution.
- Governing: Maintaining consistency across teams and ensuring every learning experience ladders back to a business objective, not internal preference.
- Proving Value: Producing training that actually changes behavior and performance, giving executives confidence in L&D’s strategic contribution.
The framework removes ambiguity and strengthens strategic judgment, making clean decisions about where AI integration is warranted and where a human-centric intervention is necessary to fortify critical thinking.
A Plan for 2026
The year ahead will bring more acceleration. Your organization’s only defense against being overwhelmed is strategic clarity.
L&D must take the lead. Our mandate is to guide the organization toward its performance goals by ensuring that every training dollar spent is an investment in the correct direction. We must demand an auditable line of sight from business strategy to individual capability.
The DOMINO MAP™ is the framework that makes this discipline possible.
We are entering the year where we stop solution-smuggling and start building performance. Don’t focus on the speed of the train. Focus on the tracks.
