"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

-- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) speech prepared for delivery in Dallas the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963

Each year´s end I develop a prediction list for the next year. This year will be no exception. So here you have it, my neck out on the line as I make my Top Five Predictions for Learning in 2006:

5. Learning professionals will be forced to learn the language of the CFO (risk and return) in order to communicate their role in attaining strategic priorities.

4. The ROI initiative in Learning Organizations will stall mid-flight until it is finally connected securely to individual goals and objectives. We are dealing with people with "choice," not machines.

3. Human Capital concepts will grow in their popularity as a competitive strategic advantage in our knowledge economy.

2. Outsourcing of all tactical learning initiatives will continue to be the modus operandi for organizations as they seek to focus on their core competencies and bring in the specialists. This will require a new set of "filters" for screening external sources and will result in more lean and agile organizations.

1. The most successful organizations will invest in change initiatives that strategically align human capital and learning initiatives with performance and job impact data and ultimately with business goals and objectives. This task will be a multiple year project and will serve to vet the appropriate and inappropriate learning activities. The result will be a culture of learning and innovation with improved performance indicators, impact on the job, and the successful attainment of business goals.