How the Assumptive Yes Helps L&D Leaders Stop Waiting for Permission with Melissa Kruminas of Litmos
In this episode of the Learning Leader Spotlight, guest host Kara Kirby speaks with Melissa Kruminas, Vice President of Learning Experience and Enablement at Litmos. Their conversation explores how learning leaders can elevate their role from delivering training to driving measurable business outcomes.
Throughout the discussion, Melissa shares lessons from her own career journey, perspectives on influence and leadership, and practical ways learning professionals can increase their organizational impact. The conversation also highlights emerging trends shaping the future of learning and development, including learning in the flow of work, AI enabled support, and the enduring value of human connection.
Melissa’s career spans learning and enablement leadership roles, with experience ranging from software implementation and training to corporate learning, sales enablement, and customer education. Her path into learning was unconventional. She began in asset management at Fruit of the Loom, where she trained employees on software systems and discovered a passion for helping people learn and perform. Over time, that interest evolved into a broader focus on organizational capability, business performance, and leadership influence. Today, she leads learning within a learning technology company, bringing both practitioner experience and strategic insight to the field.
Learning Must Be Measured by Outcomes, Not Activities
One of the strongest themes of the conversation is the distinction between delivering training and generating business results.
Melissa describes how Six Sigma training early in her career fundamentally changed her understanding of learning and development. Rather than simply completing a course, participants were required to apply concepts to real business challenges and demonstrate measurable financial impact. She recalls a project that generated $70,000 in cost savings, an experience that reinforced the connection between learning and business performance.
This perspective continues to shape how she views the role of learning teams. Too often, success is measured by outputs such as training completion, attendance, or custom content production. While these activities matter, they do not represent the ultimate goal.
Instead, Melissa argues that learning leaders should focus on the outcomes their initiatives create. The question is not whether training was delivered, but whether employees became more effective, processes improved, or business objectives were achieved.
She also connects this idea to objective and key result frameworks, noting that effective goals should focus on results rather than activities. For learning leaders, this requires moving beyond participation metrics and demonstrating organizational value through measurable performance improvement.
Learning Trends Shaping the Future
The Role of Learning Leaders Is
to Enable Success, Not Be the Hero
Another recurring theme centers on the mindset shift required for learning professionals to maximize their impact.
Melissa uses familiar mentoring archetypes such as Yoda and Dumbledore to illustrate the point. In many organizations, learning professionals can become focused on the quality of the training itself or the expertise required to create it. While craftsmanship matters, success ultimately belongs to the learners and teams who apply what they learn.
Rather than positioning themselves as the center of the story, learning leaders should focus on helping others become successful.
This perspective reinforces the idea that learning exists in service of larger organizational goals. Employees participate in training because they want to perform better, solve problems, build skills, and achieve results. The training itself is simply a mechanism for enabling those outcomes.
Melissa also notes that marketing teams provided an important lesson in this area. Effective marketers focus intensely on understanding their audience’s needs, goals, and challenges. Learning teams can benefit from adopting a similar mindset by beginning with learner needs and business problems instead of starting with content creation.
Influence Is a Critical Leadership
Skill for L&D Professionals
A pivotal moment in Melissa’s career came when a sales leader bluntly told her, “It’s no wonder no one listens to you.”
Although the comment was difficult to hear, it forced her to confront an important leadership challenge. Expertise in learning theory alone is not enough to create change. Learning professionals must also be able to influence stakeholders, build credibility, and gain organizational support.
Melissa explains that this realization prompted her to become more intentional about developing leadership and influence skills. She had already completed a master’s program in organizational leadership, but the experience reinforced that understanding leadership concepts and applying them effectively are not the same thing.
The conversation highlights a challenge many learning professionals face. They often create valuable programs but struggle to generate engagement, adoption, or support. As organizations become increasingly complex, influence becomes essential for securing alignment and driving meaningful change.
For Melissa, learning leaders have a responsibility to move beyond designing solutions and actively advocate for the business outcomes those solutions support.
Learning Professionals Should Stop Asking for Permission
One of the most practical discussions in the episode focuses on empowerment and communication.
Melissa recalls advice from a former chief people officer who encouraged her to stop asking for permission. She has observed that learning professionals sometimes position themselves as service providers waiting for approval rather than strategic partners helping solve business challenges.
According to Melissa, training is only one tool available to a learning leader. When teams view themselves primarily as training providers, they may hesitate to recommend broader organizational changes or performance solutions.
To address this, she shares a communication technique she calls the “assumptive yes.”
Using an example from sales training, she explains that instead of asking whether employees should attend a training session, learning leaders can frame the conversation around how best to ensure participation. Rather than seeking permission for the initiative itself, the discussion becomes a collaborative effort to determine the most effective implementation strategy.
The approach shifts the conversation from justification to partnership. It communicates confidence, establishes credibility, and positions learning professionals as advisors who are helping the organization achieve desired outcomes.
Performance Consulting Models:
Progress Over Perfection
in a Rapidly Changing Environment
Melissa also addresses a common challenge within learning organizations: the pursuit of perfection.
She argues that learning teams can become so focused on designing comprehensive, highly polished programs that they delay delivering value. In today’s business environment, where priorities and capabilities evolve quickly, lengthy development cycles may reduce relevance by the time a solution launches.
To illustrate the concept, she shares an analogy from a mentor. Ideally, organizations would always be able to provide a five-star dining experience. In reality, learners are often hungry now and need practical support immediately.
The goal is not to provide low-quality learning. Instead, it is to deliver useful, timely solutions that help employees perform effectively. Sometimes a well-designed “slice of pizza” creates more value than a perfect learning experience that arrives too late.
This philosophy reflects the growing need for agility within learning and development. As organizations face accelerating change, speed, relevance, and responsiveness increasingly become competitive advantages.
The Future of Learning Is Finally Becoming Reality
When discussing future trends, Melissa offers a perspective that is both optimistic and grounded.
Rather than predicting entirely new developments, she suggests that many concepts discussed for years are finally becoming operational realities.
A notable example is learning in the flow of work. While the concept has existed for over a decade, organizations now have technologies that make it more attainable. Melissa points to learning experiences embedded directly within workplace tools such as Microsoft Teams and Salesforce, enabling employees to access support at the moment of need.
The conversation also explores the impact of artificial intelligence. Melissa notes that learning technology providers are increasingly building AI-powered capabilities that allow employees to ask questions and surface relevant information in real time.
Although AI can accelerate access to information and support learning delivery, she emphasizes an even broader implication: AI is changing the pace of work itself. As a result, organizations must continuously adapt skills and capabilities.
Melissa describes this phenomenon as “capability erosion,” where previously valuable skills become less relevant over time. This creates an ongoing need for reskilling, adaptability, and continuous learning.
Practical Takeaways for L&D and Business Leaders
Focus reporting on business impact
Learning metrics become more meaningful when linked to organizational results. Leaders can evaluate programs based on performance improvements, operational outcomes, or business value rather than participation rates alone.
Build influence alongside learning expertise
Strong instructional design and learning science remain important, but stakeholder influence and communication skills are equally critical for driving adoption and change.
Approach leaders as strategic partners
Conversations with business stakeholders can focus on solving organizational challenges rather than requesting approval to deliver training. This positions learning teams as advisors rather than order takers.
Prioritize timely solutions
Organizations benefit when learning teams balance quality with speed. Practical, useful support delivered at the right moment may create more value than highly complex programs developed over extended periods.
Embrace learning within the workflow
As technology improves, employees increasingly expect support to be embedded within the systems they already use. Learning strategies can account for this shift by reducing friction and increasing accessibility.
Resources, Models, and Tools Mentioned
- Leading in the Age of AI by Dr. Brigette Hyacinth
- Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More With Less – by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz
Closing Reflection
Melissa Kruminas presents a vision of learning and development that extends far beyond course creation and training delivery. Her perspective emphasizes influence, business alignment, learner-centered thinking, and measurable organizational impact.
As technology continues to accelerate change, the conversation suggests that the most effective learning leaders will be those who connect capability building directly to performance while remaining adaptable, strategic, and focused on helping others succeed.
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