Making the Impossible Possible: L&D’s Path to
Workforce Transformation with Nicole Kramer of Mars
Learning and development is moving beyond the traditional role of creating courses and delivering training. In this episode of the Learning Leaders Spotlight, Nicole Kramer explores how AI, changing ways of working, and closer connections between people, technology, and business strategy are expanding the role of L&D into workforce enablement. Her perspective centers on a significant opportunity for learning leaders: rather than responding to change after it happens, they can help organizations redesign work, build capabilities, connect previously separate functions, and prepare people to execute business strategy in an increasingly technology-enabled environment.
Nicole Kramer is Senior Manager of Capabilities Building at Mars, where she leads capability building within the strategic planning organization for the food service away-from-home business at Mars Snacking. Her role involves translating business direction into the capabilities and new ways of working employees need, connecting people, processes, and technology to simplify work and performance development.
Nicole brings more than 20 years of business experience spanning sales, marketing, operations, route planning, innovation, and learning and development, with experience at Dean Foods, Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, and Mars. Over the last six years, her work has focused more deeply on organizational capability and transformation, supported by a master’s degree in organizational leadership and learning.
L&D is shifting from training delivery
to performance enablement
One of the clearest changes Nicole sees is the movement away from treating training as the default solution to every business problem.
Traditionally, when organizations encountered a performance challenge, the response was often some version of, “What training do we need?” Nicole argues that learning leaders now have a much broader set of questions to consider.
A performance issue might indeed result from a knowledge gap, but it could also stem from an inefficient process, inadequate technology, poorly structured data, unclear decision rights, a workflow that needs redesign, or an organization struggling with change. Understanding the actual barrier is becoming more important than immediately creating custom content.
That shift positions L&D closer to business transformation. The objective is not simply whether someone has completed a learning experience, but whether people can perform differently and whether the organization can execute its strategy more effectively.
Nicole captures this broader purpose in a phrase that emerged from a recent conversation with a business leader who repeatedly described a challenge as impossible: “I’m here to make the impossible possible.”
For her, that means unpacking seemingly insurmountable problems, connecting dots across the organization, and determining how technology and new ways of working can remove barriers.
AI is changing both how people
learn and how work gets done
Nicole sees AI as an accelerator of the transition from conventional L&D toward capability building and transformation.
AI can help employees approach unfamiliar topics, develop knowledge for new projects, complete tasks more quickly, and explore perspectives that previously might have required substantial experience or specialized support. As a result, the boundary between learning and doing is becoming less distinct.
That has implications for how learning experiences are designed. Instead of requiring employees to stop working, attend a learning intervention, and then return to apply what they learned, organizations increasingly have opportunities to embed learning directly within the workflow.
Nicole compares the current moment to the impact of the printing press. Her point is not that the technologies are identical, but that technological change can dramatically alter access to information and how people engage with knowledge. AI similarly creates opportunities to rethink established processes and redesign work.
The technical capability, however, is only one side of the equation. Nicole identifies bringing people along through change management and change leadership as a central challenge. Organizations need to connect the human, business, and technology dimensions of transformation rather than treating AI adoption solely as a technology initiative.
Traditional organizational boundaries
are becoming less useful
Nicole expects learning leaders to become connectors across areas that historically may have operated separately.
One boundary is between learning and work. AI and other workplace technologies increasingly allow employees to learn while completing the task in front of them.
Another is between L&D and technology. Nicole sees an opportunity for L&D teams and IT or technology partners to establish much closer relationships as technology becomes embedded in how capabilities are developed and work is performed.
A third is between capability building and business strategy. Nicole’s own position within a strategic planning organization reflects this connection. If learning and capability functions are increasingly evaluated according to their contribution to execution, they need a clear understanding of what the business is attempting to accomplish.
The strategic question therefore becomes broader than “What do employees need to learn?” It becomes: What does this organization need to be capable of doing to execute its strategy and compete in the future?
That reframing moves L&D from the edge of strategic planning closer to the mechanisms through which strategy becomes performance.
Workforce transformation will
require multidisciplinary teams
Looking five to 10 years ahead, Nicole anticipates roles increasingly centered on business transformation, workforce transformation, AI enablement, and enterprise AI enablement.
Her personal “north star” is a chief of workforce transformation role at an enterprise level. She expects rapid technological advancement to continue disrupting organizations, creating a need not simply to deploy technology but to help entire workforces understand it, adopt it, and develop new capabilities around it.
The teams supporting that work may look considerably different from traditional L&D organizations.
Nicole envisions the need for change leadership, expertise in learning, an engineering or technical perspective, and potentially a creative role. The creative perspective is particularly notable. She sees value in including someone who may not have deep experience in the organization’s industry and can therefore question established assumptions, introduce outside perspectives, and approach challenges with curiosity.
This multidisciplinary view reflects the wider evolution she describes throughout the conversation: capability building increasingly sits at the intersection of people, business processes, technology, strategy, and organizational development.
Curiosity and systems thinking
are becoming leadership capabilities
Asked about the skills required for the future, Nicole emphasizes curiosity, particularly what she describes as “disciplined curiosity.”
For learning and business leaders, curiosity is not simply being interested in new ideas. It means systematically asking questions that reveal why work happens the way it does, what barriers have prevented progress, and which assumptions may no longer apply.
Technology can support that process by helping leaders identify different perspectives and formulate better questions, while human judgment remains essential to interpreting what those questions mean within a specific business context.
Nicole connects this mindset to an important lesson from leaders who influenced her career. They encouraged her to look beyond the work directly in front of her and understand the larger system surrounding it.
Questions such as “What problems are we really trying to solve?” “Who do they affect?” “How do we scale this?” and “What’s next for the business?” help shift attention from individual deliverables toward organizational impact.
Her leadership philosophy follows the same principle. Rather than waiting to receive the next title before operating at a higher level, professionals can begin developing the perspective, behaviors, and leadership capabilities that the next level requires.
Practical Takeaways for L&D and Business Leaders
Diagnose before prescribing training
When a performance problem emerges, training can be considered alongside other possible causes and solutions. Leaders can examine whether the issue involves knowledge, process, technology, data, workflow, decision clarity, or readiness for change.
This broader diagnosis can help L&D focus resources where learning genuinely adds value while identifying situations where redesigning the work itself may have greater impact.
Connect capability priorities directly to strategy
Capability planning can begin with organizational objectives rather than a list of courses or competencies. The practical question is what people and teams must be able to do differently for the strategy to succeed.
This orientation also gives L&D a clearer basis for demonstrating business value. Capability building becomes part of strategy execution rather than a separate activity that follows strategic decisions.
Build stronger partnerships between L&D and technology
As AI and other tools become embedded in everyday work, closer cooperation between learning and technology functions becomes increasingly relevant. Learning leaders bring understanding of behavior, capability, audience needs, and adoption, while technology partners contribute expertise in the systems enabling new ways of working.
Nicole’s perspective suggests that the opportunity lies in connecting these disciplines rather than asking either one to drive transformation alone.
Design learning closer to the workflow
When employees can access assistance and develop capability while completing real tasks, formal learning no longer has to carry the full burden of capability development.
Leaders can therefore consider where learning needs to remain a distinct experience and where technology can support learning in the flow of work. The goal is not simply faster learning. It is bringing learning and performance closer together.
Develop an intentional learning ecosystem
Nicole describes getting industry information from multiple sources rather than relying on one channel. Her ecosystem includes podcasts, organizational research, books, conversations with practitioners, dinners, virtual discussions with learning leaders around the world, and social learning platforms.
She is applying that approach while learning the food service business, an area she says is newer to her after a career largely centered on retail grocery. The example illustrates disciplined curiosity in practice: building expertise through multiple sources and perspectives rather than assuming existing experience will transfer automatically.
Resources and Tools Mentioned
Closing Reflection
Nicole Kramer’s perspective points toward an L&D function that is increasingly intertwined with strategy, technology, workflow design, change leadership, and business transformation. As AI expands what people and organizations can do, the strategic value of learning leaders may depend less on how much content they create and more on their ability to diagnose performance needs, connect disciplines, cultivate curiosity, and help people adapt to new ways of working.
The larger message is that learning leaders do not need to wait for future roles or titles to begin making that transition. Thinking at the level of the whole system, asking bigger questions, and connecting capability to business execution can begin with the work they are already doing today.
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