Years ago, when I began my career in corporate organization development, I was told by a wise mentor, “You will soon find that in our line of business there are 1,000 questions and, oddly enough, only 500 answers. Everything comes around again, eventually.” 

Being an enthusiastic beginner at the time, and with The Karate Kid still fresh in my mind, I didn’t give the statement much thought. To me, it was my mentor’s lame attempt to sound like Mr. Miyagi and offer his own version of the wise martial arts teacher’s “wax on, wax off” speech. 

However, as I moved through my career and had the good fortune to participate in a variety of organizational initiatives that ranged from wildly entrepreneurial and creative to staunchly protocol-driven, I began to appreciate the wisdom of my mentor’s words. 

In anticipation of our upcoming session at the ATD 2016 International Conference & Exposition, From Silos to Synergy: A Journey to Best-in-Class Associate Education, my team and I are eager to share a few of the “1,000 questions” we have encountered on our collaborative journey to create what we envision will become a world-class talent development function within our organization. And, in doing so, we may even provide some of the “500 answers” we’ve shared with one another, which collectively have helped us better serve our fellow associates over the last 18 months. 

We hope that by sharing our journey—and by learning from attendees and fellow speakers—we will, together, depart from this year’s conference having not only challenged our collective thought processes, but also brought to light new and exciting interpretations of the answers that lie within each of us.