Does Saying “No” Damage L&D’s Reputation?

Most L&D pros know the truth: saying yes to every training request isn’t the wisest move. It stretches our already-limited resources and keeps us reacting instead of partnering. Not to mention that every time we say “yes” and deliver a beautiful learning product exactly as requested, we reinforce to our stakeholders that “this is how you work with us.” You ask and we deliver, just like any good order-taker relationship.

Yet, even when we know better, many teams hesitate. The fear runs deep.

“If we start pushing back, stakeholders will stop coming to us.” “If we say ‘no’ frequently, we’ll be seen as ‘the department of no.’” “If we say ‘no’ too often, our stakeholders will see us as progress blockers, not partners.”

With that narrative in our heads, we teeter on the edge of a dark chasm. It’s the chasm of irrelevance. We imagine that saying “no” could send us plunging into it, forgotten, unneeded, and maybe even unemployed.

Too dramatic? Maybe. But I’ve heard these concerns from more than enough L&D pros to know the fear is alive and well.

Here’s the good news: that chasm, the chasm of irrelevance? It isn’t real. It’s an illusion. Crossing the chasm and conquering our fear doesn’t involve figuring out how to say “yes” more gracefully or “no” more bravely. It’s about taking a different approach altogether.

From “Yes” or “No” to “Let’s Figure This Out Together”

When my own team faced this fear, we realized that “yes” and “no” weren’t our only options. In fact, we rarely said either. Limiting our responses to those two words limited what we could do and oversimplified how we did it. Translation: It restricted our value and our impact.

Instead, we started treating every training request as an invitation to partner, not a question requiring a singular answer. We didn’t say yes. We didn’t say no. We said, “Thanks for coming to us. We’d love to partner with you to find the best solution.”

That one sentence changed everything. It conveyed gratitude, collaboration, and curiosity without committing to a product or rejecting a request.

Over time, we learned five keys to making this approach work.

1. Start Outside the L&D Lens: Shift from product creation to problem exploration.

Stakeholders think they are coming to L&D for training, learning, or development, but that’s just the surface-level conversation. In reality, the reason they seek us out is deeper than that.

When stakeholders come to us with a request, it’s because something in their world isn’t working. There’s a pain point that’s gotten big enough that they need to reach out for help.

With this in mind, we shifted our internal “response mantra” to this simple assumption:

“When a stakeholder brings a request, assume that no one (not us, not our stakeholder) knows the problem or the solution…yet.”

This assumption stopped us from immediately jumping into design mode and permitted us to investigate what was really broken—like curious detectives sniffing out clues.

2. Sit on the Same Side of the Table: Move from order fulfillment to teammate.

Ultimately, L&D and our stakeholders are after the same goal: improving performance and achieving business results. We’re on the same team. The best teams aren’t made up of solo acts thrown together onto the same playing field. Instead, they show up together, practice together, work together, and win together.

When we approached stakeholders as teammates versus order fulfillment, everything shifted.

We acted like partners sitting on the same figurative side of the same table. We assumed that we were in this together with our stakeholders, that we cared about their problem, and that we were committed to partnering with them to solve it. We also started conversations about exactly where our stakeholders had left off, using their language, not ours.

Sure, we wanted to eventually know if the request was tied to larger business objectives, whether training could solve the problem, what success looks like, and the desired learning outcomes. But we didn’t start there.

That’s because, unless a stakeholder was coming to us with a direct request to advance a business initiative, they likely weren’t thinking about that yet. Most often, they were thinking about their pain point and their need for a solution. If we jumped outside their request immediately, they’d likely be confused and frustrated. They wouldn’t feel heard. It would seem like we were sitting at a separate table having a different conversation.

Eventually, we moved towards the deeper, more strategic questions. But first, we needed our stakeholders to feel heard.

3. Aim to Ease the Real Pain: Solve the cause, not the symptom.

In medicine, referred pain happens when the pain you feel isn’t where the problem originates. It’s like getting “brain freeze” in your head when the part of the body touching the cold is your mouth and throat. In my experience, referred pain is common in organizations.

A stakeholder might feel pain as a lack of knowledge or skills and assume they need “training” to fix it. But they haven’t spent the time or resources to do a full analysis of the source, given their overflowing plates. The real problem could be a clunky system, unclear expectations, poor feedback, or misaligned incentives. In which case, a training solution won’t solve the issue.

If we’re committed to working with the stakeholder to uncover and ease the real pain, we don’t need to provide a training solution just because that is what they requested. Instead, we can suggest alternatives if that is what’s really needed. We don’t say “no” to helping, we just redirect to a better solution.

My favorite response in this scenario is something like this: “Let’s try this (fixing the system, clarifying expectations, for example) first. If that doesn’t work, come back and we’ll talk about training.” Spoiler alert: they rarely come back. Stakeholders don’t want training as much as they want their problem solved.

4. Provide Space for Stakeholder Reflection: Facilitate insight, don’t sell solutions.

Stakeholders are busy. They rarely have the time or space to reflect on and consider alternatives to a training solution. But that’s where our facilitation superpower comes in.

Facilitation isn’t just for classrooms; it also belongs in our conversations. In my L&D team, we tapped into this superpower by asking stakeholders thoughtful questions and letting silence do its work. In this way, we gifted our stakeholders with the time and space to reach their own insights. Often, they concluded on their own that training wasn’t the best answer, and we never had to say “yes,” “no,” or redirect.

Interestingly enough, those conversations didn’t make us irrelevant. Instead, they made us indispensable. Using this shift, stakeholders began returning to us not with training orders, but with curiosity around their pain points and challenges. It often sounded like this:

“My team’s struggling with this process. Can you help us figure out what might work?”

It was the sound of a partnership forming.

5. Add Unexpected Value: Say yes to improving the request, not just delivering it.

Sometimes, we had to move forward with a training solution due to politics, compliance, or a senior leader’s mandate. In those cases, we’d fulfill the request but enhance it from the inside. For example, we’d:

• Add a follow-up resource or reinforcement plan.

• Include a measurement of performance impact.

• Suggest a post-launch analysis to explore alternatives.

These small surprises built credibility. The training “order” became an opportunity to show the stakeholder we could do more than they asked, cracking the door to what we could do outside of simply delivering on a request. We demonstrated in small ways what it meant to work with L&D as a strategic partner, and those small moves added up over time.

The Real Lesson: Intentional Responses Build Credibility

When we stopped viewing stakeholder requests as yes/no decisions and started seeing them as cries for help, everything changed. We said yes to the conversation, to the collaboration, and to adding value. We said yes to helping uncover the real need and finding a solution, not just producing a course.

The result? Our credibility grew. The fear of irrelevance faded. Our ability to work strategically increased. The training request was just the door to our problem-solving partnership.

So, the next time a stakeholder says, “Can you build a training for that?” Try this instead:

“Thanks for asking. I’d love to partner with you to find the best solution.”

That’s showing up as a strategic business partner, on the same team as the stakeholder, committed to improvement.

Let’s do this!