At home, my 11-year old has started responding with a sing-songy “but why?” to every request or statement from “Please put your shoes away”, to “I can’t believe that Trump has done …. now”. Whilst it can be incredibly annoying, it made me think about why we call The Experience Works, The Experience Works and why we know experiences work!
So, here’s our view on why L&D must put the delivery of experiences at the forefront of all of your learning interventions in 2026 and beyond.
Let’s start with a rather negative view. With the increasing use of AI which can give people a very decent response to any question from “How do I challenge my boss over their behaviour?” to “How do I give feedback to my team member?”, what are we really doing in L&D if we are creating courses and e-learning to teach people about influence or feedback. Our colleague Nick Shackleton-Jones once said to a room full of L&D leaders, “AI will do everything that you are doing now except one thing – create experiences!”
So, apart from ‘to keep us relevant’ why else should L&D be focusing on experiences?
Experiences create ‘safe’ consequences
We learn best we our actions have consequences, but without real world risks and implications.
Experiential learning allows people to try, fail, adjust and succeed in a psychologically safe environment. Unlike lectures or e-learning, experiences let participants feel the impact of their behaviour – how it lands on others, how it escalates or resolves a situation. And they can ty things out in their own voice, not what the L&D person tells them they should do/say.
In the experiences we create the consequences are simulated but believable, learners are more open to experimentation and honest reflection. This accelerates learning that would otherwise take months of trial and error in the workplace. And in our experiences people get feedback so that they know the impact their actions have had on others – no direct report has ever turned round to their line manager and said,
“Thanks for my performance review, can I give you some feedback on how you handled it?”
Behaviour change happens faster when people experience the consequence of their choices and actions.
Experiences Bypass “Knowing” and Go Straight to “Doing”
AI and e-learning is great at helping people to know what they should do but that isn’t even the half of it.
Behaviour doesn’t change through understanding – it changes through practice.
Most workplace challenges aren’t knowledge problems; they’re behavioural and emotional ones: how we react under pressure, how we speak up, how we handle conflict, how we listen.
Experiential learning places people in the moment, triggering the same instincts, habits and biases they use at work. When our actors give feedback to a participant they often hear “Well, that isn’t what I intended you to feel?” and in that moment learning happens about the gap between intention and behaviour.
By rehearsing new behaviours in realistic scenarios, people build muscle memory, not just intellectual understanding.
Experiences Surface Beliefs, Not Just Skills
Lasting behaviour change requires shifting beliefs, not just skills.
Throughout my career in learning I realised that people (particularly senior ones) often know the right ways of doing something (they’ve had plenty of training), but they don’t do it because they don’t really believe they need to change.
Traditional learning focuses on what to do. Experiences expose why people don’t already do it.
Through interaction with actors and the immersive scenarios we create, participants encounter, and can be challenged by, their own assumptions:
- “I can’t challenge senior people.”
- “Being direct will damage relationships.”
- “Customers are always unreasonable.”
When these beliefs are surfaced in action, they become discussable and changeable. Reflection after the experience allows learners to reframe their mental models, which is where sustainable change occurs.
Our experiences don’t just focus on building skills they build confidence. They help people to feel that they can do this.
Skills tell people how to behave differently. Experiences help them believe they can.
Shared Experiences Influence Culture
Behaviour change is more likely to last if it is reinforced.
Our experiences create talking points and memories. “Do you remember when we did that …?”, “Have you heard about the customer service training?”
When we create experiential learning programmes that flow across whole cohorts, we create a new sense of this is the way that we do things around here and that can ultimately influence the culture. Because experiences are memorable and shared, they become stories that travel back into the workplace, reinforcing norms and expectations long after the session ends.
Also, when we observe others in groups trying these new skills out and building confidence it changes the way we think about ourselves. It creates powerful social proof – “people like me can do this.”
Behaviour sticks when it becomes part of “who we are”, not just “what we were taught”.
Affective Learning: Emotion Drives Memory and Action
We remember what we feel – and we act on what we remember.
Nick Shackleton-Jones’ Affective Learning principle underpins everything we do. Experiences generate emotion: discomfort, relief, pride, surprise, empathy. Those emotions anchor learning to real memory and real behaviour.
People don’t remember slides.
They remember moments.
That’s why experiences work and why you should be incorporating more experiences into all of your L&D in 2026 and beyond.
Experiential learning is:
- Psychologically safe
- Behaviourally practical
- Belief-shifting
- Emotionally engaging
Contact us to explore
From a single specialist to a global team, we’ve got the right people to bring your experiences to life. Flexible, reliable, and experienced, use our people to support your own programmes or as part of our tailored solutions.