There is a well-known story about John F Kennedy visiting NASA in 1962. He spots a janitor, asks what he is doing, and the man says, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
Whether or not it happened that way, the point holds. The janitor could see how his job connected to a bigger purpose. That is the golden thread: the link between daily work and what the organisation is trying to achieve.
In L&D, this is where we can drift. Content-led design starts with what we could include. Strategy-led design starts with a business problem worth solving. If people cannot see how your programme supports the wider goal, it can sound like a nice idea rather than a business need.
So here is the question: what business problem is this programme here to solve?
If that is hard to answer, the golden thread is probably not clear yet.
And if stakeholders cannot see that thread, support is harder to win.
