Join fellow ATD Puget Sound members for an interactive, in-person experience focused on building capability-led organizations and making competency frameworks work in practice. The session will be co-facilitated by ATD Puget Sound’s President, Sherry Johnson Metz, who will guide opening and closing conversations to help participants connect, share perspectives, and ground the experience in the realities of our local L&D community and the challenges you’re navigating today.
At the heart of the session, Acorn’s President, Keith Metcalfe, will lead a dynamic workshop exploring the shift toward capability-led organizations — why so many competency initiatives struggle to gain traction, and what actually makes them stick.
Grounded in industry research and practical experience, the session will unpack the organizational and political dynamics that often get in the way, and offer actionable approaches for gaining alignment, engaging managers, and driving meaningful development conversations. This is a content-focused session designed to provide value, not a product pitch.
This experience is intentionally interactive throughout. You’ll have time to exchange ideas with peers, reflect on what you’re hearing, and identify how to apply new insights in your own organization — leaving not just with new knowledge, but with practical next steps shaped by both expert perspective and community dialogue.
Keith Metcalfe, President of Acorn, will lead the working session on what it takes to build a skills infrastructure that can keep pace. That means moving from static competency models to dynamic skills visibility, understanding how to map AI fluency as a real capability rather than a vague aspiration, and connecting development to performance outcomes in a way that leadership will actually act on, and how this is being implemented at Acorn. He'll also address what gets in the way: the organizational dynamics, the political friction, and the false starts that most organizations hit before they find traction.
This experience is intentionally interactive throughout. You’ll have time to exchange ideas with peers, reflect on what you’re hearing, and identify how to apply new insights in your own organization. We want you leaving not just with new knowledge, but with practical next steps shaped by both expert perspective and community dialogue.
About Acorn: Acorn is a performance enablement learning platform that helps organizations build the skills infrastructure needed to develop, evidence, and act on capability (including AI fluency) at the pace the modern workplace requires. Learn more at www.acorn.works.
Sherry Johnson Metz currently serves as the President of the ATDps Chapter. Sherry is the Founder & CEO of Lead Forward Consulting, where she partners with organizations to transform overwhelmed managers into intentional leaders. Sherry offers training, coaching, design and facilitation services, and talent development programs on essential skills and mindsets for empowering leaders and teams. With over 20 years in corporate and HR leadership, she helps companies build a culture of everyday leadership development, where learning is practical, ongoing, and directly tied to business outcomes.
ATD Capabilities - Learning Sciences, Technology Application, Communication, Lifelong Learning, Talent Strategy & Management, Performance Improvement, Future Readiness
Registration:
Pre-Registration - Pre-registration is mandatory.
Walk in - Walk ins are subject to space availability. The fee will be $45.
We are not able to issue refunds after the Friday prior to the meeting. Substitutions are encouraged.
