Capability Edge

What it really takes to build a career and life you're proud of, told by the people who've actually done it. The Capability Edge is real career stories from leaders across every industry. The pivots nobody posts about. The failures that turned out to be the whole point. The fetal position moments that are way more common than anyone admits. And the decisions that actually built the career they have now — not the cleaned-up version, the real one. Hosted by Candice Mitchell, founder and CEO of Talent Collective, USA Today bestselling author of Choose You: For the People Who Refuse to Disappear, and a practitioner with nearly 20 years inside People functions. Solo episodes cover talent strategy, people capability, and meeting this moment, because AI is rewriting the rules and the organizations that bring their people along are the ones that will still be standing. This is not a highlight reel. This is the hallway conversation, out loud, on purpose. New episodes every Friday. Previously published as Development Nerds. Subscribe: talentcollective.org | Follow Candice on LinkedIn

Capability Edge is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 122 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Capability Edge, a business show with 122 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #158

  The Future of Talent Development: 5 Shifts for 2027

  Sep 25, 202644 min

  The future of talent development in 2027: only 19% of teams are seen as a strategic partner, down from 23%, while budgets and demand keep growing. Talent Development has never mattered more to business, and it has never had less faith from the business. Only 19% of learning and development teams are viewed as a strategic partner by their own organization (GP Strategies, 2026), down from 23% the year before. Meanwhile, companies spend around $400 billion a year on corporate learning, 85% of employers name upskilling as their top workforce strategy through 2030, and training and development specialist roles are projected to grow 11% from 2025 to 2035, against 3% across all occupations. Companies need us. Now we need to step up. In this episode, I walk through the five shifts that separate high-performing people functions from everyone else: Start with the business problem before you take the order Get into the room where strategy gets built Spend your own development budget on strategic thinking Use AI for speed and add human judgment on top Prove impact with a number the business already reports This one is for Talent Development leaders, Chief People Officers, and CHROs who want the function seen as a strategic partner in 2027. Full written breakdown and the State of L&D 2027 booklet on the Capability Edge on Substack - article title: The state of Talent Development: what will win in 2027 Book a 45-minute call: BOOKING LINK Know someone who needs to hear this? Send it to your work bestie. Sources: GP Strategies (2026), Josh Bersin (2026), World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2026, LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2025, Gartner, Gallup.

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #157

  Hired Then Ghosted: Why Sometimes You Just Have To Keep Going | Jason Lauritsen

  Sep 22, 202655 min

  Jason Lauritsen sold copiers out of a minivan in rural Iowa, got sued by his old employer for starting a competing firm, watched his new business partner disappear into addiction treatment two weeks after they opened the doors, and once tried to lay off a colleague out loud in a budget meeting before he had even learned her name. Now he runs Connected Performance Group, helping leadership teams build workplaces people actually want to stay in. This episode traces that whole arc, from picking rocks out of an Iowa field at ten years old to the insight that changed how he thinks about leadership for good: most workplaces still treat work like a contract to be enforced, when what people actually need is to feel like it is a relationship built on trust. What you'll get from this episode: Why treating employees like units of production is a management model built on a flawed premise, and what to replace it with The seven months of zero results that taught Jason the difference between quitting too soon and staying the course How a leadership clarity gap, not a performance problem, is usually the real thing costing you retention The connected performance framework Jason uses with leadership teams: clarity, alignment, and management capability Why the workplace stories that feel the most dysfunctional often reveal exactly what needs to change Get to know Jason: Jason Lauritsen is the CEO of Connected Performance Group and an advisor to leaders who are tired of choosing between results and their people. A former corporate executive, he developed the Connected Performance System to help leaders fix the systems that drive performance by strengthening connection at work. Jason is the author of Unlocking High Performance and a keynote speaker known for pairing provocative insight with practical guidance leaders can use immediately. Connect with Jason: Instagram: jasonlauritsen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo Website/s: https://connectedperformancegroup.com/ https://jasonlauritsen.com/ Meet your host, Candice Mitchell Candice Mitchell is a Talent Development Strategist, CEO of Talent Collective, and USA Today bestselling author of Choose You: For the People Who Refuse to Disappear. With nearly two decades of experience building and leading capability functions inside global and Fortune 500 organizations, she founded Talent Collective, a premium capability-building firm for L&D, HR, Change, and People leaders in high-growth companies. Your host, Candice Mitchell, can be found online at: Website: https://talentcollective.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candicemitchelltc/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candice_mitchell_msc/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@candice_mitchell_msc Talent Development Academy: https://courses.talentcollective.org/bundles/talent-development-academy Choose You book: https://chooseyoubook.com/ Original music composed by: Paul DeHaven pauldehavenmusic.com

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #156

  Build vs Buy Is the Wrong Question

  Sep 11, 202616 min

  Most leadership teams walk into the build versus buy conversation with two camps already formed and zero diagnosis done. In this solo episode, Candice breaks down why that question is the wrong one to start with, and the three-bucket diagnosis she runs with every client before anyone opens a job requisition or builds a single course. She walks through the real cost of hiring, why training without a diagnosis is just a slower way to burn the same money, and the financial services client who went from two hundred fifty people to seven hundred fifty in six weeks and solved it without a single hiring sprint. If your team is stuck arguing hire versus train right now, this episode gives you the one hour of work that ends the debate before it starts. What you'll get from this episode: The real cost of a bad hire, and why hiring only fixes one specific kind of gap The three-bucket diagnosis to run before you decide anything: can't do it, won't do it, or the system won't let them Why a six-figure leadership academy can be excellent and still fix nothing The financial services case where diagnosis, not headcount, got the firm retained through a hiring freeze The one-hour exercise to run with your team this quarter before you build or buy anything

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #155

  You Don't Have To Fit In To Succeed | Kassy LaBorie

  Sep 4, 202652 min

  Kassy LaBorie built her career on technology nobody wanted to touch and colors nobody told her to wear. She was on the training team at WebEx on September 11th, the day the whole company understood that the tool they were building would change how the world worked. She went on to build a four million dollar business line at Dale Carnegie in four years. Then she left it to build her own thing, in her own colors, on her own terms. This conversation runs from an ice cream shop in Sacramento to a colleague who once told her, we don't wear red pants here, ten minutes before she took the stage. What you'll get from this episode: Why the confidence that makes someone memorable has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with owning what makes them different How Kassy turned a rejected industry into a four million dollar business line in four years The exact ChatGPT prompt that changed how she teaches technology today Why the people who tell you to tone it down are rarely the people worth listening to Get to know Kassy: Kassy is a futurist and Connection Strategist whose personal style may draw inspiration from the past, but whose vision is fixed on the future, sparking excitement and curiosity among audiences nationwide about our evolving digital landscape. She’s in the futurist space, but not in a weird sci-fi, “let’s populate Mars” kind of way. Instead, she takes a Connection Strategist approach that sees the best of emerging technology and the best of what makes us uniquely human, and thoughtfully integrates both into work and life. From her early days developing groundbreaking virtual learning programs for L&D professionals, corporate trainers, and HR leaders, to advising Fortune 500 companies on virtual engagement strategies, Kassy has learned a thing or two about fostering genuine connection in digital environments. But the most profound truth she’s discovered is that the skills we master in the online space don’t just stay on the screen; they become the superpowers that shape how we show up in the real world. Connect with Kassy: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kassylaborie Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kassylaborie/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kassylaborie/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kassylaborie5098 Website: https://www.kassylaborie.com/

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #154

  85% of Employers Say Skill Development Is Their Top Priority. So Why Is L&D Still The First To Get Cut?

  Aug 28, 202641 min

  85% of employers say upskilling is their number one priority. 71% say they expect to cut their Learning & Development budget when things get tight. I can't make those two numbers make sense. I've spent 20 years in L&D, and I've watched this contradiction play out in boardrooms and organizations again and again. The problem isn't that leadership doesn't value learning. It's that too often, we haven't made the value visible in the language the business understands. In this episode, I talk about what I've learned from building L&D functions, working through major business changes, and sitting across the table from leaders who need to know one thing: What changes because of this work? I share three stories from my own work and introduce the Five-Spoke Impact Model , which looks at how L&D contributes to: • Attracting and keeping the right people • Building capability at every level • Making high performance possible • Increasing agility and sparking innovation • Elevating the employee experience And I share four things I would do this week to start making that value visible. Because being called a priority does not protect your budget. Proof does. And if we're serious about making L&D a strategic partner, we have to get better at showing what would break if our work disappeared tomorrow. The full Five-Spoke Impact Model and companion article, 85% Say It's a Priority. So Why Is L&D Still Being Cut?, are available on The Capability Edge Substack. Substack Post: https://substack.com/@candicemitchellmsc/note/p-212611003?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=73wbhn Cheers to the ones who are tired of defending a function that nobody else understands. You know your work matters. Now go make it impossible to overlook.

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Capability Edge. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.