Building Home-Grown Saudi Talent: What Makes Learning Stick

How leading organizations in Saudi Arabia build capability beyond a workshop. Part 2 of 2.

In the previous article, we explored why developing Saudi talent requires more than training. While learning experiences remain an important part of capability building, they represent only one piece of a much larger system. Saudi Arabia in specific, has made human capability development a national investment priority. The 2026 national budget allocated SAR 201 billion to the education sector, supporting schools, universities, research, innovation, scholarships, and workforce development initiatives. Alongside this investment, programmes such as the Human Capability Development Program (HCDP) continue to strengthen the Kingdom's learning ecosystem and prepare talent for the jobs and industries of the future.

As access to capability-building opportunities continues to expand, an important question emerges: how do we ensure that learning translates into lasting capability? At Cosmic Centaurs, we've come to believe that capability is built beyond workshops or training days. It develops through organizations that intentionally create opportunities for people to learn, practise, receive feedback, and grow as part of their everyday work.

In this article, we explore five characteristics we consistently observed across organizations in Saudi Arabia where learning sticks and capability grows.

1. Learning Reflects the People It Is Designed For

Learning is most effective when it reflects the people it is designed for. Yet many organizations continue to rely on off-the-shelf programmes that are disconnected from the realities of the workplace. Research shows that 65% of leaders believe their training programmes are not connected to their business context or organizational goals. When learning lacks relevance, engagement declines and application becomes far less likely.

Designing learning from within means beginning with the organization's strategy, culture, values, leadership norms, and the realities of the work itself. Rather than asking people to adopt someone else's model of leadership, organizations create learning experiences that strengthen the behaviours they want to see within their own context.

In Practice: Embedding Values into Feedback

While partnering with a Jeddah-based arts organization, we were asked to strengthen how employees gave and received feedback. During our research phase, we found that while leaders were encouraged to give behaviour-based feedback, those behaviours had never been explicitly connected to the organization's values. Rather than introducing a generic feedback framework, we integrated the organization's values directly into the scenarios, role plays, and learning experience. Those values became the shared language through which accountability, collaboration, and performance conversations were held, reinforcing behaviours that already reflected the organization's identity and making the learning immediately relevant to participants.

2. Capability Is Built Through Work

One of the most widely cited frameworks in capability building is the 70-20-10 model. While the exact percentages continue to be debated, its underlying principle remains highly relevant: capability is developed through a combination of learning, coaching, and experience. Formal learning introduces new concepts and frameworks, but lasting capability is built when people are given opportunities to apply those ideas in their everyday work.

This distinction is particularly important for organizations investing in Saudi talent. Workshops may increase awareness, but confidence is developed through practice. Stretch assignments, simulations, action learning projects, coaching conversations, and real business challenges allow individuals to experiment with new behaviours, reflect on what worked, and refine their approach over time. Learning becomes part of the job itself, rather than something that happens away from it.

In Practice: Turning Strategic Priorities into Learning Experiences

When partnering with the Misk Art Institute, we designed the programme around the work participants were already leading. Rather than ending with a knowledge assessment, managers presented their strategic initiatives linked directly to organizational priorities to a panel of senior leaders and applied stakeholder management insights. The programme became an opportunity to practise leadership while delivering meaningful work, reinforcing the idea that capability grows through application, not exposure alone.

3. Leaders and Managers Turn Learning into Capability

Learning rarely succeeds or fails because of the programme itself. More often, it succeeds or fails because of the environment people return to afterwards.

Organizations that consistently build capability treat learning as a leadership responsibility rather than solely the responsibility of Learning & Development teams. Senior leaders set the tone by demonstrating that development is an investment in performance, not time away from it. One senior leader from a global consulting firm shared that he intentionally maintained utilization below maximum capacity to preserve time for coaching, mentoring, and reflection. In doing so, learning became part of how the organization operated rather than something employees squeezed into an already busy schedule.

Leaders also shape learning through the experiences they share. During a leadership programme with a regional professional services firm, we invited senior Partners to speak candidly about defining moments in their careers, the mistakes they had made, and the lessons they had learned. Those sessions consistently became some of the highest-rated because participants were learning from leaders they already respected and aspired to become.

Managers then reinforce that learning every day. Gallup estimates that managers account for approximately 70% of the variance in employee engagement, reflecting the significant influence they have on employees' daily experiences. They determine who receives stretch opportunities, who receives coaching and feedback, and whether new skills are practised long after a programme has ended.

In Practice: Building Leaders Who Build Others

For one regional professional services firm, we partnered to develop 45 middle managers across psychological safety, leading teams, managing up, and coaching conversations. The objective was not simply to strengthen individual leadership capability, but to equip managers with the skills to coach, develop, and create opportunities for others, turning every manager into a multiplier of capability.

4. Capability Is Reinforced Throughout the Employee Experience

One of Saudi Arabia's greatest advantages is that many organizations are not simply growing, they are being reimagined. As new sectors emerge, organizations scale, and leadership pipelines expand, there is a unique opportunity to intentionally design employee experiences that develop capability from day one.

The organizations we see building the strongest Saudi talent think beyond standalone learning programmes. They reinforce learning throughout the employee experience, embedding it into onboarding, team rituals, communities of practice, performance conversations, leadership transitions, and career development. Rather than treating learning as an event, they create multiple opportunities for employees to revisit, practise, and strengthen new behaviours over time.

This consistency matters. Behaviour change rarely happens through a single learning experience. It is shaped through repeated exposure, shared language, and everyday experiences that reinforce what great leadership and performance look like.

In Practice: Bringing Organizational Values to Life

When partnering with the Misk Foundation to redefine its organizational values, we designed MetaMisk, an interactive virtual experience that enabled more than 200 employees to explore and engage with the organization's values through games, discussions, and practical activities. The experience was never intended to be a standalone programme. It was designed to become part of onboarding, team discussions, and organizational rituals, allowing employees to continually reconnect with the behaviours and values that defined the culture. 

5. Measure Capability, Not Learning

One of the most widely recognised frameworks for evaluating learning is the Kirkpatrick Model, which encourages organizations to look beyond participation and satisfaction to understand whether learning has been applied in the workplace and ultimately contributed to organizational performance. Yet many organizations still evaluate success based on programme completion, attendance, or participant feedback.

While these measures provide valuable insight into the quality of a learning experience, they tell us very little about whether capability has actually grown.

The organizations we see building the strongest Saudi talent define what great performance looks like before they begin developing it. They identify the knowledge, skills, behaviours, and experiences required for success, then use those same capabilities to guide performance conversations, career development, promotions, and succession planning. Learning is no longer measured as an activity. It is measured by the growth it creates.

This becomes increasingly important as organizations across the Kingdom continue to expand. As new leaders emerge and responsibilities evolve, organizations need consistent ways to identify potential, support development, and prepare employees for future roles. Measuring capability provides leaders with a far clearer picture of organizational readiness than measuring participation ever could.

In Practice: Measuring Growth Through Role Clarity

For one Saudi organization, we partnered with the Executive Leadership Team to establish role clarity across the organization. Together, we defined the knowledge, skills, behaviours, strategic priorities, and key performance indicators required at every level. Rather than serving solely as a competency framework, these expectations became the foundation for performance reviews, development planning, promotion decisions, and succession conversations. Capability was no longer something discussed during learning programmes alone. It became part of how growth was continuously measured and developed throughout the organization.

As learning experience designers and facilitators, one of the greatest privileges of our work is partnering with the next generation of Saudi leaders. Their ambition, ideas, and perspectives continually challenge our own thinking, making every engagement as much a learning experience for us as it is for them. It is a responsibility we don't take lightly.

Saudi Arabia has created an extraordinary opportunity to shape the leaders who will deliver on Vision 2030 and beyond. We hope these reflections offer a practical perspective on what we've seen work. If you're exploring how to build lasting capability within your organization, we'd be delighted to continue the conversation.