A FIELD STUDY IN FUTILITY

Most corporate learning is an
ant mill.

In Edge of the Jungle (1921), the naturalist William Beebe described a column of army ants in British Guiana that was going nowhere. The circle measured about 365 metres (1,200 feet) round. By Beebe's reckoning each ant took about two and a half hours a lap, and he estimated that some ants had gone round perhaps fifteen times.

The column was six lines wide in many places, and most of the ants were carrying eggs or larvae. Nobody seemed to be in charge. Each ant seemed to follow the scent of the ant in front.

Most corporate training is that scent trail. Completion rates, satisfaction scores, a new course in the same slot in the calendar. Everyone busy, and a dashboard that says the column is moving, not where it is going. Satisfaction scores tell you whether the food was good, not whether anyone got fed.

Beebe's circle broke when one exhausted ant straggled off it and several others followed its scent. The way out isn't a faster ant. It's the question the trail never asks: did anyone do something different on Monday?

The industry has decided this is normal.

We disagree.

FIELD NOTE

Source: William Beebe, Edge of the Jungle (1921), chapter XII; pp. 291 to 294 in the Garden City reprint.

The Learning Velocity Index^™ — the score L&D never had. Until now.

The score that is designed to show whether your training actually changes behaviour — and how fast. Free.

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YOUR INDICATIVE SCORE · FREE · NO OBLIGATION

FOUNDED BY

JULIAN PINKUS

DRAWING ON

BEHAVIOURAL AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE RESEARCH

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Every function has a number. L&D never did.

Finance has EBITDA. Marketing has CAC. Sales has pipeline velocity. HR has engagement scores.

L&D has completion rates. Which is a bit like measuring a hospital by how many patients showed up — not by whether any of them got better.

For decades there was no clear way to show whether a learning function is actually building capability. No number a CLO could put in front of a CEO and say: here's how we compare to our industry, here's how fast we're improving, here's what it looks like in ninety days.

We built that number. It's called the Learning Velocity Index^™. It is designed to show two things every high-performing learning function needs: the ability to build skills consistently (Competence) and the ability to keep building them when things get hard (Resilience). It tracks how fast — and how sustainably — your organisation is building capability.

Working incredibly hard. Going absolutely nowhere.

Army ants stuck in a mill march in circles for days — working incredibly hard, going absolutely nowhere. Most L&D teams do the same thing. Which is only offensive if you think about it.

Most organisations treat training as a compliance function. The KPI is "completed," not "competent." Teams are measured on satisfaction scores, completion rates, and hours of content produced. Nobody asks whether anyone actually does anything differently on Monday morning.

The science of how people form habits, retain information, and change behaviour is well established. Most training programmes don't apply any of it — not because the knowledge is hidden, but because the system never required it.

About US$395bn spent on training worldwide in 2025 (Training Industry).

We replace vicious loops with virtuous ones. Same mechanism. Opposite outcome.

A score from 0 to 200. One hundred is industry average.

The Learning Velocity Index^™: Competence and Resilience in one score. A self-assessment of how fast and sustainably an organisation builds capability. The scale runs from 0 to 200. Sector comparisons are provisional, built from published research, and should firm up as more organisations take the assessment.

It is designed to show outcome, not activity. Not who showed up. Not who clicked "complete." Whether behaviour changed — and whether it stuck at thirty, sixty, and ninety days.

The free assessment is a self-report: one person's view of their own organisation, with a confidence rating on every answer. That is why the result is a first read. A full engagement is designed to add other evidence: what people do, what they can recall and what the people around them observe.

It shows a trajectory, not just a number. "87 → 102 → 118 → 127" tells a board far more than a static figure ever could.

Your free score is a compass — an honest, indicative reading from a short self-assessment. A full Pink Matter engagement is the GPS — four measurement layers, a tighter confidence band, and a number you can defend in any boardroom.

The score tells you where you are. This is how it moves.

The Learning Velocity Index^™ is the outcome. Our phased programme method is designed to move it: each phase targets specific Learning Velocity Index^™ sub-dimensions and draws on mechanisms from behavioural and cognitive science.

Clear Trigger

Turning intention into automatic action.

Engagement Ease

Making the right behaviour the path of least resistance.

Unpredictable Rewards

The variable reinforcement that builds persistence.

Retention Deepening

Spaced retrieval.

Adaptive Load

Keeping people in the zone where skills actually form.

Commitment Anchoring

Identity-level change that lasts.

Leave any one out and the score tells you exactly where it's breaking. We built the score that didn't exist — and the protocol that moves it.

From cost centre to competitive advantage.

A number, not a narrative. You walk into the board meeting with a number. Illustrative example, not client data: a score of 127, up from 94 on an earlier attempt. The CFO asks what's changing. You point at the trajectory. That's a different conversation entirely.

A trajectory, not a survey. Not smiley-face feedback. A score measured at Day 0, 30, 60, and 90, across eight sub-dimensions.

L&D as strategic partner. Managers request more training because they can see it working. Your function stops defending its budget and starts driving it.

No more training theatre. You stop running programmes that look impressive in the LMS and change nothing on the floor. You're changing what people do — and you have the number that moves when it works.

I kept asking the question no one wanted to hear.

"Does any of this actually work?"

I asked it while leading training and education at a global MedTech company — responsible for thousands of people performing complex, regulated procedures correctly, where getting it wrong had real consequences.

The gap wasn't knowledge — the science was all there. The gap was application. And there was no way to measure whether any organisation was closing it.

So I built two things. The score that didn't exist. And the protocol that moves it.

13 years

leading training and education in MedTech.

MSc

in Psychology with Specialisation in Business from the University of Strathclyde

Julian Pinkus is the founder of Pink Matter and the creator of the Learning Velocity Index^™, a self-assessment for organisations. He spent 13 years in MedTech leading training and education, and holds an MSc in Psychology with Specialisation in Business from the University of Strathclyde. He is also an ultra-trail runner with Portobello Running Club, and in August 2026 he competed in the Scottish Athletics Ultra Trail Championships at the Highland Fling, 53 miles along the West Highland Way.

Don't think of a pink elephant

Too late. You just did.

That's ironic process theory — your brain can't process a negative without first processing the positive. Tell someone "don't forget to follow up" and the first thing their brain does is process forgetting. It's the kind of principle that should be foundational to training design. We named the company after it.

"Matter" is brain matter — the physical substrate of learning. Pink Matter designs learning that works with cognitive science, not against it. Which, in an industry that has spent decades optimising delivery over effectiveness, is apparently a radical position.

Radical, we know.

Most corporate learning is an ant mill.