Is it me, or have organisation's learning and development folk lost the plot?

OK, I realise there's tough time in the economy and organisations have made tough choices about what to cut back. And it's not surprising that those in training and development are feeling the pinch but what I'm missing is the fight back, the spine and courage from those teams to make a stand for what they believe in.

Over the last 6 months, I've come across training teams that have complained of: a reduced number of people signing up for internal courses, budgets being cut in training and a general lack of demand for the services they offer. And in most cases, I'm afraid to say, the typical response has been a resigned 'what do you expect in the current economy'.

Imagine taking that perspective if your livelihood depended on it. Surely it's time for training departments to start asking questions like:

• Despite the current market situation what would our customers literally fall over themselves to attend and get value from?
• What can we learn from great marketeers in how to present our offerings (rather than just dumping the training programme on the intranet and hope for the best)?
• How could we build a communications plan to support our training that functions like a marketing program? What would we do differently if we really came to terms with the fact that every email or communication that hits the participant prior to training affects how they walk into the room (or virtual classroom)
  

Isn't it time for training and development folk to wake up? You bet...and what better time as the economy starts to cough and splutter into the better times.