I still remember standing at the back of the room (back in 2016) at the conference center Sigtunahöjden, Sweden with a group of leaders from the King (the maker of the game Candy Crush) Guide Program, watching one of “my” groups sharing their closing reflections.

We’d spent nine months together. Four modules, residential offsites, senior sponsors flying in, coaching, application sessions – the whole package. The kind of program most companies dream of running.
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People were buzzing. “Best program I’ve ever been on.” “This really changed how I think about leadership.”
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And yet, driving home that evening, a thought nagged at me:
What happens to all of this on Monday? In my gut, I knew the answer: for some, a lot; for many, much less than we hoped.

When “Closed System” Put Words to the Friction.

Now, fast forward to May 2025 Every founder has that moment where you read something and think: “Wait… did they just describe what we’re building?” That was me with David Day’s article “Reconsidering Leadership Development: From Programs to Developmental Systems.”
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His core point: most leadership development still behaves like a closed system:

• You import people.
• Put them through a bounded program.
• Export them back into the business.
• Hope for the best.
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The system ends when the program ends. When I read that, my mind went straight back to those King programs. We did almost everything “right” by traditional standards – multi-module journeys, strong sponsorship, action learning, internal and external faculty.
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But if I’m honest, the system still ended when the program ended. Once people stepped back into their teams, the surrounding leadership ecosystem hadn’t really changed:

• No new rhythms in the week.
• No ways to see if behaviors were actually showing up.
• No continuous feedback from the people they led.
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The program was world-class. The system around it was… mostly untouched. That gap became a kind of personal friction for me.

It wasn’t that leaders didn’t learn anything – they did. The friction was the missing bridge between knowing and doing, and the lack of measurability in everyday leadership. We were asking the business to trust that something important had happened. But we couldn’t actually see it in the flow of work.



Open Systems: Where Development Keeps Breathing
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Day’s alternative is an open system: it stays connected to real work and runs in continuous cycles of input → practice → feedback → new input. Development is not an episode. It’s a living, breathing loop in everyday work. When I mapped that onto what we do at Yomento, it clicked that this is basically what we’ve been trying to build from day one:

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• Scans = information and energy into the system What do my people need from me right now? Is trust in me as their leader strong or fragile?
• Dialogues = turning signals into shared clarity Growth dialogues that create alignment and shared responsibility between me and my team, manager and peers.
• Rituals = the repeating cycles where behaviors are practiced Weekly planning, reflections, 1:1s, team check-ins.
• Habits = transforming that energy into specific leadership behaviors One keystone behavior at a time, in real contexts.
• Trust & Habit Score = feedback loops from the environment Signals from the team on what they’re actually experiencing.
• Leader Analytics = the cockpit Making leadership growth measurable and meaningful to leaders, HR and the business.
  
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In other words, Yomento is my attempt to build the system I wish we’d had back at King – one that doesn’t stop when the workshop ends, and that makes leadership growth visible in the messy middle of real work. It’s Not Programs or Systems. It’s Programs Inside a System.

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Here’s the important nuance: I don’t believe programs are “wrong.” I’ve designed and delivered a lot of them. Many were genuinely good.
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What Day is arguing – and what we’re building – is another layer: Programs as episodes inside an open Leadership Performance System as we call it at Yomento. We still run programs. We still have journeys and initiatives. But between, before, and after them, the leadership system keeps breathing.
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That’s where the real growth happens – not because leaders perfectly remember what we taught them, but because the system keeps nudging, supporting and measuring leadership where it actually lives:

On Monday. In that 1:1. In that slightly messy team meeting.

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If you’re a CLO, HR or L&D leader reading this:
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• Where in your organization are you still running amazing programs inside a mostly closed system?
• What would it look like to treat those programs as episodes inside an open, measurable leadership system?

That’s the shift we’re betting on with Yomento – from programs you hope will stick, to a leadership system you can actually see breathing every week.
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Tom Hammar‍

CEO Yomento AB
Head of Learning Design



Tom Hammar is the CEO and Head of Learning Design at Yomento. With over a decade of experience in digital and data-driven leadership, Tom helps global companies bridge the gap between leadership theory and daily performance.



FAQ

What is the main difference between leadership programs and systems?‍

A leadership program is a bounded event with a start and end date (Closed System). A leadership system is a continuous framework (Open System) that integrates learning, rituals, and feedback into the daily flow of work.

How does Yomento help managers change their behavior?‍

Yomento uses a "Leadership Performance System" that nudges managers toward specific habits and rituals. It bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing real-time team feedback and habit tracking.

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Why is measurability important in leadership development?‍

Without measurability, L&D leaders must rely on "hope" that training works. Systems like Yomento provide Leader Analytics and Trust Scores, offering a data-driven "cockpit" to see if leadership behaviors are actually shifting.

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