By Julian March, with contributions from fellow Positive Momentum Partners Lindsey Ulanowsky and Paul Goundry

A Centre of Excellence (CoE) can be a powerful mechanism to drive focused capability and performance. But they’re often misunderstood; seen either as ivory towers or as top-down mandates that quickly fizzle.

So, what is a Centre of Excellence really for? Why would you invest in one? And how do you keep it relevant once the initial energy has worn off?

We asked each other these very questions in a recent Positive Momentum conversation with Lindsey Ulanowsky, and Paul Goundry. We came at the topic from three different angles - from CRM and data to L&D and digital transformation - but found strong common ground on what makes a CoE effective and sustainable.

👇🏻 You can listen (and watch) the whole conversation here.

Why create a Centre of Excellence?

At its best, a Centre of Excellence is a strategic catalyst for capability. It centralises expertise, defines best practice, and amplifies what works across a business.

“I see it as very much being the catalyst for driving innovation, development, and best practice around a particular capability,” said Lindsey. “It allows you to bring something that may be buried in the business up to a higher level and create some focus on it.”

It’s about solving real problems, aligning with strategic priorities, and embedding something that lasts beyond any single intervention.

For example, Paul shared his experience driving performance in a business with 6,000 senior leaders: “We asked them, ‘Talk to us about your high-performing leaders,’ and they said, ‘We don’t have any.’ That told us straight away there was a gap — and the CoE became about defining, capturing, and duplicating what ‘great’ could look like.”

How to build a Centre of Excellence

Start with clarity of purpose

One of the first steps is to be clear on what the CoE is, and just as importantly, what it’s not.

“Sometimes the scope can get too big and unwieldy," says Lindsey. "Focus is a major part of it.”

Make sure it’s rooted in solving a defined problem. As Paul puts it: “Content isn’t valuable for its own sake. What’s the problem we’re solving? Be really clear on that before you start.”

Identify and define best practice

Great CoEs capture, codify and scale what already works.

“It’s about determining what best practice looks like and then duplicating that,” explains Paul. “Sometimes it comes from within the business. Other times it needs to come from outside. Know the source.”

That editorship - the act of curating, evolving, and editing best practice - is a core skill. So much of learning and development is actually content management and editorship. You start with a view but have to reserve the right to evolve it.

Manage the people side of change

Centres of Excellence need trust, communication, and strong stakeholder engagement to really work.

“You have to unpack the people piece,” says Lindsey. “It’s not just about the expertise of the team itself, it’s how you work with the wider organisation and bring two-way input on changing needs.”

She adds: “From the minute you say ‘Centre of Excellence,’ expectations go up. You’ve got to show the pathway and demonstrate impact, even if you start small with case studies.”

How to keep a Centre of Excellence going

Launching a CoE is the easy part. The challenge is in the messy middle: maintaining relevance, momentum, and energy over time.

Start small and build momentum

“You don’t need to go big straight away,” advises Paul. “Start small, build some success stories, and use those stories — and their ROI — as your sales pitch back into the organisation."

Celebrate early wins, spotlight bright spots, and get others involved. You’re effectively building a movement. Shine a light on green shoots, people showing new behaviours, and let that create a bit of FOMO across the business.

Create the conditions for feedback

“Too often we just say, ‘Let’s have one-to-ones or group sessions,’ but it’s about creating the conditions for real feedback to happen,” said Lindsey. “Lunch & learns, innovation sessions, cross-market sharing — you’ve got to drive those. It won’t happen by accident.”

Make it useful, or risk irrelevance

Centres of Excellence can easily become content warehouses no one uses. The solution to that is to make learning part of the real work.

“The research shows LMS content is only used 17–24% of the time,” warns Paul. “But when content is relevant, tied to real work and career growth, adoption jumps by over 80%.”

Here's his top tip: “Make sure someone is orchestrating and curating this. If you answer the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ you’ve won half the battle.”

Should a Centre of Excellence make itself redundant?

It’s a provocative question. I threw it out in our discussion. So what was the consensus? It's not as easy as all that...

“Yes, that’s the ideal,” says Lindsey, “but in practice, when CoEs are folded back into the business, focus often gets lost. Unless someone owns the strategy, innovation and budget, it can fade fast.”

Paul agrees: “Learning is already happening in every organisation — but whether it’s orchestrated and supported is another matter. A well-run CoE with proper business partnering will always be needed, because the environment is always changing.”

Final takeaways

If you’re setting up or leading a Centre of Excellence, here are our top three things to think about:

1. Be clear about what you are — and aren’t — going to do.

2. Get the right people involved from the start — especially any naysayers.

3. Start small and build success stories to drive adoption and support.

At their best, centres of excellence are dynamic, evolving engines of capability, with a clear purpose, great people, and relentless relevance.

And as we agreed in our chat: they take energy. But when done right, they’re worth every mile.