The World Economic Forum's recent 'Future of Jobs' report positioned 'AI and big data' and 'technological literacy' as skills that will become increasingly important over the next five years. But what do these skills look like in practice? What do we mean when we talk about 'AI literacy'? 

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Anna are joined by Erica Werneman Root, legal consultant and co-founder of Knowledge Bridge, to discuss: 

• what 'AI literacy' means in different contexts; 

• the compliance implications of building AI literacy in organizations; 

• how L&D can help employees develop AI skills. 

To find out more about AI literacy, check out Erica's recent articles for IAPP. 

For examples of how organizations are building AI literacy programmes, explore the AI Office's 'Living Repository of AI Literacy Practices'. 

The blog Anna mentioned was 'From Centaurs To Cyborgs: Our evolving relationship with generative AI'  

In 'What I Learned This Week', Anna referenced research from Harvard, exploring the effects of AI on knowledge work. 

Ross D mentioned OpenAI's new 'Deep Research' tool. More trivially, he also shared Pierre Franey's five-star recipe for turkey chilli. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Anna Barnett 

• Erica Werneman Root 

In last week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, we explored sales enablement from the perspective of sales and marketing teams. But where do product teams fit in? Beyond building products, what role do these teams play in generating revenue? 

For the second instalment in our two-part series on sales enablement, Ross D and Lara are once again joined by Darren Bezani, Chief Salecologist at Salecology, to discuss: 

• why it's important to involve product teams in sales enablement; 

• the behaviors we want product teams to demonstrate; 

• how L&D can support this, beyond simply providing training. 

To learn more about Darren's work, head to salecology.com. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Lara mentioned A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass. 

Ross D recommended Warren Zanes' book Deliver Me from Nowhere, exploring the making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Lara Kidd 

• Darren Bezani 

Hello listeners! No new episode this week, but we wanted to revisit this 2018 classic with Dom Price, from Atlassian.

It'll help you think about whether the habits and behaviors that have helped you navigate the world to this point, are still useful today.

Regular show notes below.

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In the early stages of our careers we learn how to do our jobs, manage office politics and earn promotion. But those habits and behaviours that initially help us advance can become a burden. We end up in meetings because it used to be important to show face, and not because they're an effective use of our time.

In this week's GoodPractice Podcast, Ross G and Owen speak to Dom Price, Futurist at software developer Atlassian, about his approach to 'unlearning' habits and behaviours.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us all on LinkedIn.

The Atlassian Team Playbook is available at: https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook

For a fun insight into how Atlassian team members speak to one another, see: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/inside-atlassian/teamwork-data-visualization

Owen's 'What I Unlearned This Week' covered Johann Hari's Guardian piece on depression. The original article is here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connections 

And, for balance, the counter argument is here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/08/is-everything-johann-hari-knows-about-depression-wrong-lost-connections  

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work

As Ben Betts wrote in a recent blog post, 'the LMS is the first point of entry to learning; the front-of-house of our industry.' While that front-of-house may look a little different now than it did twenty years ago, and despite the oft-repeated claim that the LMS is dying, it remains the default gateway to digital learning in organizations. But are things about to change?

To answer that question and others, Ben joins Ross D and Owen on this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast to discuss:

·       the many eras of the LMS, and how we got to where we are now;

·       the forces that have shaped e-learning interfaces over time;

·       how AI and other changes in the tech landscape might usher in a new era.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended the podcast Acquired, and Ben mentioned the website 'There's an AI for That'.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Dickie

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Ben Betts

How can we help managers demonstrate care for their teams, while maintaining high standards of accountability and performance?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Dr Anna Barnett are joined by Joris Merks-Benjaminsen, Managing Without Power, to discuss:

• why nice managers can still provide mediocre management
• how managers can balance care for their teams with high levels of performance
• and how to build better managers.

For more from Joris, visit managingwithoutpower.com

The paper Anna discussed, on 'nondecision-making', was: Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1963). Decisions and nondecisions: An analytical framework. American political science review, 57(3), 632-642.

Google's research into great managers (Project Oxygen) and effective teams (Project Aristotle) is available online.

During the discussion, Joris referenced the prisoner's dilemma.

We also discussed findings from our report, 'Building Better Managers'.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Anna recommended Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah.

Joris discussed Sinterklaas.

Ross G discussed 'sovereign AI'.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. And our new Manager Skills Assessment.

You can also email custom@mindtools.com and Ross G will get back to you.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Ross Garner
• Dr Anna Barnett
• Joris Merks-Benjaminsen

Are you an over-committing over-achiever? In Toxic Productivity, author Israa Nasir argues that you can only maintain that approach to productivity for so long. 

Eventually you'll burn out, exhausted by all those 'time management hacks' that organizations (like Mind Tools!) keep suggesting.  

So this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Israa joins Ross Dickie and Ross Garner to offer an alternative approach. We discuss: 

• how toxic productivity manifests in our lives 

• how getting rewarded for our productivity tricks us into trying to achieve more 

• how the signals that managers send sets expectations for their teams. 

The book, by Israa Nasir, is Toxic Productivity. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D recommended checking out the NotebookLM AI-podcast version of our newsletter. 

Israa recommended the 'Under the K' venue in New York. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Ross Garner 

• Israa Nasir 

Learning measurement is difficult, complex, and expensive. Or is it? 

In Measurement and Evaluation on a Shoestring, Dr Alaina Szlachta applies a Build-Borrow-Buy approach to learning measurement, and joins The Mind Tools L&D Podcast this week to share her insights with Ross Dickie and Owen. 

We discuss: 

• the importance of asking the right questions 

• how to bake measurement into your programs 

• what 'Build', 'Borrow' and 'Buy' look like in practice. 

Find out more about Measurement and Evaluation on a Shoestring. 

You can also sign up for the book launch party, or sign up for Alaina's newsletter.  

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Owen Ferguson 

• Dr Alaina Szlachta 

Measuring management capability is intrinsically complex. Unlike sales training, where you have sales, or customer-service training, where you have CSAT scores, management doesn't have a built-in metric we can use to quantify learning impact. So, what's the solution? 

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie is joined by Owen and Anna to discuss our new 'Manager Skills Assessment' — a scientific diagnostic that managers and their organizations can use to evaluate their capability. We discuss: 

• what the Manager Skills Assessment (MSA) is, and how it works; 

• how we designed the MSA based on scientific research; 

• what managers and L&D teams can expect to get out of the MSA. 

To learn more about the Manager Skills Assessment, visit our website. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen mentioned SpaceX's 'Mechazilla'. 

Ross D also referenced Donald Taylor and Egle Vinauskaite's latest report, AI in L&D: Intention and Reality. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Owen Ferguson 

• Anna Barnett 

If you work in learning and development, you probably get some direction from your senior leadership team about what to focus on and how much to spend. But, once you get into the details, you have lots of room to play.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Chief Learning Officer Marc Steven Ramos joins Ross Garner and Ross Dickie to discuss:

·       the strengths and weaknesses of different genAI tools

·       whether tools like ChatGPT are living up to the hype

·       how L&D can start experimenting, and why it's the ideal team to do so!

Marc discussed these ideas in more detail on his Substack and in his article for Harvard Business Review (with Marc Zao-Sanders).

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross G recommended a warning on 'pokies' from The Guardian.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Ross Dickie

·       Marc Steven Ramos

In Power to the Middle, McKinsey consultants Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock and Emily Field argue that the 'middle manager' is key to organizational success. Long maligned (often by McKinsey), the manager is in fact responsible for delivering objectives, addressing underperformance, building trusting relationships, and resolving team conflicts.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner, Ross Dick and Nahdia Khan discuss:

·       why managers are so important

·       the role of 'manager' vs 'individual contributor'

·       how to develop better managers

The book, Power to the Middle, is available now.

Our report, 'Building Better Managers', is also available now.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D recommended the podcast series Slow Burn.

Nahdia discussed cloud seeding.

Ross Garner discussed the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw, via @CulturalTutor.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Ross Dickie

·       Nahdia Khan

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are joined by Kathryn Hume, strategic workforce planning and L&D consultant, and author of the book Learn, Solve, Thrive.

In the book, Kath argues that learners have a responsibility for managing their own learning and outlines strategies that anyone can adopt to make that process easier.

We discuss:

·       why we can't 'wait around for someone to teach us'

·       some of the difficulties we experience when we try to learn

·       the relationship between workforce planning and training.

For more from Kath, visit her website: workforcetransformations.com.au

The book, Learn, Solve, Thrive, is available now.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Ross Dickie

·       Kathryn Hume

It's been three years since the first edition of The Learning and Development Handbook by Michelle Parry-Slater was published. In that time, a global pandemic, rise of AI, and shift to remote working, have transformed how we work.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Michelle returns to the show to discuss the second edition of her book with Ross G.

We discuss:

• what has changed (and what hasn't) since the first edition was published
• the evolving role of the modern learning professional
• whether it's still possible to keep up with the rate of change.

During the discussion, Ross referenced Amazon's decision to tell staff to go back to the office five days a week.

He also discussed the paper: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16.

To find out more about Michelle, visit kairosmodernlearning.com

For the book, check out thelndhandbook.com

Quite note: Apologies for the slightly dodgy audio on this episode. After 400+ episodes, Ross G can still pick the wrong microphone to record.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription.

This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Ross Garner
• Michelle Parry-Slater

All sales training is sales enablement, but not all sales enablement is sales training. 

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie and Lara are joined by Darren Bezani, Chief Salecologist at Salecology, to discuss: 

• what 'sales enablement' means, and why it's intentionally broader in scope than sales training;  

• what sales enablement is designed to achieve, beyond increased sales; 

• the role of managers in sales enablement. 

To learn more about Darren's work, head to salecology.com. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Lara recommended the 'How to Unlock the Power of Your Subconscious Mind' episode of Dr Rangan Chatterjee's Feel Better Live More podcast.  

Ross D discussed Ben Betts' blog post 'The fall of click-next e-learning: What Operator means for training'. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Lara Kidd 

• Darren Bezani 

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are re-visiting their L&D mailbag to answer your questions.  

We discuss: 

• What is L&D actually doing well with Large Language Models? (via Gill Chester) 

• What's the top 3 least likely L&D jobs to be replaced by AI? (via Alan Hiddleston) 

• How can learning teams partner better with the rest of the org? (via Sarah Danzl) 

• What has been the most popular content on MindTools this year, and why...? (via Adam Lacey) 

• What lessons from Centauri's Shadow can L&D professionals take forward into the autumn to boost their skills? (via Matthew Batten) 

During the AI discussion, Ross Dickie recommended Ross Stevenson's Steal These Thoughts newsletter, and Philippa Hardman's Dr Phil's Newsletter. 

Ross G referenced The Rest is Politics's interview with Audrey Tang. 

Ross Ganer also recommended our previous episode with Natal Dank, 'Agile L&D puts the "human" into "Human Resources"', and his own newsletter on the many benefits of text content. 

Finally, Ross Dickie recommended Bob Mortimer's The Satsuma Complex. 

And Ross Garner grudgingly referenced his own debut novel, Centauri's Shadow, available now from Amazon UK and Amazon US. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

Hey listeners! No new episode this week, but we wanted to revisit this 2022 classic with Jane Bozarth because we thought it paired nicely with the latest edition of our L&D Dispatch newsletter.

Do check out the newsletter Ross G discussed on our L&D Dispatch page, 'Four papers that will make you laugh (then make you think)'.

Regular show notes below.

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In learning science, there are certain ideas that have leapt the fences of academia and seeped into the public consciousness. Often, these ideas gain traction because they feel intuitively true. But what does the data say? And how should we apply these ideas as learning professionals? 

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are joined by Jane Bozarth, Director of Research for the Learning Guild, to discuss three research papers that challenge the received wisdom. We cover: 

• Generational difference
• Learning styles 
• The "Marshmallow Test". 

The three papers we discussed were:

• 'Generational Differences in Work-Related Attitudes: A Meta-analysis', published in 2012 in the Journal of Business and Psychology. 
• 'Another Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Disparities among Undergraduate Anatomy Students' Study Strategies, Class Performance, and Reported VARK Learning Styles', published in 2018 in Anatomical Sciences Education. 
• 'Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes', published in Psychological Science in 2018. 

The Atlantic did a good write-up of the controversy surrounding the 'Marshmallow Experiment'. See here: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/ 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross Garner mentioned a Twitter thread from Aaron Berman, in which he shares writing tips from his time as editor of the US President's daily brief: https://twitter.com/aarondberman/status/1541576231891525633?s=21&t=1_oHB0tqjbt4VXZXmTMnXQ 

Jane spoke about Kate the Chemist's recent session at DevLearn. To find out more about Kate, visit her website: https://www.katethechemist.com/ 

Ross Dickie recommended the technology podcast 'Hard Fork' from the New York Times. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or through the NYT website: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/podcasts/hard-fork-technology.html 

To find out more about Jane's work at the Learning Guild, see: https://www.learningguild.com/ 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.    

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:     

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT 
• Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT 
• Dr Jane Bozarth - @JaneBozarth 

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen are diving into their L&D mailbag to answer your questions.

We discuss:

·       Will there be more or less opportunity to make a meaningful living in L&D over the next five years? (via JD Dillon)

·       If we think of L&D as a product, what would you sunset and what would the top three candidates look like for development? (via Sean Brown)

·       What's more important to a Learning strategy and approach... Speed or Efficacy? (via Marc Steven Ramos)

·       What's your best ROI story? (via Marc Zao-Sanders)

During the discussion, Ross referenced Benedict Evans article 'The AI Summer'.

Ross also referenced an example of work our behavioral scientists completed for an ESG project.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, we're putting the 'people' back into People Development and the 'human' back into 'Human Resources, as we explore Natal Dank's book Agile L&D.  

Natal is the co-owner and director of PXO Culture, a consultancy firm on a mission to make HR, culture and change about humans. 

And her book, Agile L&D, is a follow-up to Agile HR.  

We discuss: 

• Problems with a 'traditional' approach to L&D 

• Tools and methods for prioritizing and organizing workloads 

• Whether 'agile' has just become another corporate buzzword 

To find out more about Natal, and the book, visit pxoculture.com 

During the discussion, Natal referenced the books The Build Trap by Melissa Perri and Embracing Uncertainty by Margaret Heffernan. 

For more on Taylorism, see 'scientific management'. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross Garner discussed Yuval Noah Harari's bleak take on the future of AI and government. 

Nahdia discussed digital twins. 

Natal discussed Meditations for Mortals. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Nahdia Khan 

• Natal Dank 

Technical professionals have a high level of expertise, but translating that expertise for non-technical colleagues isn't always straightforward. Whether you're an engineer, a researcher, or even an L&D professional, how can you communicate in a way that resonates with your audience? 

This week on the Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Owen are joined by Neil Thompson, founder of Teach The Geek, to discuss:  

• why good communication skills are important for technical professionals; 

• the specific challenges associated with technical communication; 

• how L&D can support technical professionals to become better communicators. 

To find out more about Neil's work, visit www.teachthegeek.com 

The very geeky meta-meta-analysis that Owen mentioned in 'What I Learned This Week' can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-024-01172-y 

You can read the Verge article that Ross D referenced at: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/18/24223160/waymo-honking-san-francisco-parking-lot-depot-fix-not-working 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Owen Ferguson 

• Neil Thompson 

This week we're revisiting an old adage: The employer who says, 'What if we train our people and they leave?' And the trainer who says, 'What if we don't and they stay?'

As Talent Development Manager for Kew Green Hotels, Clare Sheppard knows all about this. She's responsible for helping those who want to stay progress in their careers, while giving those who leave a great experience that they can carry with them into their next role.

We discuss:

·       the types of colleague who fall into the 'Early Careers' bucket (it's broader than you might think!)

·       how to identify high potential colleagues

·       the role of managers in supporting Early Careers professionals.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Clare discussed the likelihood of it raining, and what that means.

Ross recommended (sort of) an old episode of The Magic Roundabout.

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Clare Sheppard

Last week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen explored how the 70:20:10 model is being applied by three L&D Practitioners: Ceri Sharples, Cath Addis, and Carl Akintola-Davis. Today, we wanted to follow up on some of the challenges posed during that discussion with The 70:20:10 Institute's Charles Jennings.

What does it really mean to 'integrate learning into the workflow', and how does 70:20:10 move us towards a performance focus?

We discuss:

·       Where the numbers '70', '20' and '10' come from

·       How a focus on 'learning' tends to lead to a '10+' approach

·       Examples of interventions that have focused on supporting performance, rather than formal learning.

For more on the origins of 70:20:10, see this blog post from Charles.

See also The Center for Creative Leadership's chapter 'Learning Through Experience'.

Mind Tools offers a summary of Informal Learning, by Jay Cross.

Joseph Stiglitz book is Creating a Learning Culture.

Find out more about Dr Edwards Deming.

For more from Charles and his team, see 702010institute.com.

The case study Charles wrote with Brian Murphy from Citi bank was: 'From Courses to Campaigns: Citi's Journey to a Culture of Continuous Learning'.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended (again) Lenny's Newsletter, in particular a recent edition on pricing for AI features.

Ross discussed a post from Ben Evans on how users are interacting with ChatGPT.

Charles recommended the podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage.

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Charles Jennings

Depending how you count it, 70:20:10 is almost 40 years old. The model provides a high-level outline of how we learn at work: 10% through formal learning, 20% through working with others, 70% through doing the work.

The numbers get criticised, but this insight is widely accepted: Most of what we learn does not come from formal training. But how then should L&D practitioners apply the model to the work that they do? Is it still a useful concept after all this time?

In the first of this two-part series, Ross Garner and Owen explore these questions with three practitioners: Ceri Sharples, Learning and Development manager at Somerset Bridge Group; Cath Addis, L&D manager at Ascential; and return guest Carl Akintola-Davis, Head of Leadership Development at Phoenix Group.

We discuss:

·       The history and criticisms of 70:20:10

·       How useful the concept is for discussing workplace learning with stakeholders

·       How to think about the '70', the '20', and the '10' when designing learning programs.

For more on the origins of 70:20:10, see this blog post from Charles Jennings of The 702010 Institute, who is joining us next week on the show.

Carl's acronym for workplace learning was 'Performance RECIPES: Reflection, Experimentation, Connection, Information, Practice, Environment and Support'.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed a new paper from Nature, which didn't really impress him: Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 1-6.

Ross learned the unfortunate fate of 440 squirrels.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Ceri Sharples

·       Cath Addis

·       Carl Akintola-Davis

A summer holiday holds the potential for distraction-free reading. With that in mind, in this week's episode our podcast team suggest books that hold lessons for L&D practitioners. Which might you take on holiday this summer?

Book list

• Right Kind of Wrong. Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive (2023) by Amy Edmondson

www.amazon.co.uk/Right-Kind-Wrong-Learning-Thrive

• Counter-Intelligence: What the secret world can teach us about problem-solving and creativity (2024) by Robert Hannigan

https://www.roberthannigan.com/

• The Tyranny of Metrics (2018) by Jerry J. Muller

www.amazon.co.uk/Tyranny-Metrics-Jerry-Z-Muller

• How big things get done. The surprising factors behind every successful project (2023) by Brent Flyberg and Dan Gardner

www.amazon.co.uk/How-Big-Things-Get-Done

• A history of the world in twelve shipwrecks (2024) by David Gibbons

www.amazon.co.uk/History-World-Twelve-Shipwrecks

• Performance-focused learner surveys (2022) by Will Thalheimer

www.amazon.co.uk/Performance-Focused-Learner-Surveys-Distinctive-Effectiveness

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia spoke about how former PM Harold Wilson funded his Alzheimer's care www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/23/former-pm-harold-wilson-sold-private-papers-fund-care-alzheimers

Ross Dickie also mentioned the traditional Greek bagpipe, known as the 'tsampouna', which he discovered during a recent holiday on Santorini.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Nahdia Khan

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Ross Dickie

According to a recent study from Ipsos, and commissioned by Amazon, 86% of respondents said that career development is essential, very or fairly important to them. But, in our experience, it tends to become a lot less important when the day-to-day demands of work crop up. 

So, in this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, return guest Neil John Cunningham from Align Learn Do joins Ross G to ask why this is, and what to do about it. 

We discuss: 

• How to build the credibility of your L&D function 

• The extent to which marketing L&D works  

• What to do about a 'disjointed' L&D offering. 

You can read Amazon's study online. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed the Lokiceratops Rangiformis. 

For more from Neil, including his book Narratives and Numbers, see alignlearndo.com. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Neil John Cunningham 

Those of who work in learning and development like to think we're in the business of behavior change. But we often don't have an in-depth understanding of what current behaviors are, or how to change them. 

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner is joined by Ross Dickie and Dr Anna Barnett to discuss: 

• methods for understanding behavior; 

• digital learning methods for changing behavior; 

• methods for measuring change. 

During the discussion, Ross Garner described the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

Ross Dickie mentioned libertarian paternalism, very much a friend-of-the-show. 

Anna referenced the COM-B model of behavior change. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Anna recommended a presentation from the Behavioral Insights Team, and Ross G referenced his video on nudge theory. 

Ross Dickie discussed Jevon's paradox, based on Satya Nadella's tweet about Chinese AI firm DeepSeek. 

And Ross Garner recommended a thread on X, where famous movie scenes are recreated as Lego. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There you'll also find details of our Manager Skill Builder, our on-demand management development program that intelligently adapts to every user.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• Dr Anna Barnett 

In part three of our #BuildingBetterManagers series, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined for one last time by Dr Anna Barnett from the Mind Tools Insights team. If you've been listening along recently, we've already covered the capabilities that make a 'good' manager, and how we can develop them. In this week's episode, we're looking at how we support more experienced managers. 

We discuss: 

• The long-term impact of early management training 

• Differences (and similarities) between new and experienced managers 

• How we can provide constant ongoing support to more experienced managers. 

During the discussion, Nahdia referenced our podcast with Georgie Rudd on listening. 

You can read our report, 'Building Better Managers', now. 

If you need helping building better managers, we can help you measure and improve capability no matter your context. Email custom@mindtools.com or visit mindtools.com/business/poducts/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Anna discussed scenario-based learning. See Episode 356 of this podcast for more on that. 

Ross G discussed research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on the 'power of proximity'. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Dr Anna Barnett 

• Nahdia Khan 

Last week, we kicked off our three-part #BuildingBetterManagers series with an overview of the 12 capabilities that we know make a difference to performance. Now we're asking: How do we help managers build those capabilities? 

To answer this question, Ross G and Ross D are joined once again by Dr Anna Barnett, from the Mind Tools Insights team, to discuss her recommendations from our latest report: 'Building Better Managers'. 

We discuss: 

• Evidence-based approaches to improving manager capability 
• How Mind Tools factored this evidence into our product design 
• An example of a custom management programme that made a measurable difference to manager capabilities.  

If you need help building better managers, we can help you measure and improve capability no matter your context. Email custom@mindtools.com or visit mindtools.com/business/products/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D discussed the film Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off, about the career of Tony Hawk. 

Anna discussed the book The Migraine Brain by Carolyn Bernstein. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support Content Library, our Off-the-Shelf e-learning, and our Custom work.   

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Dr Anna Barnett 

• Ross Dickie 

What does good management look like? What skills and capabilities does a manager need? Are you a good manager?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson are joined by Dr Anna Barnett, from our own in-house Insights team, to discuss the findings of our latest report: 'Building Better Managers'.

In the first of three episodes exploring how we can improve management capability for our people and organizations, we discuss:

·       How we define a 'good' manager

·       The capabilities all managers need to perform, no matter their industry

·       How to measure manager capability.

We've used the results of Anna's research to develop our own manager skills assessment. It can help your managers identify skill gaps, while also giving L&D leaders an insight into critical development areas that exist across their organisations.

To speak to us about running our management skills assessment with your people, get in touch! Email custom@mindtools.com or visit mindtools.com/business/poducts/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting.

During the discussion, Anna referenced the following papers:

Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(2), 241-251.

Carmeli, A., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Ziv, E. (2010). Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity Research Journal, 22(3), 250-260.

Our report, 'Building Better Managers', will be released on July 9.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen shared how disagreement is often mistaken for bad listening.

Ross discussed the app Finch, for motivating behavior change.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Dr Anna Barnett

For eight years, the team here on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast (formerly The GoodPractice Podcast) have been chatting work, performance and learning with some of the brightest minds in learning and development.

This week, to celebrate the release of our 400th episode, our friends Phil Willcox from Emotion at Work and Ady Howes from Digital Skills People have pulled together a tribute episode for us.

We discuss:

·       the Mind Tools team's favourite episodes

·       what we learned from 400 episodes of podcasting

·       what others think of the podcast.

During the discussion, Ross Garner referenced his favourite episode: 279 — Why work is the ideal place to talk about race.

Margaret Greenberg and Gina Greenlee's book is The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace and Why It's Actually Good for Business (published by McGraw-Hill). The coauthors work with organizations to embed racial equity into their business strategy. For more information go to their website BusinessofRace.com and click on the Work with Us tab.

Ross D's favourite episode was Don Taylor's regular Global Sentiment Survey appearances.

Nahdia picked: 382 — You don't have to talk to add value, with Georgie Rudd.

Owen picked: 323 — Making decisions with data and intuition, with Oded Netzer.

Gemma picked: 300 — Celebrating live from London!, with Phil Willcox and Julie Dirksen.

Thanks to David Hayden, Sukh Pabial, Michelle Parry-Slater, Dan Wiseman and ChatGPT for their contributions.

Ross G's novel, Centauri's Shadow, is available now from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Phil Willcox

·       Ady Howes

·       Ross Garner

·       Ross Dickie

·       Nahdia Khan

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Owen Ferguson

Digital learning content offers a scalable, always-on option to help your people build their skills and overcome workplace challenges. But often these libraries get dusty, bogged down by out-of-date content with little relevance, or hidden away in a dark corner of the intranet where no one can find them. 

So in this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Virgin Money's Martin Ritchie, Digital Learning Manager, joins Ross Garner and Lara to share:

• How Virgin Money raise awareness of their Mind Tools content library 

• Techniques for promoting a proactive learning mindset 

• 'Push' vs 'pull' learning. 

During the discussion, Ross referenced a recent academic paper: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed 'pebbling', as covered by The Guardian. 

For more on how Mind Tools work with Virgin Money, see our case study. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can't be used with any other offer. 

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Lara Kidd 

• Martin Ritchie 

In 'Measure of a Man', episode nine of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise crew debate whether their robot companion, Data, is truly alive. More interesting for us, though, is the way they interact with artificial intelligence (AI) in general. Not just for what it tells us about how AI tools might evolve, but also for how we humans work with them.

So in this special episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Ganer, Claire, Ross Dick and Nahdia discuss:

·       How closely the Enterprise computer reflects current tools like ChatGPT,

·       Whether we want robots to work alongside us,

·       Whether the Turing Test still has relevance.

During the discussion, Ross Garner talked about how Moderna is using ChatGPT, how ELIZA passed the Turing Test, and the ongoing discussion around whether ChatGPT's new voice is too similar to Scarlett Johansson's.

Ross D discussed Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs, Brian Christian's book The Alignment Problem, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's views on neural networks.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia recommended the movie Atlas, available on Netflix.

Ross Garner recommended following visual effects artist Todd Vaziri.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Nahdia Khan

·       Ross Dickie

·       Claire Gibson

We humans are social creatures. We form organic communities wherever we go, based on shared interests, passions and needs.

But when we try to impose top-down learning communities on an employee population, things get more difficult. Is it possible for L&D to create a flourishing community?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined by Andy Lancaster, author of Organizational Learning Communities, who offers a framework that can help.

We discuss:

·       Types of workplace learning community

·       The key characteristics of successful communities

·       A framework that you can use to establish an effective community

Andy's book is available now from Kogan Page.

During the discussion, Ross mentioned our podcast with JD Dillon and his book The Modern Learning Ecosystem.

Ross also referenced our podcast on Working Out Loud Circles, from way back in 2017.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia recommended the 'Women in Learning' community.

Ross discussed the weird way language affects our sense of space and time.

For more from Andy, visit reminaginepeopledevelopment.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Finally, it wouldn't be appropriate to plug Ross G's critically acclaimed debut novel Centauri's Shadow on a regular basis but, since Andy brought it up, it's available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. It has 4.8 stars out of 5, by the way.

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Nahdia Khan

·       Andy Lancaster

In learning and development, we typically want people to do something that they are currently not doing, or to stop doing something that they shouldn't be. One obvious approach is training, but there are in fact a broad spectrum of interventions that we can deploy.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Owen are joined by Wil Procter, Strategy and Innovation Director at Nazaré, and by Jessica Holt, Senior Behavioural Science Consultant at Inizio Engage XD.

We explore:

·       What behavioral science is,

·       What interventions can help change people's behavior,

·       How the COM-B model can help structure discovery conversations.

To find out more about the COM-B model, see behaviourchangewheel.com

The book that Owen referenced was Coaching for Improved Work Performance by Ferdinand F. Fournies.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Jess discussed a new meta-analysis of behavior change interventions: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16.

Ross asked and answered a dumb question about birds. New Scientist explains why there are not dead birds everywhere.

For more from Wil, see: nazarelearning.com

For more from Jess, see: xd.inizioengage.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Wil Procter

·       Jessica Holt

As professionals, we want to know if our work has had the impact we originally intended and to tell others about it. This means getting comfortable with data and crafting compelling data stories.

On this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G is joined by Neil Cunningham, founder of Align | Learn | Do and author of Narratives and Numbers, to discuss practical and mindset shifts L&D can take.

We explore:

• why people think it's too difficult to measure the ROI of learning
• how to get stakeholder buy-in to measuring and evaluating learning
• how to craft credible L&D data stories.

You can get a copy of Neil's book, Narratives and Numbers, from the Align | Learn | Do website. Use the offer code mt10 at checkout for a 10% discount.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discovers the many reasons why lorry drivers might accidentally crash into a bridge via this curiously fascinating X thread.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Ross Garner
• Neil Cunningham

You've got a brilliant idea for the next big thing in tech and have gathered the smartest engineers and designers to build it (plus the cash to pay them). Will it end up being a success? You've got the best team to deliver it, so why wouldn't it be? Well…

Gemma, Ross and Martin Gonzalez, Google's Effective Founders Project founder and author, discuss this situation on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast.

We explore:

·       how and why it's people issues that often lead to (startup) business failure

·       the balances that need to be struck by those creating and working in teams

·       the uncomfortable "bullsh*t circle" exercise, as a step towards fixing people issues.

During the episode, Martin talks about how the "hiding hand principle" is critical for some projects to get going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiding_hand_principle

In 'What I Learned This Week', Martin references Gary P. Pisano's Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation 

Find out more about Martin and Josh's book The Bonfire Moment by visiting bonfiremoment.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Martin Gonzalez

The National Trust is Europe's largest conservation charity, established 130 years ago to look after the UK's nature, beauty and history. Its leaders have diverse areas of focus, from protecting woodland to managing properties – and even running a gold mine! 

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Ross D find out just how the Trust develops these leaders, with Development Specialist Carole Thelwall-Jones. 

We discuss: 

• how a leader needs to think 'to be' lists, rather than 'to do' lists; 

• how leadership development is structured at the National Trust; 

• how L&D professionals can help new leaders let go of what helped them succeed in the past. 

During the discussion, Carole referenced Leadership: Plain and Simple, by Steve Radcliffe. 

Ross G referenced our 'Building Better Managers' report. 

Carole also discussed the 4D instructional design model, and Roffey Park's report 'The Expert as Leader'.  

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D recommended The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation – and the other 99%, by Conor Niland. 

Carole discussed Roko's basilisk and Stephen Fry's lecture AI: A means to an end or a means to the end? 

Ross G discussed 'The Illusion of Explanatory Depth'. 

For more on the National Trust, visit their website: nationaltrust.org.uk 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There you'll also find details of our Manager Skill Builder, our on-demand management development program that intelligently adapts to every user.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• Carole Thelwall-Jones 

If you're thinking, isn't positive psychology a bit 'woo woo', and a bit like forcing yourself to take a sunny outlook, then this episode is for you. As an approach to a happier, more balanced inner and outer life, positive psychology is not woo – it has a solid scientific foundation with practical methodologies.

Gemma, Ross Garner and their guest, Leadership coach Sandra Berko, discuss these very points this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast.

We explore:

·       what positive psychology is and isn't

·       what the science suggests we do to find balance

·       how you can help others to use positive psychology.

Ross mentioned an earlier episode of the podcast on job crafting. You can listen to Episode 271 – Jobcraft Country wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website: podcast.mindtoolsbusiness.com/271-jobcraft-country

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross recommended the "Great Minds on Learning" podcast episode on Generative AI Theorists with Donald Clark.

Sandra spoke about emotion codes, which feature in a course she's currently enrolled in. Emotion codes are based on theories developed by Dr Bradley Nelson. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

·       Ross Garner

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Sandra Berko

Adaptive courses come in many forms, but generally respond to the learner's existing knowledge and skills: thereby optimizing the time to completion. But do they improve learning outcomes? 

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen are joined by Roy de Vries, Learning Innovator at aNewSpring, to explore the results of an experiment they ran to compare adaptive vs linear courses. 

We discuss: 

• Forms of adaptive learning content; 

• The potential advantages of adaptive learning; 

• The results of an experiment carried out by aNewSpring. 

Details of the study we discussed are online at: anewspring.com/articles/adaptive-learning-reduce-study-time  

During the discussion, Ross referenced our AI-powered difficult conversation simulator: AI Conversations. It gives your people an opportunity to practice a variety of off-the-shelf or custom scenarios. You can find details on our website: mindtools.com/business/products/ai-conversations 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended the book Smart Swam, by Peter Millers. 

If you want to hear The L&D Dispatch jingle again (and why wouldn't you?), it's available from Suno.com.  

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

For aNewSpring, visit anewspring.com  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers: 

• Ross Garner 

• Owen Ferguson 

• Roy de Vries 

Timeboxing means dividing your day into 15-60 minute slots, based on your priorities, and then sticking to those slots as you dive into the business of work. If that sounds great, it is. If it sounds easy, it isn't.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, author Marc Zao-Sanders joins Ross G to give him advice on timeboxing his life. We discuss:

·       The benefits of timeboxing;

·       How email is the 'killer', and what to do about it;

·       The difficulties that Ross had implementing timeboxing, and what he could do differently.

The article Marc wrote for HBR was 'How timeboxing works and why it will make you more productive'.

Find out more about timeboxing from Mind Tools.

The book, Timeboxing, is available from Penguin.

Marc's substack is One Thing at a Time.

The company Marc runs is Filtered.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed the rising popularity of the 'dumbphone'.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

·       Ross Garner

·       Marc Zao-Sanders

As learning designers, we're ultimately in the business of trying to help people build new connections in their brains. To do this effectively, we need to have a fundamental understanding of how the brain works. But how far down the neuroscience rabbit hole do we need to go?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie and Ross Garner are joined by Lauren Waldman, learning scientist, consultant, and founder of Learning Pirate. We discuss:

·       Lauren's journey to deepen her understanding of how the brain works;

·       how much learning designers need to know about neuroscience to be effective in their roles;

·       the cost of L&D's continual focus on the 'shiny and the new'.

To find out more about Lauren's work as Learning Pirate, head to: https://www.learningpirate.com/. You can also view a trailer for Lauren's 'Joining Forces with Your Brain' series here.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross Garner mentioned the 'Battle of the Eclipse'.

Ross Dickie recommended the documentary STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

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·       Ross Dickie

·       Ross Garner

·       Lauren Waldman

As a conversation approach and development tool, coaching is a highly effective option for everyone – not just the executive suite. Professional coaches are expensive, so how can large organisations give all of their employees the chance to be coached and for coaching conversations to be the norm?

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma and Claire are joined by Mina Papakonstantinou, Manager in the Leadership development team at Deloitte, to discuss upskilling internal coaches at scale.

We discussed:

• the benefits of creating a coaching culture
• designing and facilitating a coaching skills programme for thousands
• measuring and evaluating a coaching programme.

During the discussion, Mina referenced a case study she provided as an example of how we apply coaching psychology in internal coaching within organisations.

See: Papakonstantinou, F. (2021). Internal coaching within organisations–Coaching psychology application. In Introduction to Coaching Psychology (pp. 203-204). Routledge.

See also her article, 'Creating micro closures: reinventing the psychological transition process to help coachees deal with the current state of disruptive change'.

She also contributed to: Papakonstantinou, F. (2016). 'A Trusted Chameleon: The evolving role of the L&D consultant as an internal coach'. In Coaching Psychology International - VOLUME 9, ISSUE 1 (pp, 11-16).

In what I learned this week, Gemma talked about oathing stones – a wedding ceremony ritual. You can read about it and other options: humanism.scot/ceremonies-blog/wedding-ceremony-rituals/

Claire found out about how money is made. Check out this really funky piece on it here: refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

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• Gemma Towersey
• Claire Gibson
• Mina Papakonstantinou

Whether you're delivering workshops, speaking at conferences, presenting to senior leaders, or even hosting L&D's favorite podcast, public speaking is a critical skill for learning professionals. So how do you develop this skill, and how do you manage your nerves when speaking publicly?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Lara are joined by Samantha Tulloch, public speaker and business-transformation consultant. We discuss:

·       the nuances of public speaking in an L&D context,

·       techniques that can help you prepare and deliver effectively,

·       strategies for managing nerves and anxiety.

During the discussion, Ross D referenced our previous episode with Andrea Pacini.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Samantha mentioned the little-known Steven Bartlett.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

·       Ross Dickie

·       Samantha Tulloch

·       Lara Kidd

One-off learning interventions are frequently the 'go to' solution for workplace learning teams, but we know that spaced repetition and retrieval practice are more effective. How do we get past organizational constraints that make this difficult?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Tony Manwani from People Unboxed joins Ross Dickie and Ross Garner to discuss:

·       The problems with one-off interventions

·       Science-backed principles to make an impact

·       How Tony's 'BentoBot' tool puts those principles into practice.

For a recent replication of Ebbinghaus' 'forgetting curve' experiment, see: Murre, J. M., & Dros, J. (2015). Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve. PloS one, 10(7), e0120644.

For more on the 'Leitner system' see the overview on Wikipedia.

For the LTEM model, referenced by Ross D, see Dr Will Thalheimer's website.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross G recommended Perplexity.ai.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

For more from Tony and People Unboxed, see peopleunboxed.co.uk. For BentoBot, see bentobot.com.

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

·       Ross Garner

·       Ross Dickie

·       Tony Manwani

Throughout the first few months of this year, we've been exploring artificial intelligence for L&D. In episode 377, Donald Taylor gave us the context on the extent to which L&D pros are using AI In episode 379, Ross Steven offered advice for getting started.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Owen were joined by Kacper Lodzikowski, Vice President of AI Capabilities at Pearson, to discuss the opportunities that AI presents for education. 

We discuss:

·       Why AI presents such a challenge for educators

·       Balancing those challenges with opportunities

·       What those opportunities are and where to embrace them.

During the discussion, Kacper referenced his paper: Łodzikowski, K., Foltz, P. W., & Behrens, J. T. (2023). Generative AI and Its Educational Implications. arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.08659.

To find out more about our own AI-powered 'difficult conversation' tool, see AI Conversations.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen recommended the TV show Poker Face.

Ross G referenced 'The Long Goodbye to Saturn's Ring', published in The Atlantic.

Kacper referenced Ethan Mollick's newsletter One Useful Thing and Gary Marcus' newsletter Marcus on AI.

Ross G shared a letter that was possibly written to Marilyn Monroe from John Steinbeck.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business/. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

•   Ross Garner
• Owen Ferguson
• Kacper Lodzikowski

Today's workplace is one where change is the norm. Learning is critical in this environment, but supporting learning isn't just about creating content. 

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, JD Dillon joins Ross Dickie and Ross Garner to discuss his book, The Modern Learning Ecosystem. We cover: 

• Why JD's book includes 'learning' in its title, even though it's not really about learning; 

• The role of influence, and what L&D can do to earn it; 

• The six key tasks of L&D, and how to build a modern learning ecosystem. 

To find out more about The Modern Learning Ecosystem, head to jdwroteabook.com. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross G referenced 'The Long Goodbye to Saturn's Ring', published in The Atlantic. 

JD mentioned the Space 220 restaurant at Disney World, and talked about how he is using Yousician to learn guitar. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit  mindtools.com/business/ There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• JD Dillon 

Donald Taylor describes this year's Global Sentiment Survey as the 'unsurprising survey'. Predictably, artificial intelligence topped the table by some margin. But the results of this year's survey still tell us a lot about how L&D perceives itself and the challenges we face as a profession.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Donald joins Ross and Owen to parse the results of the Global Sentiment Survey 2024. We discuss:

·       How L&D views the benefits and challenges associated with AI

·       The non-AI topics which gained popularity this year

·       Declining interest in collaborative/social working and coaching/mentoring 

·       The potential risks of L&D's current obsession with AI

To read the Global Sentiment Survey report for yourself, head to Don's website.

During our discussion, Owen mentioned responses to the GSS from our own Gent Ahmetaj and Ross Garner.

In 'What I Learned this Week', Owen referenced Ben Thompson's newsletter, Stratechery.

Ross mentioned how he'd followed Wirecutter's recommendations (which he learned about through Owen) to buy a new pair of earphones.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business/ There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

·       Ross Dickie

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Donald Taylor

Author, podcaster and award-winning filmmaker Topaz Adizes specializes in creating deeper human connections. So, in this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, he joins Ross Garner and Owen for an in-depth chat about: 

• how to formulate questions to build understanding; 

• how better conversations help us partner with our clients and stakeholders; 

• the benefits of online and in-person conversations. 

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed the growing capabilities of 'Large Behavior Models', via The Economist. 

For more from Topaz, visit topazadizes.com 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There you'll also find details of our Manager Skill Builder, our on-demand management development program that intelligently adapts to every user.  

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Owen Ferguson 

• Topaz Adizes 

While there are often constraints in charity's learning budgets, it's actually this limitation that can point the way to more efficient and effective learning design and development. There's much that the corporate learning world can learn from this. 

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by Gill Chester, Director of Little Man Project and Ross Dickie to discuss creating learning for organisations on a mission to change the world for the better.

We talked about:

• Resourcefulness and creativity throughout the design process
• The importance of developing relationships with stakeholders 
• Incorporating evaluation into the design process.

Gill mentioned that she's running eLearning Unlocked, a 12-month programme on designing great elearning. To find out more about the programme, visit www.elearningunlocked.org.uk

Do also check out Little Man Project here: https://www.littlemanproject.com/

Gemma learned a new word – suspire - thanks to Susie Dent. Her Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1325118435546816512

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business/. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

• Gemma Towersey
• Ross Dickie
• Gill Chester

As experts, managers or leaders, we often seek to help others by talking, talking, talking. But what if we didn't talk and just listened?

This week in The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Gemma are joined by Georgie Rudd, an executive coach, to discuss the trials and delights of listening.

We explore:

·       reasons that we don't listen well

·       the consequences of not listening (and of listening!)

·       how we can improve listening skills.

Georgie recommended Nancy Klein as an expert on listening and techniques to improve. Time to think is a good place to start: amazon.co.uk/Time-Think-Listening-Ignite-Human/dp/0706377451

You can find out more about Liz Wiseman's concepts of multipliers and diminishers in her book Multipliers: amazon.co.uk/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-Everyone-Smarter/dp/006239066X

In 'What I Learned This Week', Gemma spoke about the widest fairy ring in the world. John Wright reports that it's around 800m across in A spotter's guide to countryside mysteries, but a quick internet search revealed this to be a questionable fact. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

And, this week, we're giving a special shout out to our Learning Performance Benchmark. Not sure how your L&D function is performing? Find out now, for free: mindtools.com/business/products/lpb/

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on LinkedIn:

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Ross Dickie 

·       Georgie Rudd

Georgie can also be contacted via her website: https://www.ruddcoaching.co.uk/

We often hear that learning and development needs a 'seat at the table'. But how do we get there? How do we build credibility, tackle real issues, and demonstrate value?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast Ross and Owen are joined by author, academic and L&D pro Dr Keith Keating to discuss:

• Whether L&D are changemakers or order takers
• How we change the perception of L&D
• The extent to which L&D pros must sell themselves, their ideas and their profession.

During the discussion, Ross G referenced To Sell is Human by Dan Pink.

Keith's book is The Trusted Learning Advisor, available now from Amazon (US / UK).

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen gave a glittering endorsement of a sensational new science fiction writer (Ross G). Subscribe for updates.

Ross recommended alternative movie posters, collected in a thread from All The Right Movies.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. Or you can email rgarner@mindtools.com

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

·       Ross Garner

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Dr Keith Keating

What does an effective workplace wellbeing strategy look like? For some organizations, it's fruit boxes and staff discounts. For consultant and author Liggy Webb, it's a holistic approach that factors in the physical, social, mental, financial, digital, environmental and spiritual health of colleagues.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Nahdia are joined by Liggy to discuss:

• The benefits of a more structured approach to wellbeing
•   How to approach each of the '7 Wisdoms of Wellbeing'
• The role of personal responsibility in wellbeing.

For more from Liggy, check out her website: liggywebb.com

You can also check out her Future Human series, available now.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia recommended 'The impact of bad news, compassion fatigue, and the psychology of whistleblowing' from All In The Mind.

Ross recommended Lauren Bacall's autobiography, By Myself and Then Some.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. Or you can email rgarner@mindtools.com

Connect with our speakers   

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:

• Ross Garner
• Nahdia Khan
• Liggy Webb