The Mindtools L&D Podcast

You might offer employees the best content libraries, training or toolkits in the world, but if they don't know what's there, or when or why they'd access it, it's useless. In these situations, you need a creative approach to grab learners' attention and give them compelling reasons to keep them coming back. In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma is joined by the team behind...

For over 20 years, Debbie Carter has been working at industry magazine Training Journal , tracking the changes that have taken place in our field – and occasionally railing against them! In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , she joins Ross G and Owen to discuss:   ·        the state of L&D in the early 'noughties' ·        the big changes that have shaped our profession ·        t...

You can map employee networks in all sorts of ways: formal hierarchy, online interactions, geographic location. But, in this episode, we look at how surveying colleagues unlocks insights into who is a key relationship node – and who is isolated. In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Owen are joined by Jeppe Hansgaard, CEO of Innovisor. We discuss: ·        techniques for mappi...

Adults do not learn as children learn. They have prior experience, they have real-world problems to solve and, crucially, they can get up and walk out if they lose interest! In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and 'Ross Dickie' are joined by Dr Carrie Graham. In amongst talk of bridge building, we discuss: the core principles of Adult Learning Theory how to apply Adult Le...

In case you've missed it, 2023 has become the year when automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) started displacing cognitive and creative work. Chat-GPT, DALL-E and other tools are becoming ubiquitous, so this week we're asking how L&D and HR should respond.   To answer this question, Owen and Ross D are joined on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast by Ashley Recanati , author of AI Battle Royale: How...

In an uncomfortable first for The Mind Tools L&D Podcast team, we're handing over this week's hosting duties to friend-of-the-show Mat t Pleger , Organizational Development Consultant at UMass Memorial Health. Matt ha s been a long-time client of Ross G's, and this time HE'S asking the questions.   Owen, Ross G and Ross D discuss:   how we got started in L&D   what we've gained from doing the podc...

Used effectively, video can be the most emotive part of a learning experience. So how do you get it right?   In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D and Gemma are joined by Samson Owolabi, Creative Director at Bearded Fellows, to discuss:   what 'high-impact video' means in a learning context    how to go about designing videos that will resonate with your audience   how to overcome...

Does everyone have a book in them? How hard it is to take an idea to publication? In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , authors Andy Lancaster, Nelson Sivalingam, Michelle Parry-Slater and Gary Cookson join Ross G to share their experiences. We discuss: ·        why they wanted to write a book in the first place ·        how to get started ·        advice for overcoming the stress of a d...

The opportunities we have access to in life are shaped by ou r background, our environmen t and our networks . It i s difficult to create equitable organizations if a single homogenous group are making most of the decisions.   In Reverse Mentoring: Removing Barriers and Building Belonging in the Workplace , coach and author Patrice Go rdon describes how connecting senior decision-makers with more...

Learner surveys get a hard wrap: at best they're a waste of time, at worst they actually mislead us. But what if we just did them well?   This week on  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma and Ross G are joined by Dr Will Thalheimer to discuss the second edition of Performance-Focused Learner Surveys – a book so exciting that Will wrote it twice!   We discuss:     why most learner surveys suck, desp...

Can we improve our workplace performance through learning outside of work ? Are there benefits to this? How might we go about it?     This week on  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma and Ross Garner are joined by David Hayden and Steve George , authors of ' Adjacent Learning' to discuss the possibilities and practicalities of learning elsewhere . We cover:    what adjacent learning is    how we ca...

What do business leaders think about L&D? What do they expect? What's the reality for L&D? This week on  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma is joined by Nahdia and Anna to discuss our latest Leadership report – Turning pressures into opportunities . We cover: ·        what questions we asked ·        the headline takeaways from this year's report ·        the practical implications. To read the re...

What are L&D practitioners excited about in 2023? Is it the rise of artificial intelligence? Or is it the Metaverse? What about skills-based talent management? Or learning analytics? This week on  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D is joined by Donald Taylor to discuss the results of the Global Sentiment Survey 2023. We cover: ·        what the GSS is (and what it isn't) ·        the headline tak...

How do you pick from the hundreds of platforms out there? What questions might you ask to refine your options? If you're looking for a learning platform, then you've got quite the decision to make! Not only is the market huge and complicated, but it can also be an expensive purchase. Help is at hand this week in The Mind Tools L&D Podcast. Ross G and Gemma are joined by EdTech Consultant Stella Le...

What do employees and managers care about in 2023? How do we keep them feeling happy, interested and safe? A new report from Reward Gateway offers six human-centred strategies to build strong, resilient teams. So, this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Owen are joined by Chief People Officer Nebel Crowhurst to discuss their findings. We explore: ·        - whether it's important that...

Ten years ago, Henry Stewart wrote The Happy Manifesto , outlining 10 principles for happier workplaces. Among them: Make your people feel good; Be open and transparent; Celebrate mistakes.   This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Henry joins Gemma and Ross G the relevance of these principles in 2023. Spoiler: They're even more important.   We discuss:   how the workplace has evolved   the emer...

With inflation high, and high profile redundancies hitting the headlines, L&D is once again under pressure to demonstrate the value it offers and to have an impact in our organisations. So what can you do if your budget is slashed? This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , David James shares his experiences of managing the L&D team at The Walt Disney Company during the 2008 financial crisis.  Davi...

Last week on the show we had James McLuckie join us to share his advice for winning an award, and this week - as we're approaching Oscars season - we thought we'd host our own award show: where the nominees haven't entered, the winners don't get anything, and the only criteria is what we think was interesting or cool in 2022. So, in this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G, Gemma, Nahdi...

Industry awards offer a chance to reflect on your work, raise your profile and win some prestige, but they also take a lot of work. So if you're going to enter, you want to maximise the chances of winning. In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , former co-host James McLuckie of MAPAL joins Ross G and Ross D to share his insights and entrant and judge. We discuss: how the process works advi...

In January, many of us like to take stock, reflect on the last twelve months, and make plans for the year ahead. In this spirit, we're kicking off 2023 with a few early insights from our Learning Performance Benchmark. On the podcast this week, Ross D is joined by Gent Ahmetaj and Anna Barnett from our Insights team to discuss the state of the profession, and what this means for L&D practitioners....

Back by popular demand (ish), the Mind Tools L&D Podcast team are wrapping up this year with a tenuous spin on festive favourite Home Alone ! This time it isn't Macaulay Culkin getting left behind: it's Ross G, Ross D, Nahdia and Owen! What would WE do if left for Christmas in the L&D department of a large organisation? When our colleagues return, what will they find? We discuss: the laughs we'd s...

In this episode, we'll be chatting about the common jargon used in the Learning and Development field. We'll break down these phrases and explain what they mean, so you can understand and use them in your own L&D conversations.   Here are some of the phrases we'll be covering:   Blended learning: This refers to a combination of different learning methods, such as online courses, face-to-face train...

'Big data' promised us an end to uncertainty, but we realise now that this is a myth. Uncertainty will always remain, and intuition can help us navigate it. That's the claim of Oded Netzer, one of the authors of Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance Between Intuition and Information . On this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Oded joins Ross G and Ross D to discuss: Why lookin...

This October saw cities across Scotland play host to the first ever 'Scottish Games Week', a nationwide event featuring a conference, an education symposium, and awards show. What lessons from that event can the organisers share with the L&D community?   This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma and Sam are joined by organisers Brian Baglow and Julie Drybrough to discuss:   the elements of a...

At Mind Tools, we pride ourselves on our ability to create visually rich learning experiences that drive performance. Often, these experiences will include a mix of video, audio, and illustration. But why do these things matter? And how do they serve the outcomes we define with our clients? This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D is joined by Tracey, Claire and Alison to discuss the use o...