The Mindtools L&D Podcast

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 ;   t he benefits of online and in-person co...

At last year's Learning Technologies Awards, Mindtools and South Western Railway won Gold in the 'Best use of blended learning – commercial sector' category.   In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast for 2025, Ross D and Claire are joined by Becky Eason, Leadership Delivery Manager at South Western Railway, to discuss:   The context in which the program was developed, and the problems...

Do remote and hybrid managers need different skills to those who work in-person? If so, what are those skills and how do we develop them?   In this first episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast for 2025, Ross Dickie and Ross Garner are joined by return guest Gary Cookson, author of Making Hybrid Working Work. We discuss:   The 'sensory loss' that takes place when managers move to a hybrid environment...

Another year, another Christmas Special! We've scraped the barrel of festive ideas and selected Love Actually , the "greatest Christmas movie of all time", as the unfortunate premise of this year's audio horrorshow. In this edition, Ross G will be asking questions that are very loosely based on the Richard Curtis classic, with answers from Ross D, Anna and Owen. Including: In Love Actually , grump...

When your team are faced with a crisis, you want them to be prepared. But how do you build those capabilities when crises are rare, and you hope they never occur? In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Owen explore the use of simulations to build capability. We're joined by Chris Peschanel, who ran crisis management at Bayer Pharmaceuticals for 12 years, and by Phil Will...

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. --- In the early stages of our careers we learn how to do our jobs, manage office politics and earn promotion. But th...

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...

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 le...

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 altern...

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...

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'...

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 o...

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...

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...

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...

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)...

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. --- In learning science, there are certain...

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 Brow...

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...

Technical professionals have a high level of expertise, but translating that expertise for non-technical colleagues isn't alway s straightforward. Whether you're an engineer, a resea r cher , or even an L&D professional, how can you communicate in a way th at resonates with you r audience?   This week on the Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D and Owen are joined by Neil Thompson, founder of Teach The...

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...

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...

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...

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: Wha...

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...