The Mindtools L&D Podcast

What makes a good presentation? When should and shouldn't you use a presentation to communicate your ideas? Why do most presentations suck? On this week's episode of the Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D and Owen are joined by Andrea Pacini, Head of Ideas on Stage and author of Confident Presenter , to discuss: ·        why so many of us feel nervous about presenting ·        the importance of tailo...

It's been 20 years since the launch of the Learning Performance Benchmark: the industry-leading tool for measuring the health of the L&D profession. And, to celebrate, Ross G is joined on this week's Mind Tools L&D Podcast by some of the key players in that story. Laura Overton, Founder of Learning Changemakers and Co-Creator of Emerging Stronger, set up the Benchmark in the first place. Nahdia Kh...

Cognitive diversity brings enormous benefits to teams. How can we proactively recruit and support people who are neurodivergent?   In this week's episode of  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , speaker and trainer Reena Anand speaks to Gemma and Ross about neurodiversity, barriers to inclusion and what we can do to topple those barriers.   ·        what neurodiversity is ·        the intersection of neur...

Coaching, once the preserve of a privileged elite (ie: the leadership team), is increasingly seen as a useful tool that can help all of us perform better in our roles. But how do we roll coaching out to a wider audience when the cost of a single coaching session is relatively high? In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Owen are joined by author, speaker and coach Jenny...

Do you consider yourself an inspiration? Most of us don't. But everybody has the capacity to inspire others to act and, in L&D, that's basically part of the job! In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Owen are joined by author and adventurer Sue Stockdale , the first British woman to ski to the Magnetic North Pole. We discuss: ·        Sue's background and adventures ·        H...

It's very strange. For years, we've been told that people want 'resources, not courses' . But , when you ask them , i t's longer-term skill development that they're interested in.   This week, Mind Tools are launching the most dramatic new content type in our library in year s, Skill Bites : a nudge-based approach to course design that leverages spaced repetition, retrieval practice and learner mo...

The HR and L&D sectors are built on a foundation of outsourcing. Often, the secret ingredient to ensuring those products and services add value is… the person buying them! So, this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , we ask: what are the characteristics of a client who has a high likelihood of gaining value from their supplier?   Ross G and Gemma are joined, from our sales team, by Lara Kidd and...

In The Resilience Handbook , occupational psychologist and author Sukh Pabial outlines three elements which can make us more resilient: positive psychology, emotional intelligence and mindfulness. But is this something we can only develop on our own, or can L&D build the resilience of others? In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Sukh joins Ross G and Owen to discuss: ·        how...

You had an idea for say, a product or service. You created it and rolled it out to a small target group. It worked - a success! It's now time to expand, to unleash it onto the world. How do you make sure it continues to be a success? This is the question John A. List sets out to answer in his book, The Voltage Effect . In this book club episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by Owe...

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...