The Mindtools L&D Podcast

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...

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 Re...

In the UK, 84% of workers who had to work from home because of the Coronavirus pandemic have said they plan to continue working at home, at least some of the time, in the future. That poses a problem to those of us responsible for workplace learning. This week on The Mind Tools Podcast , Ross G and Ross D are joined by Phill Miller, Managing Director of Open LMS, to explore solutions. We discuss:...

Here at Mind Tools Towers, we love podcasts. We've produced our own for six years! But what role do they have to play in workplace learning? This week on The Mind Tools Podcast , Ross G and Owen are joined by Adam Lacey from podcasts-for-learning-provider Assemble You. We discuss: The evolution of podcasts as a technology and as a market The solutions that now exist to organisational security barr...

Once upon a midnight dreary, Ross G pondered, weak and weary Whether Ross D might consider him a dry and awful bore— If he proposed some gentle chatting, sprinkled with some caveating, A pod with almost no formatting, on an essay he'd adored. "'Tis about unity of effect in learning design," he muttered, "by Edgar Allan Poe— Only this and nothing more." We discuss: why we are dedicating our Hallowe...

As learning professionals, we can rely on people always needing support to do their jobs more efficiently and more effectively. We can also rely on the hows, whats, whens, and wheres of that support changing. It's up to us to make sure we have the skills, knowledge and attitude to keep pace with changes in learning science, technology and learner demands.  This week on  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast...

English is the world's lingua franca, but the 400 million native-English speakers are a minority compared to the 2 billion people who learned English in a classroom. With these numbers, it's no surprise that most people speak English 'badly'. The problem is that, when people speak with a strange accent, pronounce words wrong, or use unusual grammar, we form an impression of their intelligence and...

How do you set your projects up for success? Does the SME and learning designer relationship really follow the buddy cop movie trope? In this episode of the Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Claire, Sean, Tracey and Ross G share their experiences of working with SMEs and their insights into what makes a great working relationship. We discussed:  How to build a solid learning designer and SME relationship W...

How is it possible to learn faster than external world changes? What do we need to do to purposefully protect ourselves against irrelevance?    Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma and Ross G are joined by author of Learning at Speed , Nelson Sivalingam, to discuss how organisations, L&D teams and individuals can upskill and reskill efficiently.   We discussed:    What learning at speed means   The barr...

Our brain is a 'prediction machine' that responds to and interprets reality based on what we expect. This is the claim of science writer David Robson and, this week on The Mind Tools Podcast , Ross G, Owen and Nahdia plan to exceed your expectations by discussing it in our book club.   We discuss:   examples of the 'expectation effect' in action   the strengths and weaknesses of Robson's argument...

This week The Mind Tools Podcast team are travelling through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop: Extended Reality. In this episode, Ross G and Nahdia speak to technologist, TEDx speaker, author and designer Myra Roldan about how new technologies are shaping the way we interact with the world, and with each other. W...

What's the evidence telling us about effective questions for learning? How can we apply it?   In this week's episode of  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma is joined by fellow Custom team members Ross Garner, Sam and Alison to discuss key takeaways from Patti Shanks' book, Write better multiple-choice questions to assess learning .     We discussed:    The role of questions in learning    What mak...

Will avatar-based training replace virtual classrooms? Would it make any difference if L&D didn't even exist? In this week's episode of  The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D, Owen and Nahdia tackle these questions from listeners Ian Younger ( @ian5611 ) and Craig Taylor ( @CraigTaylor74 ). In WILTW, Owen mentioned the article 'Good' posture doesn't prevent back pain, and 'bad' posture doesn't cause...

Here at Mind Tools Towers, we've been supporting L&D teams for years – and that's given us plenty of time to reflect on things we could have done better! So this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross G, Owen, Sean and Ross D are sharing the advice that they wish they'd had when they started out in their careers. We discuss: The importance of gathering diverse work experiences How to define a p...

Many organizations responded to the global pandemic by adopting digital technologies that enabled different ways of working. This sudden, unanticipated change has created opportunities for L&D, but it's also posed challenges.  This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Ross D is joined by Owen and Anna to dive into this year's L&D Benchmark Report: 'Is your learning culture keeping pace with rapid...

Have learners engaged? Learnt what we set out for them to learn? More importantly, have they bought that learning into how they perform? Is this having the wider impact we wanted? All the questions. So, how do we, as learning professionals, measure the impact our learning experiences have? This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Gemma discusses with teammates Claire, Sean and Tracey, about measu...

Rather than defaulting to pre-pandemic habits, or continuing with pandemic arrangements, we now have an ideal opportunity to rethink how and where we work. This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast , Nahdia and Gemma talk to Gem Dale, author of How to work remotely , about working well, in and out of the office. We discuss: why we need to be strategic and purposeful in how and where we work challeng...