L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders

Learning and Development Professionals have allowed themselves to behave as order takers since the function was first introduced in organizations. As an arena generally considered disconnected from the products or services of a company (read: non-revenue generating), decision-makers tend to treat L&D as an insular, periodic problem-solver. At-the-ready when training or upskilling needs to be made. On call to make modules that teach the newest software. Waiting to be asked to identify a subject matter expert to deliver a one-time training on leadership.

What if, instead of accepting requests from leadership and acting on them to the best of our ability, L&D delivered solutions we devised on our own? Solutions that addressed the root cause of the symptoms observed by leadership… Achieving this status as a Trusted Learning Advisor is the mission Dr. Keith Keating hopes to inspire in all L&D professionals. He is the author of the book The Trusted Learning Advisor, and he dedicated his doctoral research to investigating the attitudes of Chief Financial Officers toward learning and training programs. This week, he shares his insights on how L&D can gain the trust of leadership, and transform the learning experience for good.

Join us as we discuss:

• The 3 sources of motivation for L&D pros evolving from order takers to trusted learning advisors
• Why shifting from asynchronous and all digital to cohort-based learning will benefit organizations
• What it means for L&D to become embedded in the business, and how to do it
• The impact and importance of branding your L&D measures around an action committee
• The importance of developing relationships with stakeholders, especially Chief Financial Officers
• Tactics for gaining the trust of stakeholders in your organization
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

• Dr.Keith Keating LinkedIn
• Dr.Keith Keating Website
• getAbstract website
• getAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

The relationship between learning and work is experiencing a period of rapid evolution. Whereas we once trained as apprentices or students for a very specific skill set that could reliably carry us through a lifelong career, we now enhance our abilities on a daily basis with the help of technology. Soon enough, we’ll have to embrace an entirely new paradigm that posits work as learning and learning as work within a system that encourages us to define our own roles through constant discovery of knowledge.

So says Rachel Fichter, this week’s guest, who has spent years studying the work-learning relationship as a leader within corporations, strategist consulting with organizations, and educator in academia. She describes an industrial future that rethinks the hierarchies, management practices, and automations that currently characterize our professional lives. Can we move from a concept of leadership that is focused on individuals and control, to one that relies on the collective capabilities of a diverse group of people?

Join us as we discuss:

• Wicked problems and how to define and identify them
• Learning-based work and why we must move beyond learning at work
• Collective leadership and the importance of generative dialogue for maximizing innovative creativity
• Why true innovation requires minimal intervention in the process of learning, discovery, and production
• “Sightings” of learning-based work, and what a future of integrated work and learning can look like
• Why leaders need to look inward at their own value systems before committing to change in their organizations
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

• Rachel Fichter LinkedIn
• getAbstract website
• getAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

Workplaces are full of interpersonal tension. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, every office or team features people who simply aren’t meant to get along. Organizations are composed of stringent hierarchies, they often rely upon and incentivize competition, and, let’s face it, working requires a level of forced decorum. So, it’s time that we stop ignoring the uncomfortable interpersonal challenges, conversations, and expectations these systems deliver, and instead face them head on.

Roberta Matuson’s prolific career started in one of the least comfortable ways imaginable–being thrown into executive leadership at the age of 24. Through a nearly 40-year career since being put “suddenly in charge,” Roberta has written 7 books, spanning the topics of leadership, attracting and keeping talent, and feedback and communication. She shares her insights on how the greatest leaders set themselves up for success, allowing the resources, people, and opportunities they need to flow naturally to them.

Join us as we discuss:

• How ignoring office politics can be more dangerous than playing the game
• Warning signs that employees may have a foot out the door
• Why striving to be a community member and thought leader is the strongest recruitment tool
• Why job descriptions should be results-centered rather than task-oriented
• How improving an employees’ performance through coaching requires full buy-in from them
• The frightening truth about what many employees would like to change about their boss (hint: it’s for their boss to leave)
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

• Roberta Matuson website
• Roberta Matuson LinkedIn
• getAbstract website
• getAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

Early Q4 every year, tens of thousands of learning professionals descend on the Las Vegas strip to share insights with each other and explore what’s new in ed tech. This year, your host joined the getAbstract booth at the Mirage Hotel meeting with dozens of attendees, vendors, consultants, authors, and other L&D practitioners. To discuss some key learnings from the event, getAbstract’s Head of Sales, America, Danielle Goodrum joins the show this week.

Tyler and Danielle cumulatively spoke with hundreds of learning professionals and solution providers during the 2-day exposition. While every attendee was dealing with unique learning problems within their respective organizations, there were clear themes as to what they hoped to discover in potential new solutions. In addition to the framing conversation with Danielle, this episode features brief conversations with 2 other vendors and 2 attendees from DevLearn, which Tyler conducted live at the event.

Join us as we discuss:

• Attitudes toward technological innovation among attendees
• Some of the most exciting ed tech tools we saw among the vendors
• The importance storytelling plays as a vehicle for effective learning, according to both attendees and thought leaders in attendance
• Recurring preferences for microlearning, amid unavoidable needs for long-form content
• Navigating the interplay of hard skills and soft skills in various industries
• How subject matter experts are regarded and deployed by attendees and solution providers

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode ResourcesDevLearn websitegetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

Most of us don’t need to look beyond our own office windows to see examples of work-induced stress. Unfortunately, the majority of us are also familiar with the greater suffering our mental health endures when that stress perpetuates. Nevertheless, we all have the power to seek fulfillment in our day-to-day lives, even if there is constant pressure to work longer, faster, harder. After all, if there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that happier employees create more successful businesses.

Author of Career Self-Care Minda Zetlin joins us this week to explain how organizations and their employees can double down on genuine wellbeing for all by refocusing on what matters most and stepping back from toxic competitive tendencies. Minda’s approach centers the principles of hard work while forcing us to reconsider platitudes like work-life balance, pursuing one’s passion, and even the nature of hard work itself.

Join us as we discuss:

• Why employees are increasingly enthusiastic about flexibility of working hours and location
• Why disconnecting and stepping back from the race to improve is often the best path forward
• Different perspectives on work-life balance and the perils of favoring work over life
• How developing a plurality of communities has great mental health benefits
• Why conventional wisdom on following one’s “passion” falls short in the modern workplace
• Why doing less work actually allows us to achieve more highly

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode ResourcesMinda Zetlin on LinkedInMinda Zetlin websitegetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

Shelmina Babai Abji broke many barriers when she rose through the ranks at IBM, ultimately achieving the title of Director of Sales and overseeing $1 Billion in annual revenue. Along the way, there were many instances where she was the only woman in the room. Her humble beginnings motivated her not only to achieve highly but to pass on her lessons to other women hoping to find the same success. In this week’s episode, she describes how women can advance their careers and become leaders through intentionality and by delivering unique value.

Join us as we discuss:

• How being your authentic self at work is the easiest path to creating unique value
• The importance of imagination and emotion in setting your professional goals
• The definition of the “Power Quotient” and how to utilize it to have your ideas recognized at work
• Recommendations for building a strong professional relationship with your boss
• The importance of understanding the sources of motivation that make your people perform highly
• How change is the only constant, and how to establish a change-proof mindset

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode ResourcesShelmina Babai Abji on LinkedInShelmina Babai Abji websitegetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

It controls our every move and it houses our every thought… but how many of us understand how the brain works? Truthfully, there’s more that we don’t understand about the brain than we do understand. But that doesn’t mean we can’t capitalize on what we have been able to glean through neuroscience and psychological studies over the years. To help us do just that on the perpetual journey to becoming better learners (and educators), Lauren Waldman, the Learning Pirate joins this week’s episode.

As a learning science translator, Lauren’s life mission is to help others “join forces” with their brains. As a speaker and consultant, she ensures that anyone going about a learning journey understands the key scientific mechanisms behind learning and memory, encouraging a reflective and adaptive learning process. She also defends hopeful learners from disinformation and bad science online, calling out other proclaimed brain experts who utilize clickbait, oversimplifications, and bad-faith explanations.

Join us as we discuss:

• The importance of taking a critical approach to scientific claims we see online–especially in learning science!
• How much we REALLY know about the brain (and how fast we’re learning about it)
• Metacognition and its role in helping us grow as learners
• How emotions can impact learning, and some ideas for regulating them
• The nature of attention, motivation, and how focus impacts retention of information
• Some popular and resilient myths about the brain and brain science

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

Lauren Waldman on LinkedInLearning Pirate websitegetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

We’re long past the point of hiring locally and keeping a business to just one geographical place. The increasingly vast and complex talent pool organizations have to choose from has made the jobs of Human Resources and Recruiters much more intricate. In theory, being able to choose from 1,000 instead of just 10 applicants for a given position should have immense benefits–for candidates and for organizations. But to realize this value, the systems that provide larger pools of candidate data must empower those who use them to fully express their own abilities as people experts.

So, where else would we look but artificial intelligence? Talent intelligence platforms such as Loxo have been helping recruiters turn seemingly limitless data on candidates into simplified and expedited recruiting decisions. This week, we speak with Sam Kuehnle, VP of Marketing at Loxo, about the benefits of talent intelligence, and how to get the most out of such technology as its human collaborators.

Join us as we discuss:

• The importance of capturing a new hires’ enthusiasm early in onboarding
• How AI facilitates outbound recruiting processes
• How humans are the cause of and solution to problems related to equal treatment under AI-enabled applications
• How AI can help plan for the intangible challenges to morale that take place during personnel changes
• What educators can learn from the tactics of successful marketing content 
  
  

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

Sam Kuehnle on LinkedIn
Loxo websitegetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

The way we do work will change drastically in the next 10 years. And perhaps even greater change to our digital systems and daily operations is due another decade beyond that, thanks to the unprecedented potential of AI-enabled applications. How do we prepare ourselves… not only for a high degree of change to our jobs, but for the inevitable change that products, services, and the rest of business will be forced to undergo as markets evolve as well? 

According to this week’s guest Steven Miller, the answer is the virtuous cycle of automation AND augmentation. Steven is a co-author of Working With AI. He has spent 40 years researching and working with cutting-edge technology, beginning with robotics in the 1980s at Carnegie Mellon University. For the last two decades, he has been deeply involved in digital transformations via academic, government, and industry arenas, working with teams in IT, L&D, R&D, executive leadership, and others.

Join us as we discuss: 

• How automation of certain work, alongside augmentation of new work, is critical for building sustainable organizations and jobs
• What features of the R&D learning process should be adopted by L&D teams
• Why it’s important to move away from the mindset that L&D’s main role is to provide course content
• How a universal coaching mindset is key to building a “learning organization”
• The fact that learning must ultimately be done internally by an individual, and what this means for education societally

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

Steven Miller on LinkedIngetAbstract websitegetAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World

We very well may be living through a historic inflection point. The point at which artificial intelligence grows from an esoteric machination to a tool that revolutionizes how most of society does its work. But what industries and aspects of our day-to-day lives will AI impact most? And what should we watch for as that impact begins to be felt? This week, Thomas Bergen and Marc Zao-Sanders join the show to discuss AI’s impact on education, work, and our lives at large.
Thomas co-founded getAbstract a quarter of a century ago in 1998. He has since parlayed his experience working with L&D teams at Fortune 500s into widespread recognition as a learning and leadership expert. Marc is the founder of Filtered, a learning tech company dedicated to maximizing learning ROI through the use of enhanced data and content curation. Thomas and Marc share a deep interest in how we adapt and grow as individuals and organizations partnering with technology.

Join us as we discuss:

• The potential for students of the future to excel using AI tutors
• Research that shows how AI assistants improve the work of world-class strategists
• Where and when it’s important to remain skeptical of AI’s capabilities
• How AI’s proximity to our psyche makes applications prime real estate for advertisements of the future
• The risks of refusing to learn and adapt as new technologies are developed
• How to ensure ease-of-use with AI tools doesn’t make us complacent or passive learners and workers

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

Episode Resources

• Marc Zao-Sanders on LinkedIn
• Filtered website
• getAbstract website
• getAbstract on LinkedIn

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes:

• The 5% Solution: Prioritizing Learning and Development in a Busy World
• Employing Talent, not Jobs, in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
• Creating Relational Excellence with the Power of Connection Culture
• Longer Life and Smarter Tech: Educating A Workforce For An Unknown Future
• Reframing L&D: The Need For Learning Practitioners In An Evolving World