Apex Mind is back!

After a brief break away from the podcast and socials in order to reassess and focus, we have returned.

This being our 21st episode (counting Episode 0), Apex Mind has now entered the top 1% of podcasts, based on episode count.

Thank you to everybody who has listened, engaged, and helped us to grow.

On this episode, we shared some excited upcoming changes to Apex Mind - like the inclusion of video and some upcoming interviews.

We also look at the concept of the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) and how it applies to your top performers.

We share what you can do to support these performers so you can retain them, unleash their "rockstar" qualities, and improve business performance.

Articles discussed on this episode:

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Companies have been having more trouble retaining their people for the last few years. We are going to dive into the reasons why this has been happening and how your employee performance and development programs can help you to navigate this and keep your people.

Articles referenced in this episode:

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In this episode, we are going to look at the world of video games to see how they teach players to learn the rules and immerse themselves in the world. There are some key lessons that many businesses can learn from how video games teach their players.

We dive into the most popular video game of all time - Super Mario Brothers for the original Nintendo system and analyze how the thrifty game developers built in innovative teaching tools into the game.

What can at-work training learn from these innovative teaching tools?

The article referenced on this episode can be found here.

The song played at the end of the episode is Mega Man 2 from the Minibosses.

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This episode is all about influence. 

The best ways to have more influence. 

How to change minds. 

How to have more of an effect on others without the use of force. 

This is an invaluable skill for anybody that is trying to develop others, for making a difference with people who don’t report to you (or may be a higher position), or when you have to change minds.

First, we look at an article from Arthur Brooks in the Atlantic entitled A Gentler, Better Way to Change Minds. This article presents a 3-step process to approach extreme disagreements, whether they be socio-political disagreements or challenges with other people or teams in the workplace.

After that, we dive into six influence principles from the definitive book on the subject - Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Chialdiani. These six principles will help you to get people to do what you want them to do, without force or coercion.

Most education and attempts and learning fail.

Why is that?

This episode breaks down the top reason why - a lack of affective context.

Human memory does not remember everything that you experience. Instead, your memory remembers the emotional reactions to things and then you fill the rest in when you have to recall it.

This is why people often do not remember, or learn, from most of the content they read, watch or listen to. It either is not important to them or it was not presented in a way that created an emotional connection.

After listening to the episode, if you'd like to learn more about affective context, you can check out these resources from Nick Shackleton-Jones:

Video - Understanding Learning: The Affective Context Model

Book - How People Learn: Designing education and training that works to improve performance

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In 2020, companies had to completely redesign their work arrangements. Most white collar workers went remote. Most offices closed. Now that many parts of society are returning to normal, some business leaders want to as well.

The problem is that many workers do not want to go back to the old normal.

There is a great debate going on today - Should we return back into our offices or stay remote? And this debate has impassioned people on both sides of it.

In this episode, we are going to look at some recent news and comments from political and business leaders. We will provide analysis and share what the best steps forward should be.

Articles shared in this episode:

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This is a packed episode folks.

Today we look at some recent news and tie it together by sharing a technique to learn anything.

First, we see why College enrollment has been decreasing.

This is a trend that has been happening for several years and there are multiple reasons why.

Next, we look at the Highest Paying Tech Certifications and the Google Cloud Certifications that are an option that are cheaper and faster than a college degree.

Is this a solution that more companies will adopt? Can this truly be an alternative to a 4-year college degree program?

Then, we analyze why there has been an Increase in trades.

This is absolutely a good thing. We need people in these trade positions to support any functioning society and these types of jobs were shunned for too long.

Last, we look at the Feynman technique.

Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning physicist, who was considered the father of quantum computing. He taught at both Cornell and Cal Tech, so he knew a thing or two about learning and teaching complex subjects.

His 4-step technique to learn anything was to:

Byte Dance, Tik Tok's parent company, recently reduced 100% of their talent development team.

Was this a good idea or will it leave their staff with inadequate development opportunities in the future?

What lessons can you and your business takeaway from this significant restructure at a large tech company?

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/tiktok-owner-bytedance-laid-off-a-global-hr-team-in-december.html

Many businesses use Slack, Microsoft Teams, or WebEx to connect and collaborate. A missed opportunity is in using these powerful tools for training and employee support.

This episode builds on our two previous episodes that focused on microlearning and performance support. Platforms like Slack, Teams and WebEx can be used effectively for employee training and development.

This episode will teach you how to use these platforms for:

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