We might think that what makes our team culture great (or awful) is different from what supports our learning and development. Are they so different, though? 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Gemma are joined by L&D professional turned Culture Manager, Lois Ratcliffe to discuss: 

• what ‘culture’ is and how it gets measured; 

• what it takes to have a good feedback culture; 

• the features of a learning culture. 

Lois refers to the three layers of organisational culture proposed by Shein. To find out more about Shein, here’s one of our articles on Achieving Culture Change.  

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Lois recommended The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells for a thought-provoking read with an AI theme.  

If you’re feeling time-poor, Gemma recommended the book 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Lois Ratcliffe 

• Gemma Towersey 

Digital learning content offers a scalable, always-on option to help your people build their skills and overcome workplace challenges. But often these libraries get dusty, bogged down by out-of-date content with little relevance, or hidden away in a dark corner of the intranet where no one can find them. 

So in this episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Virgin Money’s Martin Ritchie, Digital Learning Manager, joins Ross Garner and Lara to share:

• How Virgin Money raise awareness of their Mind Tools content library; 

• Techniques for promoting a proactive learning mindset; 

• ‘Push’ vs ‘pull’ learning. 

During the discussion, Ross referenced a recent academic paper: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discussed ‘pebbling’, as covered by The Guardian. 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.  

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Lara Kidd 

• Martin Ritchie 

Most organizations offer some kind of content library to help their people develop. But how much content is too much? How do you give your people choice, without overloading them?

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Ross D are joined by Rosemary Hoskins (formerly of AstraZeneca), to discuss:

• Why are extensive content libraries a problem (as well as a solution) for organizations?
• What mechanisms help people find the right content, at the right time?
• Does it matter if people like the content we provide?

The article Rosemary wrote with Marc Zao-Sanders was 'A framework for discoverability'.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D recommended the Supercommunicators podcast, from Slate.

G discussed the rise of 'zero-click search'.

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our Manager Skill Builder, and our custom work. 

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Ross Garner
• Ross Dickie
• Rosemary Hoskins

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence once again topped the results of Donald Taylor’s Global Sentiment Survey. Almost every other option on the survey lost vote-share this year, with the exception of the ‘value trio’. So, what do these findings tell us about the state of L&D, and how the profession is evolving? 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Don joined Ross D and Ross G for our annual breakdown of the survey’s results. We discuss: 

• what the Global Sentiment Survey is (and what it isn’t); 

• AI's unprecedented dominance of the survey, and the conclusions we can draw from this; 

• the return of the ‘value trio’; 

• the extent to which L&D’s perceived challenges align with perceived ‘hot’ topics. 

To read the full Global Sentiment Survey 2025 report, head to Don’s website. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross G recommended the 'Tab limit’ extension for Google Chrome. 

Ross D referenced Jared Cooney Horvath’s video ‘CheatGPT | A textbook case of bad research’. 

And Don mentioned the paper ‘A systematic literature review of artificial intelligence (AI) in coaching: insights for future research and product development’, from The Journal of Work-Applied Management. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

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If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Ross Garner 

• Donald Taylor 

It’s ‘Bring Your Paper to Work’ day at Mindtools Towers, as Ross G, Ross D and Dr Anna each take turns to share an academic study that they think has key insights for L&D professionals.

We discuss:

• The impact of AI on critical thinking, as investigated in:
  • Lee, H. P. H., Sarkar, A., Tankelevitch, L., Drosos, I., Rintel, S., Banks, R., & Wilson, N. (2025). The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers.
• How consultants who use AI act either as ‘cyborgs’ or ‘centaurs’ in:
  • Dell'Acqua, F., McFowland III, E., Mollick, E. R., Lifshitz-Assaf, H., Kellogg, K., Rajendran, S., ... & Lakhani, K. R. (2023). Navigating the jagged technological frontier: Field experimental evidence of the effects of AI on knowledge worker productivity and quality. Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Mgt. Unit Working Paper, (24-013).
• Why we should go beyond 'choice architecture' to look at 'choice infrastructure' in:
  • Schmidt, R. (2024). A model for choice infrastructure: Looking beyond choice architecture in Behavioral Public Policy. Behavioural Public Policy, 8(3), 415-440.

During the discussion, Anna referenced our previous podcast with Erica Werneman Root, What does ‘AI literacy’ look like in organizations?

She also mentioned a blog from Ralph Losey on centaurs and cyborgs.

And we discussed Ross G's newsletter on augmentation vs upskilling.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D discussed Chesteron's fence.

Anna discussed whether women can run faster than men over ultralong distances, via More or Less.

As a brief aside, apologies for the slightly worse audio on Ross G's track this episode. After 430+ episodes, he's still making mistakes.

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   Or email [email protected].

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Anna Barnett 

• Ross Garner

The World Economic Forum’s recent ‘Future of Jobs’ report positioned ‘AI and big data’ and ‘technological literacy’ as skills that will become increasingly important over the next five years. But what do these skills look like in practice? What do we mean when we talk about ‘AI literacy’? 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Anna are joined by Erica Werneman Root, legal consultant and co-founder of Knowledge Bridge, to discuss: 

• what ‘AI literacy’ means in different contexts; 

• the compliance implications of building AI literacy in organizations; 

• how L&D can help employees develop AI skills. 

To find out more about AI literacy, check out Erica’s recent articles for IAPP. 

For examples of how organizations are building AI literacy programmes, explore the AI Office’s ‘Living Repository of AI Literacy Practices’. 

The blog Anna mentioned was ‘From Centaurs To Cyborgs: Our evolving relationship with generative AI’  

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Anna referenced research from Harvard, exploring the effects of AI on knowledge work. 

Ross D mentioned OpenAI’s new ‘Deep Research’ tool. More trivially, he also shared Pierre Franey’s five-star recipe for turkey chilli. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Anna Barnett 

• Erica Werneman Root 

In last week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, we explored sales enablement from the perspective of sales and marketing teams. But where do product teams fit in? Beyond building products, what role do these teams play in generating revenue? 

For the second instalment in our two-part series on sales enablement, Ross D and Lara are once again joined by Darren Bezani, Chief Salecologist at Salecology, to discuss: 

• why it’s important to involve product teams in sales enablement; 

• the behaviors we want product teams to demonstrate; 

• how L&D can support this, beyond simply providing training. 

To learn more about Darren’s work, head to salecology.com. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Lara mentioned A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass. 

Ross D recommended Warren Zanes’ book Deliver Me from Nowhere, exploring the making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Lara Kidd 

• Darren Bezani 

All sales training is sales enablement, but not all sales enablement is sales training. 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie and Lara are joined by Darren Bezani, Chief Salecologist at Salecology, to discuss: 

• what ‘sales enablement’ means, and why it’s intentionally broader in scope than sales training;  

• what sales enablement is designed to achieve, beyond increased sales; 

• the role of managers in sales enablement. 

To learn more about Darren’s work, head to salecology.com. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Lara recommended the ‘How to Unlock the Power of Your Subconscious Mind’ episode of Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel Better Live More podcast.  

Ross D discussed Ben Betts’ blog post ‘The fall of click-next e-learning: What Operator means for training’. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.   

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Dickie 

• Lara Kidd 

• Darren Bezani 

Those of who work in learning and development like to think we're in the business of behavior change. But we often don't have an in-depth understanding of what current behaviors are, or how to change them. 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner is joined by Ross Dickie and Dr Anna Barnett to discuss: 

• methods for understanding behavior; 

• digital learning methods for changing behavior; 

• methods for measuring change. 

During the discussion, Ross Garner described the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

Ross Dickie mentioned libertarian paternalism, very much a friend-of-the-show. 

Anna referenced the COM-B model of behavior change. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Anna recommended a presentation from the Behavioral Insights Team, and Ross G referenced his video on nudge theory. 

Ross Dickie discussed Jevon’s paradox, based on Satya Nadella’s tweet about Chinese AI firm DeepSeek. 

And Ross Garner recommended a thread on X, where famous movie scenes are recreated as Lego. 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There you’ll also find details of our Manager Skill Builder, our on-demand management development program that intelligently adapts to every user.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• Dr Anna Barnett 

The National Trust is Europe’s largest conservation charity, established 130 years ago to look after the UK’s nature, beauty and history. Its leaders have diverse areas of focus, from protecting woodland to managing properties – and even running a gold mine! 

In this week’s episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Ross D find out just how the Trust develops these leaders, with Development Specialist Carole Thelwall-Jones. 

We discuss: 

• how a leader needs to think ‘to be’ lists, rather than ‘to do’ lists; 

• how leadership development is structured at the National Trust; 

• how L&D professionals can help new leaders let go of what helped them succeed in the past. 

During the discussion, Carole referenced Leadership: Plain and Simple, by Steve Radcliffe. 

Ross G referenced our ‘Building Better Managers’ report. 

Carole also discussed the 4D instructional design model, and Roffey Park’s report ‘The Expert as Leader’.  

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross D recommended The Racket: On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation – and the other 99%, by Conor Niland. 

Carole discussed Roko’s basilisk and Stephen Fry’s lecture AI: A means to an end or a means to the end? 

Ross G discussed ‘The Illusion of Explanatory Depth’. 

For more on the National Trust, visit their website: nationaltrust.org.uk 

For more from us, visit mindtools.com. There you’ll also find details of our Manager Skill Builder, our on-demand management development program that intelligently adapts to every user.  

Connect with our speakers    

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: 

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• Carole Thelwall-Jones