The Mindtools L&D Podcast

Instructional designer and author Julie Dirksen's first book, Design for How People Learn, is a core text here at Mind Tools Towers. So we couldn't wait to speak to her about her follow-up: Talk to the Elephant: Design Learning for Behavior Change.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Julie joins Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson to discuss:

• What Julie means by the 'rider' and the 'elephant'
• The many (often good) reasons that people don't do what they are told
• Approaches for designing workplace learning that leads to behavior change.

During the discussion, Ross referenced an article on willpower from the American Psychological Association. A word of caution, this is from 2012.

Owen referenced Ferinand F Fournies' book Coaching for improved work performance.

In 'What I Learned this Week', Owen discussed the CMI's report 'Taking responsibility – Why UK PLC needs better managers'.

Ross discussed the collective names for animals, from X user @CulturalTutor.

Owen also promoted Ross' newsletter, The L&D Dispatch, and we mentioned a recent post on how to reduce the cost of compliance training.

For more from Julie, visit her website usablelearning.com

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.

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner
• Owen Ferguson
• Julie Dirksen

The menopause, a natural transition that women experience, is finally becoming an open discussion topic in more communities. Does this mean that women have the understanding and support they need to thrive during this time of their lives?

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by coach Jayne Saul-Paterson, and Nahdia Khan to discuss women's experiences and how they can be improved.

We talked about:

· The workplace difficulties experienced by some women during their menopause transition

· How women can seek help during this time

· How organisations can better support women.

Jayne referenced several resources during the episode.

The BSI Group's 'Understanding menopause and menstrual health – Guide'

NICE Guidance Menopause: diagnosis and management

Fawcett Society report Menopause and the Workplace

balance's Menopause homepage and Menopause at Work survey results

In What I Learnt this Week, Nahdia noted important points from the Better Management Report: 'Taking Responsibility – why UK plc needs better managers'

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.

Connect with our speakers

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

• Gemma Towersey
• Nahdia Khan
• Jayne Saul-Paterson RCDP www.gspcoaching.com Instagram @coachjsp

Healthcare is a difficult environment to work in, where decisions literally mean life or death. Combine that pressure with diverse roles, shift-based workers and difficulty getting time away from the frontline - and you have less-than-ideal conditions to promote learning and career development.

So how do you support colleagues if you have an L&D role in such an organisation?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner is joined by UMass Memorial Health's Liz Ferro, Diana Avery and Matt Pfleger to discuss:

• the role of digital in engaging non-desk-based workers
• how to create space for people in stressful jobs to learn and develop
• whether working in an evidence-based environment leads to more evidence-based learning design.

During the discussion, Matt referenced a project that the team worked on with Ross. You can see an overview of that project on YouTube and in our case study.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Matt referenced a Family Guy clip, which is available online.

Liz discussed how you can remove a background from a video in After Effects, even when you didn't use a green screen.

Diana referenced UMass Memorial Health's mindfulness programs.

And Ross discussed President Joe Biden's Executive Order on AI, as well as Nicholas Thompson's concerns that it would stifle competition.

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.

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner
• Liz Ferro
• Diana Avery
• Matt Pfleger

In small organisations where everyone knows each other, it's possible to spot what individuals need and offer tailored health and wellbeing support.

But what about organisations with thousands of employees?

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by Sanaa Khan from Lloyd's bank and Owen to find out how larger organisations can nurture and protect their employees' health and wellbeing.

We discussed:

• The benefits of large organisations supporting workforce wellbeing
• Wellbeing goals and creating a wellbeing culture
• How to support the health and wellbeing of high numbers of employees.

In What I Learnt this Week, Owen talked about the cost of Copilot. Here are articles from both sides of the argument:

• Microsoft is losing money on Copilot

The Register's article 'Microsoft reportedly runs GitHub's AI Copilot at a loss'

• Microsoft is not losing money on Copilot

ARK Invest's newsletter '#388: Is Microsoft Really Losing Money On GitHub Copilot?, & More'

• The rapidly decreasing costs of AI

The Unsupervised Learning Substack article 'Why Databricks Bought Mosaic and The Rapidly Decreasing Costs of AI'

Sanaa summarised research from an article in the Children, Youth and Environments journal

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.

Connect with our speakers

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

• Gemma Towersey
• Owen Ferguson
• Sanaa Khan

In our globalised world, we work and learn with people from diverse cultures. How can we facilitate multicultural training, for instance, so that the sessions are not only inclusive, but get the best from everyone.

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by Gaëlle Watson, director of SyncSkills and our very own Nahdia Khan. We explored:

• The benefits and challenges of multicultural representation in facilitated sessions
• How to best adapt your design and delivery approaches as a facilitator
• How to avoid pitfalls such as stereotyping.

Gaëlle refers to a number of resources that are well worth exploring.

Geert Hofstede's book Cultures and organisations: Software of the mind.

This 'Country Comparison Tool' from The Cultural Factor Group is based on Professor Geerte Hofstede's research: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison-tool?countries=france%2Cpakistan%2Csouth+africa%2Cunited+kingdom

Mind Tools explores the characteristics of countries exhibiting each dimension and what these mean for how you can most effectively work together in the article "Hoftstede's Cultural Dimensions": https://www.mindtools.com/a1ecvyx/hofstedes-cultural-dimensions

Gaëlle contributed to CIPD's 2021 "Effective virtual classrooms: An evidence review": https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/evidence-reviews/effective-virtual-classrooms-practice-summary_tcm18-102661.pdf

In What I Learned This Week, Nahdia recommended a series of videos from the School of Systems Change. Here's a link to the first video "What are systems and what is systems change?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_02X3O2kIUU&t=5s

Gemma encouraged budding language learners to check out Radio Lingua's 'Coffee break' podcast series: https://coffeebreaklanguages.com/

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.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 our speakers.

• Nahdia Khan
• Gemma Towersey
• Gaëlle Watson - @gaelledwatson

You can find out more about SyncSkills here: https://syncskills.net/working-with-us/virtual-training-production/

In organizations, learning-oriented 'online communities' often bring to mind empty forums and unused Yammer groups. But what does a vibrant community of practice look like? And how do you go about building one online?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Ross G are joined by Anamaria Dorgo, founder of L&D Shakers and Head of Community at Butter, to discuss:

· the benefits of online communities of practice

· how to build and maintain online communities

· how to measure the impact of online communities

· what all of this looks like in an organizational context

You can find out more about L&D Shakers here.

During the show, Anamaria referenced Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner's work on communities of practice.

In his trademark style, Ross G equated online communities to pornography, recalling Justice Potter Stewart's famous line - 'I know it when I see it.'

He also mentioned the 'Success Case Method', which we discussed in a previous episode.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross G recommended Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull.

Anamaria encouraged listeners to check out Katherine Zhou's ethical design toolkit.

And Ross D talked about pushing some eggs through a sieve after watching an episode of The Bear.

For more from Mind Tools, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.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 our speakers:

· Ross Dickie

· Ross Garner

· Anamaria Dorgo

The Mind Tools L&D Podcast usually focuses on how L&D can help colleagues develop in their careers – but we're not the only industry with an interest in education. Some of the world's most exciting tech companies, including Google, Meta and Amazon, use education as a tool to help their customers develop new skills and encourage longer term adoption.

In this week's show, Ross G and Nahdia speak to Intellum's Lizzi Shaw and Gusto's Jaclyn Anku to discover:

• why marketing teams invest in customer education
• how they define the business outcomes they want to achieve
• how they measure the impact of their programs.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia discussed the 'Systemic Design Framework' from the Design Council.

Jaclyn discussed the career of Simone Biles.

And Ross discussed an episode of The Listening Service, which covered 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams'.

To find out more about the Intellum LMS, see intellum.com.

To find out more about Gusto's approach to customer education, read or watch the case study.

Gusto are at gusto.com,

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

You can find Will at: worklearning.com

If you listened to this episode at all (we had doubts), please do drop a quick note to Ross, just to let him know: [email protected].

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner
• Nahdia Khan
• Lizzi Shaw
• Jaclyn Anku

Have you ever found a learning technology that you were convinced was going to transform your organization, only to have your IT team act as a blocker? Maybe they were being difficult, but maybe you just hadn't involved them early enough?

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Jon Baxter, founder of Baxter Thompson Associates, joins Ross Garner and Owen to share the benefits of strategic partnering.

We discuss:

• The concerns that IT colleagues have when asked to implement a new technology
• The need to prioritize initiatives beyond 'what L&D want to achieve'
• How to partner with IT teams to deliver results.

During the discussion, Jon referenced the failure of the UK air traffic system.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed the Artefact app.

And Ross discussed All The Words Ran Free, the debut poetry collection from his wife Amy. Check it out on Amazon.

For more from Jon, visit strategicdigitalbusinesspartner.com

The competency model and organizational partner maturity sheet, that Jon referenced, are available at:sdbp.institute/r/WOs

For more from Mind Tools, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.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 our speakers:

• Ross Garner
• Owen Ferguson
• Jon Baxter

This year, at the ATD Conference in San Diego, friend-of-the-show Will Thalheimer asked Ross G what he was working on. Ross replied: 'Well, how much do you know about Mind Tools?'

To whit Will said: 'I hardly know anything.'

This astounded Ross. Will has been on our show multiple times, and Ross feels like he talks endlessly about Mind Tools and what Mind Tools does.

And so Will offered to host this one-off deep dive into who we are, and what we do. We hope you enjoy it!

We explore:

• what the core 'Mind Tools' product and platform are for
• how Ross's Custom development team approach client challenges
• quickfire questions to make you think, then argue.

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

You can find Will at: worklearning.com

If you listened to this episode at all (we had doubts), please do drop a quick note to Ross, just to let him know: [email protected].

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner
• Owen Ferguson
• Will Thalheimer

Coaching usually takes a standard format: a series of conversations in which the coachee considers their goals, reflect on how they think and behave, and sets down their intentions. What if the coachee didn't just talk, but instead used a variety of other medium to express and develop themselves?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma explores this concept with experienced coaches Andréa Watts from UnglueYou and Marie Loney from Glow Consultancy.

We discuss:

· what "creativity" is

· how we (and our brains) benefit from being creative

· "creative" techniques that L&D teams and managers can use.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Gemma mentioned learning about clouds on the wonderful Cloud Appreciation Society's website.

To find out more about Andréa, her Coaching Collage Technique and how she can support you and/or your team, visit her website: UnglueYou.co.uk.

Marie Loney is the found of Glow Consultancy. You can find out more about Marie and how she helps her clients on her website: glowconsultancy.london

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

You can also contact [email protected].

Connect with our speakers

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

· Gemma Towersey

· Marie Loney

· Andréa Watts