The Mindtools L&D Podcast

Productivity is traditionally calculated with a simple division: total output / total input. Great for measuring widget production, not so much for gauging how productive a knowledge worker has been.

So how do we measure productivity when there isn't a widget in sight?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma and Ross Garner are joined by Chelsea Pyrzenski, Global Chief People Officer at WalkMe, to discuss:

• What we mean by productivity

• How we measure productivity in different contexts

• The challenges in convincing others to measure differently.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed reasons why the Wirecutter is losing readership. He was referring to The Atlantic's article 'What happened to Wirecutter?'

Gemma's learning about one of the chemical compounds responsible for petrichor came from Losing Eden by Lucy Jones. She discovered even more about geosmin in The Scientist's article, 'The unusual functions of geosmin'.

To find out about WalkMe's platform and other solutions, visit walkme.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 also contact [email protected].

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner

• Gemma Towersey

• Chelsea Pyrzenski

What do we mean by 'evidence-based leadership development'? Development of evidence-based leaders? Or an evidence-based approach to leadership development? Well, both.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Nahdia are joined by Helen Bailey, Head of Learning and Development at Strategi Solutions, to discuss:

· what 'evidence-based' leadership development looks like

· what we mean by 'evidence'

· how to measure leadership.

During the discussion, Helen referenced the Centre for Evidence Based Management.

For more on this topic, see: Beech, D.2018. Effective Leadership in Uncertain Times. Wisbech, UK: Cambridge Leadership Development.

Also Michelle Parry-Slater's book, The Learning and Development Handbook, and Michelle Ockers' interview with Laura Overton for the Learning Uncut podcast.

For more from Helen, check out strategisolutions.co.uk

In 'What I Learned This Week', Helen referenced the CIPD Learning Work Survey Report 2023 and Evidence Based Practice Factsheet.

For an excellent intro to scaffolding in a digital learning context, see: Shapiro, A. M. (2008). Hypermedia design as learner scaffolding. Educational technology research and development, 56, 29-44.

This paper is behind a paywall, so you can also see this advice from Wiley.

Ross discussed realistic AI avatars from HeyGen.

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].

And finally, Ross promised some case studies of the kind of work that Mind Tools do. You can find these at: mindtoolsbusiness.com/case-studies

Connect with our speakers

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

· Ross Garner

· Nahdia Khan

· Helen Bailey

Many organisations are accused of not doing enough to support marginalised groups. But even those who do try to make a difference often end up accused of hypocrisy.

Is it safer to stay quiet than to talk about equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) at work?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Nahdia are joined by Heeral Gudka, founder of Convergent, to discuss:

· the evolution of ED&I

· the risks both of speaking up and staying quiet

· the need for alignment between external messaging and internal reality.

During the discussion, Ross and Nahdia both referenced our episodes with Margaret Greenberg and Gina Greenlee, authors of The Business of Race. See:

· 279 — Why work is the ideal place to talk about race

· 298 — How can L&D promote an anti-racist workplace?

Ross also mentioned the book Creativity, Inc, by Ed Catmull.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross and Heeral discussed Zoom's decision to mandate a return to the office.

The article from The Economist that Nahdia referenced was 'The working-from-home illusion fades'.

For more from Heeral, visit Convergent. There you'll find out more about her journey from the insurance sector to where she is now: curating 6 to 18 month learning journeys and providing pragmatic consultancy and support to senior leadership teams, People teams and HR directors.

You can also find her on Linkedin, where she discusses a pragmatic and commercial approach

And for the Mindtools listeners, Heeral has a special gift. Fill in this form to be sent Convergent's guide on Inclusive HR Policies and Practices (usually £4.99, but free to the first 20 people who use the link).

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:

· Ross Garner

· Nahdia Khan

· Heeral Gudka

Earlier this year, the Mind Tools and Emotion at Work teams ran a fringe event at the CIPD Festival of Work. At the event, we asked participants for their 'Hot Takes': something that's a little bit provocative - but might actually be true.

This week, in a special crossover episode, The Mind Tools L&D Podcast team are joined by Phil and Lizzi from Emotion at Work to reveal the winner: Most employees aren't actually that interested in L&D.

We discuss:

• the extent to which we think this 'Hot Take' is true
• the importance of development to employees vs 'learning and development' as a function
• what L&D teams can do to market and promote themselves.

During the discussion, Phil referenced the Kirkpatrick Model of evaluation.

Ross referenced the work of Shannon Tipton to help L&D teams develop a brand.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Nahdia referenced the Edelman Trust Barometer and British Social Attitude Survey.

Phil referenced Kids Week at the London Theatre.

For more from Emotion at Work, including their podcast where you can find their own crossover episode, visit: emotionatwork.co.uk

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.

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:

• Ross Garner
• Nahdia Khan
• Phil Willcox
• Lizzi Philokyprou

How do L&D leaders decide where to spend their time? Who gets access to their budget? How do we deal with those colleagues where we have to say: 'No, that's not a priority'.

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G is chatting L&D governance with a panel of L&D pros: From Phoenix Group, Carl Akintola-Davies; from Mitie, Dolly Ogundimu and Marc Harvey; and, from Merlin Entertainments, James Clemence.

We discuss:

• How to prioritize inbound requests and seek out opportunities
• How to work with business stakeholders to shape their needs
• How to measure the value that L&D teams bring to their organizations.

During the discussion, a recurring refrain was the word 'boondoggle'.

We also referenced learner surveys. For more on this, see our episode with Dr Will Thalheimer.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Carl discussed a paper on 'zombie leadership' from Professor Alex Haslam. It's not published yet, but you can get some insight into the topic in this video.

Dolly discussed the value of benchmarking.

Marc discussed work from the NeuroLeadership Institute.

For more from Merlin Entertainments, check out their:

• YouTube channel
• Instagram
• Podcast

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.

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:

• Ross Garner
• Carl Akintola-Davies
• Dolly Ogundimu
• Marc Harvey
• James Clemence

Scenario-based learning takes learners beyond a short-term memory check, instead challenging them to respond to real-life situations. But how do we make sure they're effective?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Gemma are joined by instructional design superstar Christy Tucker to discuss:

· Why scenario-based learning is effective

· The characteristics of a great scenario

· How to write scenarios that are realistic and challenging

During the discussion, Ross referenced that the French Horn isn't actually French: https://www.yourclassical.org/story/2019/06/25/why-do-we-call-it-a-french-horn

He also referenced Dr Patti Shank's book Write Better Multiple-Choice Questions to Assess Learning: https://www.pattishank.com/books

Christy referenced the work of Karl Kapp: https://karlkapp.com/

She also referenced Clark Quinn: https://quinnovation.com/index.html

In 'What I Learned This Week', Christy discussed amigurumi: https://www.amigurumi.com/

Ross discussed a video from Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, about a study on the impact of AI on radiology: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicholasxthompson_mostinterestingthingintech-activity-7092255623727181824-f4_N/

The full paper is online at: Agarwal, N., Moehring, A., Rajpurkar, P., & Salz, T. (2023). Combining Human Expertise with Artificial Intelligence: Experimental Evidence from Radiology (No. w31422). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31422

For more from Christy, see:

· Her blog - https://www.christytuckerlearning.com/

· Her business - https://www.syniadlearning.com/

· Her course - https://www.yourbranchingscenario.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.

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:

· Ross Garner

· Gemma Towersey

· Christy Tucker

In the past, if you had difficulty thriving in a traditional school, your parents travelled a lot, or you were a child actor, you had the option to study online. Post-Covid, that approach is growing in popularity.

On this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Nahdia are joined by Cambridge Assessment's Matt James to hear his insights into online education. We discuss:

• Techniques for engaging children in online learning

• Building social connection and managing wellbeing online

• How lessons from online schools apply to workplace learning.

In 'What I Learnt This Week', Ross discussed the impact that an AI assistant had on the performance of customer service reps: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/05/02/1172791281/this-company-adopted-ai-heres-what-happened-to-its-human-workers

Looking for help creating engaging digital learning for your workplace? Mind Tools can help. Contact [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

Matt James

What makes a good presentation? When should and shouldn't you use a presentation to communicate your ideas? Why do most presentations suck?

On this week's episode of the Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Owen are joined by Andrea Pacini, Head of Ideas on Stage and author of Confident Presenter, to discuss:

· why so many of us feel nervous about presenting

· the importance of tailoring presentations to the action you want your audience to take

· how to use the pSCORE method to deliver better presentations

To pick up a copy of Andrea's book, Confident Presenter, head to: https://amzn.eu/d/bKswMEe

To get the most out of the book, start by taking the 'Confident Presenter Scorecard' to assess your presentation skills in under 3 minutes: https://ideasonstage.com/score

If you're interested in attending an Ideas of Stage web class, you can sign up here: https://www.ideasonstage.com/uk/masterclass

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen referenced the delightful 'Tiny Awards': https://tinyawards.net/

His favourite submission was 'Acronymy', whose goal is to define every word in the dictionary using an acronym: https://acronymy.net/

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:

• Ross Dickie
• Owen Ferguson
• Andrea Pacini

It's been 20 years since the launch of the Learning Performance Benchmark: the industry-leading tool for measuring the health of the L&D profession. And, to celebrate, Ross G is joined on this week's Mind Tools L&D Podcast by some of the key players in that story.

Laura Overton, Founder of Learning Changemakers and Co-Creator of Emerging Stronger, set up the Benchmark in the first place.

Nahdia Khan, Chief Impact Officer of Mind Tools, is responsible for the Benchmark today.

Dr Anna Barnett, Senior Researcher at Mind Tools, analyses and writes up the Benchmark data.

And Michelle Ockers​, Organisational Learning Strategist & Learning Team Capability Builder, Founder of Learning Uncut and Co-Creator of Emerging Stronger​ uses the Benchmark with her clients - so can give insight into its practical application for learning teams.

We discuss:

· L&D's changing relationship with social media

· The surprising decrease in blended learning

· The impact of the pandemic on where L&D spends its time.

To read our 20th anniversary report, visit: https://mindtoolsbusiness.com/research-and-reports/l-d-in-organizations-20-years-of-research

To take the Benchmark, see: https://mindtoolsbusiness.com/solutions/learning-performance-benchmark

During the discussion, Michelle referenced the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

In 'What I Learnt This Week', Nahdia discussed 'L&D's role in employee wellbeing: A 2023 survey': https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/resources/lds-role-in-employee-wellbeing-a-2023-survey

Laura recommended the book Beyond Measure by James Vincent.

Ross recommended season 3 of the podcast Not Playing With Lex and Dan: https://www.theincomparable.com/notplaying/

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Garner
• Laura Overton or https://www.learningchangemakers.com/
• Nahdia Khan
• Dr Anna Barnett
• Michelle Ockers or https://learninguncut.global/

Cognitive diversity brings enormous benefits to teams. How can we proactively recruit and support people who are neurodivergent?

In this week's episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, speaker and trainer Reena Anand speaks to Gemma and Ross about neurodiversity, barriers to inclusion and what we can do to topple those barriers.

· what neurodiversity is

· the intersection of neurodivergence and race

· how managers and L&D can create neuroinclusive environments.

During the podcast, Reena referenced a couple of research papers.

Birkbeck University of London's 'Neurodiversity at Work 2023' report can be downloaded here: neurodiversityinbusiness.org/research/

Research by Cambridge University, Maastrict and Newcastle Universities titled 'Association of Race/Ethnicity and Social Disadvantage With Autism Prevalence in 7 Million School Children in England' looking at interrelation of autism and race/ethnicity can be accessed here: https://docs.autismresearchcentre.com/papers/2021_Roman-Urrestarazu_Association-of-race-ethnicity-and-social-disadvantage.pdf

Reena has also provided a link to a case study on the Wells Fargo Neurodiversity Program that we didn't have time to discuss on the podcast. Read it here www.wellsfargojobs.com/en/diversity/neurodiversity/

You can find out more about Reena's work by visiting her website www.reenaanand.com or LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/in/reenaanand/

In 'What I Learnt This Week', Ross told us about the phenomenon of "Car brain". Read The Atlantic's article 'Everyone has 'Car brain'' here https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/car-devotion-motor-vehicle-deaths-danger/674613/

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 on LinkedIn.

• Reena Anand
• Ross Garner
• Gemma Towersey