The Mindtools L&D Podcast

According to research published this year, women fill 2/3s of all roles in learning and development - but only 1/3 of senior positions.

Why is this? And what can we do to encourage and promote women in learning?

This week, Ross G and podcast regular Gemma Towersey are joined by Sharon Claffey Kaliouby, Barbara Thompson and Kate Graham to discuss.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @GemmaTowersey, @Sharon_Kaliouby, @CaribThompson and @KateGraham23.

Barbara blogs at: https://medium.com/@ba_thompson

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

Don Taylor's research on women in L&D is online at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/women-ld-still-top-donald-h-taylor/

The film that Sharon referenced was Battle of the Sexes: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4622512/

The podcast Gemma recommended was Radio 4's Planet Puffin: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07881qf

Carol Dweck's book Mindset is on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindset-Updated-Changing-Fulfil-Potential/dp/147213995X

You can join the #WomeninLearning LinkedIn Group at: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12210548/

There's a lot of buzz around technologies like AI, bots, virtual reality and voice recognition. But which of these has the most potential for learning and development?

This week on the podcast, Ross D and Peter are joined by writer and consultant John Helmer to discuss everything from chatbots to the 'digital sensorium'.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @petercasebow and @johnhelmer.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

The article Peter mentions, Tech's raid on the banks, can be found in The Economist.

To find out more about John's work, visit his website: johnhelmerconsulting.com

When we talk about uncertainty in the workplace, we often frame it in terms of the associated risks and threats. But are we looking at it the wrong way?

This week on the podcast, Ross D and James are joined by artist and consultant Doug Shaw to discuss the role uncertainty can play in learning and development.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @JamesMcLuckie and @dougshaw1.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus

For more on Doug's work, his articles 'Overcoming the Fear of Creativity' and 'When Creative Thinking Meets Creative Practice' are a good place to start.

You can watch Emilia Clarke's stock-photo parody on YouTube.

Recruitment, talent development, employee engagement and performance management are just a few of the areas where L&D and HR overlap. But are the functions in competition with one another?

This week on the podcast, Ross D and Owen are joined by Steve Browne to talk about how L&D and HR can work together more effectively.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @owenferguson, and @sbrownehr.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus

For more from Steve on all things HR, check out his website: sbrownehr.com

Structured courses are great for learning new skills, but they also tend to be expensive, time-consuming and focused on teaching content that most workers don't need. So why are they our 'go-to' solution for every L&D challenge?

This week on The GoodPractice Podcast, Ross G and Owen discuss alternatives to 'the course' with Qunnivation's Clark Quinn.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @OwenFerguson and @Quinnovator.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

You can read more from Clark at quinnovation.com or learnlets.com. His book, Revolutionize Learning and Development, can be found at revolutionizelnd.com.

This week, Owen recommended The Economist piece 'Mistakes: We've drawn a few', online at: https://medium.economist.com/mistakes-weve-drawn-a-few-8cdd8a42d368

And Ross recommended Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, a science fiction short story collection about troubleshooting that's more fun than it sounds. Available from Amazon and other book shops: https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Robot-Isaac-Asimov/dp/000753227X

A couple of years ago, James, Owen and Ross G consigned order-taking, visionary thought leaders and other sins of our profession to L&D's Room 101. This week on the podcast, we add a few more items to the list.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @RossGarnerGP and @OwenFerguson.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

If you want to follow in Ross G's footsteps and join Zak George's Dog Training Revolution, you can do so here.

To delve down the rabbit hole of lorem-ipsum generators, head over to loremipsum.io

Is your learning and development department transactional, taking orders and ensuring compliance? Or does it focus on building capability with targeted initiatives that have support from the senior team?

In this week's GoodPractice Podcast, GP Strategies' Barbara Thompson (formerly of BP and PA Consulting) joins Ross G and Owen to share her insights working both internally and externally.

We discuss the challenges to transforming learning functions, the role of technology and how coaching techniques can help gain the support of senior colleagues.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @OwenFerguson and @BarbaraThompson. This week we had production support from our own @Ross__Dickie.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

Barbara was too modest to plug anything, but blogs at: https://medium.com/@ba_thompson

Barbara recently shared her advice as a female leader in the business world at: https://www.stratxcorporate.com/industry-insights/how-to-rise-the-ranks-advice-from-a-female-leader-on-making-it-to-the-top?hs_amp=true

Deloitte's 2014 summary on learning transformation is online at: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/HumanCapital/gx-cons-hc-learning-transformation-placemat.pdf

The Towards Maturity 2019 benchmark is a great place to get started if you're interested in this topic, with guidance on what top performing L&D teams are doing differently. Their latest benchmark, The Transformation Journey, came out in February and is available online at: https://towardsmaturity.org/2019/02/14/the-transformation-journey-2019-annual-research-report/

And for something completely frivolous, you can find out the actors who have made the most money at the US box office at: https://www.businessinsider.com/actors-with-highest-box-office-2016-9?r=US&IR=T This list is heavily skewed by how many films the actors have been in, and how many of those films were produced by Marvel.

Owen wanted to point out that this list is not adjusted for inflation.

What is innovation? Can anyone be creative? On this week's GoodPractice Podcast, full-time doodler Simon Heath joins Ross G and Owen to discuss.

We ask why the concept of 'innovation' is so attractive and debate the notion that we should bring our creative pursuits into the workplace.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @OwenFerguson and @SimonHeath1.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus

The Ken Robinson TED Talk that Simon referenced was: 'Do schools kill creativity?', online at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en

Harold Jarche's blog discussing this talk is online at: https://jarche.com/2019/02/education-does-not-destroy-creativity/

The subreddit that Owen recommend was r/fantasy, at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/

He recommends the Apollo App for using Reddit: https://apolloapp.io/

The paper Ross recommended was: Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. science, 185(4157), 1124-1131.

It's incredibly readable, and available online at: http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Tversky_Kahneman_1974.pdf

What will be hot in workplace L&D in the year ahead?. Will it be Artificial Intelligence? Or maybe performance support? What about learning analytics?

This week on the podcast, Ross D and Owen are joined by Donald Taylor to discuss the results of the 2019 Global Sentiment Survey.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @owenferguson and @DonaldHTaylor.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus

To download a copy of the report, head to www.donaldhtaylor.co.uk/report19

The book Don mentions is The Spy and The Traitor by Ben MacIntyre.

In Learning & Development, we love a good buzzword: 'blended learning', 'micro learning', 'learning management systems'... anything with 'learning', really. Is this a problem? Or just a time-wasting argument?

This week on The GoodPractice Podcast, Ross G and Owen are joined by the eLearning Guild's David Kelly to discuss.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @RossGarnerGP, @OwenFerguson and @LnDDave.

To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus.

For everything eLearning Guild, visit: elearningguild.com

The Learning Solutions Conference and Expo runs March 26-28. See: learningsolutions19.com

The Realities360 Conference and Expo runs June 25-27. See: realities360.com

The DevLearn Conference and Expo runs October 23-25. See: DevLearn19.com

For Owen's WILTW on Einstein and Feynman, see: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8742/did-einstein-say-if-you-cant-explain-it-simply-you-dont-understand-it-well-en

Dave recommended the Cooper Hewitt Museum, online at: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/

For a review of the learning styles literature, see: Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological science in the public interest, 9(3), 105-119.

The article is available online, but for those seeking a short version, the key paragraphs are:

"Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

"We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice."

This does not mean that learning styles do not exist, but that there is not yet any evidence for the concept making an effective contribution to how people learn.