Today’s workplace is one where change is the norm. Learning is critical in this environment, but supporting learning isn’t just about creating content. 

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, JD Dillon joins Ross Dickie and Ross Garner to discuss his book, The Modern Learning Ecosystem. We cover: 

• Why JD’s book includes ‘learning’ in its title, even though it’s not really about learning; 

• The role of influence, and what L&D can do to earn it; 

• The six key tasks of L&D, and how to build a modern learning ecosystem. 

To find out more about The Modern Learning Ecosystem, head to jdwroteabook.com. 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross G referenced ‘The Long Goodbye to Saturn’s Ring’, published in The Atlantic. 

JD mentioned the Space 220 restaurant at Disney World, and talked about how he is using Yousician to learn guitar. 

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 

• Ross Dickie 

• JD Dillon 

Donald Taylor describes this year’s Global Sentiment Survey as the ‘unsurprising survey’. Predictably, artificial intelligence topped the table by some margin. But the results of this year’s survey still tell us a lot about how L&D perceives itself and the challenges we face as a profession.

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Donald joins Ross and Owen to parse the results of the Global Sentiment Survey 2024. We discuss:

·       How L&D views the benefits and challenges associated with AI

·       The non-AI topics which gained popularity this year

·       Declining interest in collaborative/social working and coaching/mentoring 

·       The potential risks of L&D’s current obsession with AI

To read the Global Sentiment Survey report for yourself, head to Don’s website.

During our discussion, Owen mentioned responses to the GSS from our own Gent Ahmetaj and Ross Garner.

In ‘What I Learned this Week’, Owen referenced Ben Thompson’s newsletter, Stratechery.

Ross mentioned how he’d followed Wirecutter’s recommendations (which he learned about through Owen) to buy a new pair of earphones.

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 Dickie

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Donald Taylor

While there are often constraints in charity’s learning budgets, it’s actually this limitation that can point the way to more efficient and effective learning design and development. There’s much that the corporate learning world can learn from this. 

In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma is joined by Gill Chester, Director of Little Man Project and Ross Dickie to discuss creating learning for organisations on a mission to change the world for the better.

We talked about:

• Resourcefulness and creativity throughout the design process
• The importance of developing relationships with stakeholders 
• Incorporating evaluation into the design process.

Gill mentioned that she's running eLearning Unlocked, a 12-month programme on designing great elearning. To find out more about the programme, visit www.elearningunlocked.org.uk

Do also check out Little Man Project here: https://www.littlemanproject.com/

Gemma learned a new word – suspire - thanks to Susie Dent. Her Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1325118435546816512

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
• Ross Dickie
• Gill Chester

As experts, managers or leaders, we often seek to help others by talking, talking, talking. But what if we didn’t talk and just listened?

This week in The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Gemma are joined by Georgie Rudd, an executive coach, to discuss the trials and delights of listening.

We explore:

·       reasons that we don’t listen well

·       the consequences of not listening (and of listening!)

·       how we can improve listening skills.

Georgie recommended Nancy Klein as an expert on listening and techniques to improve. Time to think is a good place to start: amazon.co.uk/Time-Think-Listening-Ignite-Human/dp/0706377451

You can find out more about Liz Wiseman’s concepts of multipliers and diminishers in her book Multipliers: amazon.co.uk/Multipliers-Best-Leaders-Everyone-Smarter/dp/006239066X

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Gemma spoke about the widest fairy ring in the world. John Wright reports that it’s around 800m across in A spotter’s guide to countryside mysteries, but a quick internet search revealed this to be a questionable fact. 

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. 

And, this week, we’re giving a special shout out to our Learning Performance Benchmark. Not sure how your L&D function is performing? Find out now, for free: mindtools.com/business/products/lpb/

Connect with our speakers   

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

·       Gemma Towersey

·       Ross Dickie 

·       Georgie Rudd

Georgie can also be contacted via her website: https://www.ruddcoaching.co.uk/

We often hear that learning and development needs a ‘seat at the table’. But how do we get there? How do we build credibility, tackle real issues, and demonstrate value?

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast Ross and Owen are joined by author, academic and L&D pro Dr Keith Keating to discuss:

• Whether L&D are changemakers or order takers
• How we change the perception of L&D
• The extent to which L&D pros must sell themselves, their ideas and their profession.

During the discussion, Ross G referenced To Sell is Human by Dan Pink.

Keith’s book is The Trusted Learning Advisor, available now from Amazon (US / UK).

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen gave a glittering endorsement of a sensational new science fiction writer (Ross G). Subscribe for updates.

Ross recommended alternative movie posters, collected in a thread from All The Right Movies.

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. Or you can email [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

·       Dr Keith Keating

What does an effective workplace wellbeing strategy look like? For some organizations, it’s fruit boxes and staff discounts. For consultant and author Liggy Webb, it’s a holistic approach that factors in the physical, social, mental, financial, digital, environmental and spiritual health of colleagues.

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Nahdia are joined by Liggy to discuss:

• The benefits of a more structured approach to wellbeing
•   How to approach each of the ‘7 Wisdoms of Wellbeing’
• The role of personal responsibility in wellbeing.

For more from Liggy, check out her website: liggywebb.com

You can also check out her Future Human series, available now.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia recommended ‘The impact of bad news, compassion fatigue, and the psychology of whistleblowing’ from All In The Mind.

Ross recommended Lauren Bacall’s autobiography, By Myself and Then Some.

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. Or you can email [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
• Liggy Webb

Artificial Intelligence (AI) generally and Large Language Models (LLMs) specifically have been all the rage over the past 12 months. Should you care? 

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Rosses Garner and Dickie are joined by learning strategist Ross Stevenson to discuss: 

• The current state of AI 

• The extent to which L&D pros should pay attention to ongoing developments 

• Tips for making the most of AI tools, especially ChatGPT. 

During the discussion, Stevenson referenced ‘custom instructions’ for ChatGPT. These help tailor ChatGPT’s responses to your prompts, and mean you don’t need to add background information to every prompt. See his video on the topic for guidance. 

He also recommend Perplexity AI. See: perplexity.ai 

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Dickie recommended the Fit Bod app. 

Garner discussed the rise (and subsequent fall) of Quora. 

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. Or you can email [email protected]  

For more from Stevenson, see Steal These Thoughts. 

Connect with our speakers    

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

• Ross Garner 

• Ross Dickie 

• Ross Stevenson 

Jackie Kennedy is Learning and Development Lead at London Borough of Camden, where work contexts range from libraries and schools to waste management and social care. How do you develop managers in these diverse contexts, with a public sector budget?

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Jackie joins Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson to discuss:

•   The unique challenges faced by local government
•   How to develop a management development programme without providing any ‘teaching’
•   The role of digital in Camden’s L&D strategy.

To read more about how London Borough of Camden leverage the Mind Tools on-demand content library, see our case study.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discussed his article for People Management, written with Gemma Towersey and our automated companion The L&D Dispatch GPT: ‘What we learned from seven years running an L&D podcast’.

Jackie discussed ‘eating the frog’.

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. Or you can email [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

·       Jackie Kennedy

Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, AI has seldom been out of the news. Such is the pace of change, it can feel difficult to keep up. But how is L&D actually using this technology? What do learning professionals perceive as the benefits of AI, and what are the barriers to implementation?

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie and Owen Ferguson are joined by Donald Taylor to discuss a report he co-authored with Egle Vinauskaite, which seeks to answer some of these questions.

We discuss:

·       The current state of play of AI in L&D,

·       The expected benefits of using AI in L&D,

·       The technological and business barriers to deploying AI in organizations.

To read the full report, AI in L&D: The State of Play, head to Don’s website.

In ‘What I Learned this Week’, Owen mentioned CGP Grey’s focus on ‘themes’ (as opposed to resolutions) as a method for achieving long-term personal and professional goals. Check out this video to find out more.

Ross D recommended the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible, exploring Nimsdai Purja’s attempt to summit all fourteen of the world’s 8000-metre mountains in under seven months.

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 Dickie

·       Owen Ferguson

·       Donald Taylor

How much thought does your organization give to the Employee Experience? And what tools can you use to enhance it?

In this year’s first episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson are joined by Danny Seals to discuss his new book The Insightful Innovator: How to level up your Employee Experience.

We discuss:

·       The advantages of strengthening the Employee Experience

·       How ‘designing a relationship’ can set your projects up for success

·       Tools and techniques to enhance the Employee Experience.

During the conversation, Danny referred to Employee SPIES (Services, Products, Interactions, and Experiences, while applying a Subscription model to work).

He also refers to EVP (Employee Value Proposition).

And he discussed The Ladder of Abstraction as a tool for connecting with stakeholder groups.

All are discussed in more detail in his book.

In ‘What I Learned this Week’, Owen recommended the research paper: Cook, A., Thompson, M., & Ross, P. (2023). Virtual First Impressions: Zoom Backgrounds Affect Judgements of Trust and Competence

Ross recommended The Economist’s workplace podcast Boss Class.

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.   

You can also email [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

·       Danny Seals