Future-Focused with Christopher Lind

#Upskilling and #reskilling is a topic in almost every learning and talent conversation. Regardless of what industry or function you’re in, it’s important as the half-life of employee skills continues to dwindle. For some organizations, the need to pull it off is important for staying at the top of their game and maintaining a competitive advantage. For other organizations, it’s a baseline requirement for staying in business. So, what should you do if the livelihood of the entire company was balanced on your ability to reskill your employees? In this episode I’m talking with Vinod Uniyal about what it really means, what it really takes, and what it looks like to close the skills gap and how #IBM is managing to pull it off. We’ll also dig into the journey they’ve been on as they’ve completely transformed their business and the role #upskilling and #reskilling has played in making the transformation possible.

Knowing how to deliver the behaviors that drive success is one thing. Actually being able to do them and do them well is another. So, how do you make the transition from knowing to doing? Practice! Since it’s so important, why don’t people do it? In reality, people often don’t really know what they should practice and how. In this episode Naomi Davidson and I dig into the importance of practice when it comes to developing human skills. We talk about the importance of breaking down some of the most common human skills into actionable behaviors. We also talk about why this important step is so often overlooked and hear how #Trybe has been designed to simplify and pragmatize the most important behaviors into habit forming practice.

Despite all that’s happening with technology and digital transformation, people remain the engine that power our businesses. As a result, people and the skills they bring to the table are ultimately one of the biggest variable in determining whether a business will thrive, survive, or die. The recent #coronavirus pandemic has recently exposed the quality and diversity of the skills in our organizations validating many of the concerns c-level executives have been losing sleep over before the crisis. So, what can we do about it and how can technology help? In this episode I talk with Koreen Pagano and Chris Milligan to find out how the forging of Adepto and Degreed is creating a technological powerhouse that can play a leading role in future-proofing your organization and unlocking the potential of your talent. Hear firsthand fthe journey they’ve been on and how they’re bringing this concept to life.

It’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of people in our industry, and probably outside our industry, have heard of the LMS. The learning management system has been a foundational piece of technology leveraged by companies big and small from around the world to manage their learning. If it’s such a foundational piece of technology, why is it that when most people hear the term, it conjures feelings of distain or instinctivly makes us wrinkle our noses? That’s a really good question. To be fair, not all of the problems associated with an LMS have anything to do with the LMS itself, but many of them certainly don’t encourage the right behaviors or create the right experience. On this episode David James and Ben Muzzell talk with me about some of the key points of failure where legacy learning technology continues to struggle. We also dig into the ways they’ve designed Looop to address these challenges and provide users with the right resources in a way that doesn’t disrupt the flow of work.

While the passive learning that occurs when consuming content will remain a staple in the diet of every professional’s development diet, there’s tremendous opportunity for us as L&D professionals to do more to foster active learning. This means taking learning to a new level where participants not only participate in a dialogue but perform and practice the actual behaviors and actions they want to improve. Even better, what if we could do that with a video game? In the past, this has been challenging since active learning has historically relied on guiding learners indirectly while they’re on-the-job or pulling them away from the work to simulate in a controlled training environment. In this episode I talked with Anne Lise and Krister Kristiansen from Attensi to learn how they’ve paired their guiding principles of realistic, engaging, and impactful simulations with a gamified, digital experience that is designed to take learning to the next level.

Everybody is talking about upskilling and digital transformation, but what on earth does it really mean and what do we do about it. Ben Eubanks and I sit down to talk about exactly that. With his broad industry analysis and my practitioner lens, we bring a balanced perspective to how we can play a role in solving these big problems for our organization and hopefully keep you laughing along the way.

Imagine a future where machines can listen to your conversations and provide you with dynamic, personalized feedback and guidance in real-time to get you to a better outcome. Imagine no more. The future is now. Now, some may say machines listening and analyzing to our conversations sounds creepy. However, when done right, it has tremendous potential for improving performance, whether it’s reducing risk, managing customer care, or identifying and maximizing your top performers. On this episode I’m talking with Nancy Munro from Verbal Transactions about the way technology is enabling personalized guidance and feedback about the way we interact with others during our conversations.

Impactful, collaborative learning always requires an in-person component, right? Afterall, how can you possibly collaborate without being together? I can speak from first-hand experience that it’s possible but not possible without the right tech. Historically, we’ve relied on in-person events for collaborative learning opportunities. Unfortunately, events are trapped as moments in time and rarely have the sticky effect required for long-term success. While critics may say technology is incapable of replicating this human experience, technology may be proving to achieve the same outcomes with a broader audience and at a speed and scale impossible by traditional means. In this episode Sam Herring and I talk about how technology is enabling collaborative problem solving focused on real business challenges that can be delivered at scale without the typical sub-par user experience.

Business and HR leaders are recognizing the value of a positive and inclusive environment. Unfortunately, uncomfortable situations still occur stunting or even reversing forward progress. Unfortunately, people struggle with navigating these situations when they arise. As a result, some stay quiet, inadvertently encouraging bad behavior. Others respond inappropriately further escalating an already volatile situation. Overcoming these challenges requires helping employees build the skills needed to navigate them successfully. However, one of the biggest challenges to doing this is giving employees opportunities to practice what they’ll do when faced with the situation while providing actionable feedback for improvement. Fortunately, technology is making it easier. In this episode Mark Atkinson, CEO of Mursion, and I discuss about how to use technology to safely replicate these difficult situations, creating a secure environment where employees can improve their skills and actionably improve your organizational culture.

Video is all the rage in learning and development. Whether it’s short-form explainer videos or long-form instructional content, they’re everywhere. And, with everyone carrying around a high-definition camera in their pocket, using video to transform learning in your organization should be a piece of cake, right? Just point, shoot, and presto, video learning magic. Not quite. Great videos are about telling stories that carry the right messages and create the right emotional response. Pulling it off well requires avoiding predictable or preachy stories and striking the right balance of art and science. In this episode Austin Welch, Richard Fleming and I talk about what really goes into making a video come to life and how they’re combining the art and science of storytelling and video production to transform L&D at Sage Media.