At face value, FC Barcelona look like any other top-tier football club. They've got an army of devoted fans, deep pockets and a roster of world-class players. So what sets them apart from the competition? According to Damian Hughes, the answer is culture.  This week on the podcast, Damian joins Ross D, Owen and Stewart to discuss his latest book, The Barcelona Way. They cover:  how FC Barcelona created a culture of high performance how these lessons can be applied in different contexts the role L&D/HR play in shaping organisational culture If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @owenferguson, @shardie15 and @LiquidThinker. To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus. For more from Damian, check out his website: www.liquidthinker.com If you're interested in picking up a copy of The Barcelona Way, you can find it at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barcelona-Way-Create-High-performance-Culture/dp/1509804420/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7N5Y9ZHXPVLH&keywords=the+barcelona+way&qid=1573927147&sprefix=the+barcelo%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1

Join the hosts in a discussion with a managing partner at Protos Learning and a travel website co-author. Topics include the significance of vacations for professional growth, wasted vacation time's impact on organizations, managing work communications on vacation, trends in big data and learning, the age when fun decreases, and new words in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Back in Episode 150, the CIPD's Andy Lancaster told us he was writing a book. Now that he's written that book, Driving Performance Through Learning, we thought we'd invite him back to chat about it.  This week on the podcast, Andy joins Ross D and Owen to discuss everything you always wanted to know about learning* (*but were afraid to ask). We cover: the changing role of L&D professionals the impact of technology as an approach to supporting workplace performance the factors required to support workplace social networks If you'd like to share your thoughts on the show, you can find us on Twitter @ross__dickie, @owenferguson, and @AndyLancasterUK. To find out more about GoodPractice, visit goodpractice.com or tweet us @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAus. You can get hold of Driving Performance Through Learning at https://www.koganpage.com/product/driving-performance-through-learning-9780749497439 If you order a copy before the end of November and enter the code AHRDL15 at checkout, you'll receive 15% off your purchase. Fellow basketball nerds can geek out over FiveThirtyEight's new statistical metric here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/introducing-raptor-our-new-metric-for-the-modern-nba/ For more on 'America in One Room', you can check out the Helena website: https://helena.org/projects/america-in-one-room  

How do you challenge your colleagues and clients to think deeply about the problems they bring to you, and how can you gain the credibility to help solve those problems? This week on The GoodPractice Podcast, Ross G and Owen are joined by author and performance consultant Nigel Harrison to find out. We discuss: what performance consulting is how it differs from traditional approaches to HR and L&D how to act as a performance consultant without being confrontational. If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @RossGarnerGP and @OwenFerguson, or can email nigel@performanceconsult.co.uk. You can also tweet @GoodPractice and @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. For more from Nigel, see: performconsult.co.uk The paper Owen mentioned was: Antonakis, J. (2017). On doing better science: From thrill of discovery to policy implications. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), 5-21. The pithier news source Ross talked about was Beautiful News, from Information is Beautiful, online at: https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/

How effective are we at separating the 'messenger' from the 'message'? Do we truly listen to what people have to say, or are we overly focused on how they say it and who they are? These are the questions up for discussion on this week's GoodPractice Podcast, as Nicola, Ross G and Cat are joined by Joseph Marks, co-author of Messengers. In this episode, we discuss: the difference between 'hard' and 'soft' messengers who we trust and why we trust them how gender affects how messages are received If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @NicolaBoyle_GP, @RossGarnerGP, @CatGoodPractice and @JoeMarks13. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAUS. Messengers, by Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks, is out now: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/stephen-martin/messengers/9781541724396/ Details of the 'America in One Room' project are online at: https://helena.org/projects/america-in-one-room  For more on the menopause, see the British Menopause Society at: https://thebms.org.uk/  The Menopause Cafe, covered in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/01/welcome-to-the-menopause-cafe-now-i-know-im-not-alone-im-not-going-mad  The CIPD's 'Let's talk menopause' resource: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/menopause  A clip of Kirsty Wark discussing the menopause at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpawvMbqBVw  For more information on giving blood: https://www.blood.co.uk/why-give-blood/

The humble course was once the go-to solution for learning and development teams across the world, but in recent years it has suffered from a damaged reputation. This week on The GoodPractice Podcast, we discuss whether traditional formal learning has a role in the modern workplace. And, if so, when? To dig into this topic, Ross G and James are joined by author and learning designer Patti Shank. In this episode we discuss: why courses are so unpopular when a course is a good solution the characteristics of a good course If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @RossGarnerGP, @JamesMcLuckie and @PattiShank. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. The book Ross mentioned, by Don Norman, was The Design of Everyday Things, available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Everyday-Things-MIT-Press/dp/0262525674 The learning platform Patti referenced was New Zenler. You can request early access at: https://www.zenler.com/ Ross' 'zip file' life hack came from Twitter, courtesy of @Helena_LB via John MacMillan (@_jmac_).

For many of us, working life is based around five days of energy depletion, followed by two days of recharging. But does it have to be this way?  This week on the podcast, Ross D, Nicola and Peter are joined by guest Perry Timms to discuss:  what the title 'Chief Energy Officer' means how to manage our own energy levels how we can design more energy-giving jobs If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @ross__dickie, @NicolaBoyle_GP, @petercasebow and @PerryTimms. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. If you're interested in finding out more about Perry's work, visit his website: https://www.pthr.co.uk/ The episode of The Life Scientific that Nicola mentioned can be found at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008y3y

Not quite L&D, not quite HR, OD sits somewhere in between (or perhaps above?) the two. But what does 'organisation development' actually mean, and what skills do you need to do the job effectively?  This week on the podcast, Ross D and Ross G are joined by return guests Julie Drybrough and David D'Souza to discuss:  how OD differs from L&D and HR the skills of a successful OD practitioner the extent to which the name 'organisation development' is about internal branding If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @ross__dickie, @RossGarnerGP, @fuchsia_blue and @dds180. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. The book Ross D mentioned is Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez. Criado Perez was also interviewed in a recent episode of the podcast 99% Invisible, which you can find at https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/invisible-women/

We know that in a lot of organisations, learning and development still means training, and training still means classroom. How do we overcome resistance to the alternatives? Should we overcome that resistance? On this week's episode of The GoodPractice Podcast, Ross G and Owen are joined by Camden Council's Tom Spencer and Sarah Sedley. We discuss: the challenges of delivering learning for a diverse audience historic approaches to learning new opportunities created by technology and a changing mindset. If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @RossGarnerGP, @OwenFerguson, @TomBSpencer or email learning@camden.gov.uk. You can also tweet @GoodPractice and @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen's nature paper was found via Max Roser, and was: Song, X. P., Hansen, M. C., Stehman, S. V., Potapov, P. V., Tyukavina, A., Vermote, E. F., & Townshend, J. R. (2018). Global land change from 1982 to 2016. Nature, 560(7720), 639. The story Ross shared, about the Polish village of Miejsce Odrzanskie, is online at: https://theconversation.com/polish-village-hasnt-seen-a-boy-born-in-nearly-10-years-heres-how-that-computes-122176 

We all like to think our decisions are based on a methodical appraisal of the available evidence. But how do we know what 'good evidence' looks like in the context of L&D?  This week on the podcast, Ross D, Nicola and Owen are joined by Rob Briner, Professor of Organizational Psychology at Queen Mary University of London, to discuss evidence-based practice.  In this episode, we cover:  the meaning of 'evidence-based practice' how 'EBP' can be applied to learning and development how to identify 'good' evidence If you'd like to get in touch with us about any of the things we've said on this show, you can tweet @ross__dickie, @NicolaBoyle_GP, @owenferguson and @Rob_Briner. You can also tweet @GoodPractice or @GoodPracticeAUS. To find out more about what we do, visit goodpractice.com. FREE Difficult Conversations Bundle: Breeze through your next difficult conversation with ease by downloading your FREE bundle of resources: http://www2.goodpractice.com/dcpodcast The paper Owen mentioned is 'Meyer, M. N., Heck, P. R., Holtzman, G. S., Anderson, S. M., Cai, W., Watts, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (2019). Objecting to experiments that compare two unobjectionable policies or treatments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(22), 10723-10728'. It can be found at: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/22/10723 The FiveThirtyEight article Ross D references can be found at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-personality-quizzes-are-junk-science-i-found-one-that-isnt/ You can learn more about Stonewall's 'Workplace Allies' programme at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/workplace-allies-programme You can find the Centre for Evidence-Based Management's website at: https://www.cebma.org