We humans are social creatures. We form organic communities wherever we go, based on shared interests, passions and needs. But when we try to impose top-down learning communities on an employee population, things get more difficult. Is it possible for L&D to create a flourishing community? In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined by Andy Lancaster, author of Organizational Learning Communities, who offers a framework that can help. We discuss: ·       Types of workplace learning community ·       The key characteristics of successful communities ·       A framework that you can use to establish an effective community Andy’s book is available now from Kogan Page. During the discussion, Ross mentioned our podcast with JD Dillon and his book The Modern Learning Ecosystem. Ross also referenced our podcast on Working Out Loud Circles, from way back in 2017. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia recommended the ‘Women in Learning’ community. Ross discussed the weird way language affects our sense of space and time. For more from Andy, visit reminaginepeopledevelopment.com 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 become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com Finally, it wouldn’t be appropriate to plug Ross G’s critically acclaimed debut novel Centauri’s Shadow on a regular basis but, since Andy brought it up, it’s available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. It has 4.8 stars out of 5, by the way. Connect with our speakers    If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: ·       Ross Garner ·       Nahdia Khan ·       Andy Lancaster

In learning and development, we typically want people to do something that they are currently not doing, or to stop doing something that they shouldn't be. One obvious approach is training, but there are in fact a broad spectrum of interventions that we can deploy. In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Owen are joined by Wil Procter, Strategy and Innovation Director at Nazaré, and by Jessica Holt, Senior Behavioural Science Consultant at Inizio Engage XD. We explore: ·       What behavioral science is, ·       What interventions can help change people’s behavior, ·       How the COM-B model can help structure discovery conversations. To find out more about the COM-B model, see behaviourchangewheel.com The book that Owen referenced was Coaching for Improved Work Performance by Ferdinand F. Fournies. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Jess discussed a new meta-analysis of behavior change interventions: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16. Ross asked and answered a dumb question about birds. New Scientist explains why there are not dead birds everywhere. For more from Wil, see: nazarelearning.com For more from Jess, see: xd.inizioengage.com 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 become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com Connect with our speakers    If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn: ·       Ross Garner ·       Owen Ferguson ·       Wil Procter ·       Jessica Holt

As professionals, we want to know if our work has had the impact we originally intended and to tell others about it. This means getting comfortable with data and crafting compelling data stories. On this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G is joined by Neil Cunningham, founder of Align | Learn | Do and author of Narratives and Numbers, to discuss practical and mindset shifts L&D can take. We explore: why people think it’s too difficult to measure the ROI of learning how to get stakeholder buy-in to measuring and evaluating learning how to craft credible L&D data stories. You can get a copy of Neil’s book, Narratives and Numbers, from the Align | Learn | Do website. Use the offer code mt10 at checkout for a 10% discount. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discovers the many reasons why lorry drivers might accidentally crash into a bridge via this curiously fascinating X thread. 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 us on LinkedIn: Ross Garner Neil Cunningham

You’ve got a brilliant idea for the next big thing in tech and have gathered the smartest engineers and designers to build it (plus the cash to pay them). Will it end up being a success? You’ve got the best team to deliver it, so why wouldn’t it be? Well… Gemma, Ross and Martin Gonzalez, Google’s Effective Founders Project founder and author, discuss this situation on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast. We explore: ·       how and why it’s people issues that often lead to (startup) business failure ·       the balances that need to be struck by those creating and working in teams ·       the uncomfortable “bullsh*t circle” exercise, as a step towards fixing people issues. During the episode, Martin talks about how the “hiding hand principle” is critical for some projects to get going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiding_hand_principle In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Martin references Gary P. Pisano’s Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation  Find out more about Martin and Josh's book The Bonfire Moment by visiting bonfiremoment.com 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 us on LinkedIn: ·       Ross Garner ·       Gemma Towersey ·       Martin Gonzalez

If you’re thinking, isn’t positive psychology a bit ‘woo woo’, and a bit like forcing yourself to take a sunny outlook, then this episode is for you. As an approach to a happier, more balanced inner and outer life, positive psychology is not woo – it has a solid scientific foundation with practical methodologies. Gemma, Ross Garner and their guest, Leadership coach Sandra Berko, discuss these very points this week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast. We explore: ·       what positive psychology is and isn’t ·       what the science suggests we do to find balance ·       how you can help others to use positive psychology. Ross mentioned an earlier episode of the podcast on job crafting. You can listen to Episode 271 – Jobcraft Country wherever you get your podcasts, or on our website: podcast.mindtoolsbusiness.com/271-jobcraft-country In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross recommended the “Great Minds on Learning” podcast episode on Generative AI Theorists with Donald Clark. Sandra spoke about emotion codes, which feature in a course she’s currently enrolled in. Emotion codes are based on theories developed by Dr Bradley Nelson.  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 us on LinkedIn: ·       Ross Garner ·       Gemma Towersey ·       Sandra Berko

Adaptive courses come in many forms, but generally respond to the learner’s existing knowledge and skills: thereby optimizing the time to completion. But do they improve learning outcomes?  In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen are joined by Roy de Vries, Learning Innovator at aNewSpring, to explore the results of an experiment they ran to compare adaptive vs linear courses.  We discuss:  Forms of adaptive learning content;  The potential advantages of adaptive learning;  The results of an experiment carried out by aNewSpring.  Details of the study we discussed are online at: anewspring.com/articles/adaptive-learning-reduce-study-time   During the discussion, Ross referenced our AI-powered difficult conversation simulator: AI Conversations. It gives your people an opportunity to practice a variety of off-the-shelf or custom scenarios. You can find details on our website: mindtools.com/business/products/ai-conversations  In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen recommended the book Smart Swam, by Peter Millers.  If you want to hear The L&D Dispatch jingle again (and why wouldn’t you?), it’s available from Suno.com.   For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.    For aNewSpring, visit anewspring.com   Connect with our speakers     If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers:  Ross Garner  Owen Ferguson  Roy de Vries 

Timeboxing means dividing your day into 15-60 minute slots, based on your priorities, and then sticking to those slots as you dive into the business of work. If that sounds great, it is. If it sounds easy, it isn’t. In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, author Marc Zao-Sanders joins Ross G to give him advice on timeboxing his life. We discuss: ·       The benefits of timeboxing; ·       How email is the ‘killer’, and what to do about it; ·       The difficulties that Ross had implementing timeboxing, and what he could do differently. The article Marc wrote for HBR was ‘How timeboxing works and why it will make you more productive’. Find out more about timeboxing from Mind Tools. The book, Timeboxing, is available from Penguin. Marc’s substack is One Thing at a Time. The company Marc runs is Filtered. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discussed the rising popularity of the ‘dumbphone’. 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 ·       Marc Zao-Sanders

As learning designers, we’re ultimately in the business of trying to help people build new connections in their brains. To do this effectively, we need to have a fundamental understanding of how the brain works. But how far down the neuroscience rabbit hole do we need to go?   In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie and Ross Garner are joined by Lauren Waldman, learning scientist, consultant, and founder of Learning Pirate. We discuss: ·       Lauren’s journey to deepen her understanding of how the brain works; ·       how much learning designers need to know about neuroscience to be effective in their roles; ·       the cost of L&D’s continual focus on the ‘shiny and the new’. To find out more about Lauren’s work as Learning Pirate, head to: https://www.learningpirate.com/. You can also view a trailer for Lauren’s ‘Joining Forces with Your Brain’ series here. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross Garner mentioned the ‘Battle of the Eclipse’. Ross Dickie recommended the documentary STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces. For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.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 ·       Ross Garner ·       Lauren Waldman

As a conversation approach and development tool, coaching is a highly effective option for everyone – not just the executive suite. Professional coaches are expensive, so how can large organisations give all of their employees the chance to be coached and for coaching conversations to be the norm? In this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Gemma and Claire are joined by Mina Papakonstantinou, Manager in the Leadership development team at Deloitte, to discuss upskilling internal coaches at scale. We discussed: the benefits of creating a coaching culture designing and facilitating a coaching skills programme for thousands measuring and evaluating a coaching programme. During the discussion, Mina referenced a case study she provided as an example of how we apply coaching psychology in internal coaching within organisations. See: Papakonstantinou, F. (2021). Internal coaching within organisations–Coaching psychology application. In Introduction to Coaching Psychology (pp. 203-204). Routledge. See also her article, 'Creating micro closures: reinventing the psychological transition process to help coachees deal with the current state of disruptive change'. She also contributed to: Papakonstantinou, F. (2016). 'A Trusted Chameleon: The evolving role of the L&D consultant as an internal coach'. In Coaching Psychology International - VOLUME 9, ISSUE 1 (pp, 11-16). In what I learned this week, Gemma talked about oathing stones – a wedding ceremony ritual. You can read about it and other options: humanism.scot/ceremonies-blog/wedding-ceremony-rituals/ Claire found out about how money is made. Check out this really funky piece on it here: refinery29.com/stories/how-stuff-is-made-money/ 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 Claire Gibson Mina Papakonstantinou

Whether you’re delivering workshops, speaking at conferences, presenting to senior leaders, or even hosting L&D’s favorite podcast, public speaking is a critical skill for learning professionals. So how do you develop this skill, and how do you manage your nerves when speaking publicly?   In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Lara are joined by Samantha Tulloch, public speaker and business-transformation consultant. We discuss: ·       the nuances of public speaking in an L&D context, ·       techniques that can help you prepare and deliver effectively, ·       strategies for managing nerves and anxiety. During the discussion, Ross D referenced our previous episode with Andrea Pacini. In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Samantha mentioned the little-known Steven Bartlett. 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 ·       Samantha Tulloch ·       Lara Kidd