Episoder
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Measuring management capability is intrinsically complex. Unlike sales training, where you have sales, or customer-service training, where you have CSAT scores, management doesn’t have a built-in metric we can use to quantify learning impact. So, what’s the solution?
This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Dickie is joined by Owen and Anna to discuss our new ‘Manager Skills Assessment’ — a scientific diagnostic that managers and their organizations can use to evaluate their capability. We discuss:
what the Manager Skills Assessment (MSA) is, and how it works;
how we designed the MSA based on scientific research;
what managers and L&D teams can expect to get out of the MSA.
To learn more about the Manager Skills Assessment, visit our website.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen mentioned SpaceX’s ‘Mechazilla’.
Ross D also referenced Donald Taylor and Egle Vinauskaite’s latest report, AI in L&D: Intention and Reality.
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 Dickie
Owen Ferguson
Anna Barnett
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If you work in learning and development, you probably get some direction from your senior leadership team about what to focus on and how much to spend. But, once you get into the details, you have lots of room to play.
In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Chief Learning Officer Marc Steven Ramos joins Ross Garner and Ross Dickie to discuss:
· the strengths and weaknesses of different genAI tools
· whether tools like ChatGPT are living up to the hype
· how L&D can start experimenting, and why it’s the ideal team to do so!
Marc discussed these ideas in more detail on his Substack and in his article for Harvard Business Review (with Marc Zao-Sanders).
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross G recommended a warning on ‘pokies’ from The Guardian.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Ross Dickie
· Marc Steven Ramos
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Mangler du episoder?
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In Power to the Middle, McKinsey consultants Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock and Emily Field argue that the ‘middle manager’ is key to organizational success. Long maligned (often by McKinsey), the manager is in fact responsible for delivering objectives, addressing underperformance, building trusting relationships, and resolving team conflicts.
In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner, Ross Dick and Nahdia Khan discuss:
· why managers are so important
· the role of ‘manager’ vs ‘individual contributor’
· how to develop better managers
The book, Power to the Middle, is available now.
Our report, ‘Building Better Managers’, is also available now.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross D recommended the podcast series Slow Burn.
Nahdia discussed cloud seeding.
Ross Garner discussed the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw, via @CulturalTutor.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Ross Dickie
· Nahdia Khan
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This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are joined by Kathryn Hume, strategic workforce planning and L&D consultant, and author of the book Learn, Solve, Thrive.
In the book, Kath argues that learners have a responsibility for managing their own learning and outlines strategies that anyone can adopt to make that process easier.
We discuss:
· why we can’t ‘wait around for someone to teach us’
· some of the difficulties we experience when we try to learn
· the relationship between workforce planning and training.
For more from Kath, visit her website: workforcetransformations.com.au
The book, Learn, Solve, Thrive, is available now.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Ross Dickie
· Kathryn Hume
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It’s been three years since the first edition of The Learning and Development Handbook by Michelle Parry-Slater was published. In that time, a global pandemic, rise of AI, and shift to remote working, have transformed how we work.
This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Michelle returns to the show to discuss the second edition of her book with Ross G.
We discuss:
what has changed (and what hasn’t) since the first edition was published the evolving role of the modern learning professional whether it’s still possible to keep up with the rate of change.During the discussion, Ross referenced Amazon’s decision to tell staff to go back to the office five days a week.
He also discussed the paper: 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.
To find out more about Michelle, visit kairosmodernlearning.com
For the book, check out thelndhandbook.com
Quite note: Apologies for the slightly dodgy audio on this episode. After 400+ episodes, Ross G can still pick the wrong microphone to record.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription.
This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner Michelle Parry-Slater -
This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are re-visiting their L&D mailbag to answer your questions.
We discuss:
What is L&D actually doing well with Large Language Models? (via Gill Chester)
What’s the top 3 least likely L&D jobs to be replaced by AI? (via Alan Hiddleston)
How can learning teams partner better with the rest of the org? (via Sarah Danzl)
What has been the most popular content on MindTools this year, and why...? (via Adam Lacey)
What lessons from Centauri's Shadow can L&D professionals take forward into the autumn to boost their skills? (via Matthew Batten)
During the AI discussion, Ross Dickie recommended Ross Stevenson’s Steal These Thoughts newsletter, and Philippa Hardman’s Dr Phil’s Newsletter.
Ross G referenced The Rest is Politics’s interview with Audrey Tang.
Ross Ganer also recommended our previous episode with Natal Dank, ‘Agile L&D puts the “human” into “Human Resources”’, and his own newsletter on the many benefits of text content.
Finally, Ross Dickie recommended Bob Mortimer’s The Satsuma Complex.
And Ross Garner grudgingly referenced his own debut novel, Centauri’s Shadow, available now from Amazon UK and Amazon US.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Ross Dickie
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Hey listeners! No new episode this week, but we wanted to revisit this 2022 classic with Jane Bozarth because we thought it paired nicely with the latest edition of our L&D Dispatch newsletter.
Do check out the newsletter Ross G discussed on our L&D Dispatch page, 'Four papers that will make you laugh (then make you think)'.
Regular show notes below.
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In learning science, there are certain ideas that have leapt the fences of academia and seeped into the public consciousness. Often, these ideas gain traction because they feel intuitively true. But what does the data say? And how should we apply these ideas as learning professionals?
This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie are joined by Jane Bozarth, Director of Research for the Learning Guild, to discuss three research papers that challenge the received wisdom. We cover:
Generational difference Learning styles The “Marshmallow Test”.The three papers we discussed were:
'Generational Differences in Work-Related Attitudes: A Meta-analysis', published in 2012 in the Journal of Business and Psychology. 'Another Nail in the Coffin for Learning Styles? Disparities among Undergraduate Anatomy Students’ Study Strategies, Class Performance, and Reported VARK Learning Styles', published in 2018 in Anatomical Sciences Education. 'Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes', published in Psychological Science in 2018.The Atlantic did a good write-up of the controversy surrounding the 'Marshmallow Experiment'. See here: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmallow-test/561779/
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross Garner mentioned a Twitter thread from Aaron Berman, in which he shares writing tips from his time as editor of the US President’s daily brief: https://twitter.com/aarondberman/status/1541576231891525633?s=21&t=1_oHB0tqjbt4VXZXmTMnXQ
Jane spoke about Kate the Chemist’s recent session at DevLearn. To find out more about Kate, visit her website: https://www.katethechemist.com/
Ross Dickie recommended the technology podcast ‘Hard Fork’ from the New York Times. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or through the NYT website: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/podcasts/hard-fork-technology.html
To find out more about Jane’s work at the Learning Guild, see: https://www.learningguild.com/
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.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:
Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT Ross Dickie - @RossDickieMT Dr Jane Bozarth - @JaneBozarth -
This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen are diving into their L&D mailbag to answer your questions.
We discuss:
· Will there be more or less opportunity to make a meaningful living in L&D over the next five years? (via JD Dillon)
· If we think of L&D as a product, what would you sunset and what would the top three candidates look like for development? (via Sean Brown)
· What's more important to a Learning strategy and approach... Speed or Efficacy? (via Marc Steven Ramos)
· What's your best ROI story? (via Marc Zao-Sanders)
During the discussion, Ross referenced Benedict Evans article ‘The AI Summer’.
Ross also referenced an example of work our behavioral scientists completed for an ESG project.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Owen Ferguson
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This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, we're putting the ‘people’ back into People Development and the ‘human’ back into ‘Human Resources, as we explore Natal Dank's book Agile L&D.
Natal is the co-owner and director of PXO Culture, a consultancy firm on a mission to make HR, culture and change about humans.
And her book, Agile L&D, is a follow-up to Agile HR.
We discuss:
Problems with a ‘traditional’ approach to L&D
Tools and methods for prioritizing and organizing workloads
Whether ‘agile’ has just become another corporate buzzword
To find out more about Natal, and the book, visit pxoculture.com
During the discussion, Natal referenced the books The Build Trap by Melissa Perri and Embracing Uncertainty by Margaret Heffernan.
For more on Taylorism, see ‘scientific management’.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross Garner discussed Yuval Noah Harari’s bleak take on the future of AI and government.
Nahdia discussed digital twins.
Natal discussed Meditations for Mortals.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Nahdia Khan
Natal Dank
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Technical professionals have a high level of expertise, but translating that expertise for non-technical colleagues isn’t always straightforward. Whether you’re an engineer, a researcher, or even an L&D professional, how can you communicate in a way that resonates with your audience?
This week on the Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross D and Owen are joined by Neil Thompson, founder of Teach The Geek, to discuss:
why good communication skills are important for technical professionals;
the specific challenges associated with technical communication;
how L&D can support technical professionals to become better communicators.
To find out more about Neil’s work, visit www.teachthegeek.com
The very geeky meta-meta-analysis that Owen mentioned in ‘What I Learned This Week’ can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-024-01172-y
You can read the Verge article that Ross D referenced at: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/18/24223160/waymo-honking-san-francisco-parking-lot-depot-fix-not-working
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Dickie
Owen Ferguson
Neil Thompson
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This week we’re revisiting an old adage: The employer who says, ‘What if we train our people and they leave?’ And the trainer who says, ‘What if we don't and they stay?’
As Talent Development Manager for Kew Green Hotels, Clare Sheppard knows all about this. She’s responsible for helping those who want to stay progress in their careers, while giving those who leave a great experience that they can carry with them into their next role.
We discuss:
· the types of colleague who fall into the ‘Early Careers’ bucket (it’s broader than you might think!)
· how to identify high potential colleagues
· the role of managers in supporting Early Careers professionals.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Clare discussed the likelihood of it raining, and what that means.
Ross recommended (sort of) an old episode of The Magic Roundabout.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Clare Sheppard
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Last week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G and Owen explored how the 70:20:10 model is being applied by three L&D Practitioners: Ceri Sharples, Cath Addis, and Carl Akintola-Davis. Today, we wanted to follow up on some of the challenges posed during that discussion with The 70:20:10 Institute’s Charles Jennings.
What does it really mean to 'integrate learning into the workflow', and how does 70:20:10 move us towards a performance focus?
We discuss:
· Where the numbers ‘70’, ‘20’ and ‘10’ come from
· How a focus on ‘learning’ tends to lead to a ‘10+’ approach
· Examples of interventions that have focused on supporting performance, rather than formal learning.
For more on the origins of 70:20:10, see this blog post from Charles.
See also The Center for Creative Leadership’s chapter ‘Learning Through Experience’.
Mind Tools offers a summary of Informal Learning, by Jay Cross.
Joseph Stiglitz book is Creating a Learning Culture.
Find out more about Dr Edwards Deming.
For more from Charles and his team, see 702010institute.com.
The case study Charles wrote with Brian Murphy from Citi bank was: ‘From Courses to Campaigns: Citi’s Journey to a Culture of Continuous Learning’.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen recommended (again) Lenny’s Newsletter, in particular a recent edition on pricing for AI features.
Ross discussed a post from Ben Evans on how users are interacting with ChatGPT.
Charles recommended the podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Owen Ferguson
· Charles Jennings
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Depending how you count it, 70:20:10 is almost 40 years old. The model provides a high-level outline of how we learn at work: 10% through formal learning, 20% through working with others, 70% through doing the work.
The numbers get criticised, but this insight is widely accepted: Most of what we learn does not come from formal training. But how then should L&D practitioners apply the model to the work that they do? Is it still a useful concept after all this time?
In the first of this two-part series, Ross Garner and Owen explore these questions with three practitioners: Ceri Sharples, Learning and Development manager at Somerset Bridge Group; Cath Addis, L&D manager at Ascential; and return guest Carl Akintola-Davis, Head of Leadership Development at Phoenix Group.
We discuss:
· The history and criticisms of 70:20:10
· How useful the concept is for discussing workplace learning with stakeholders
· How to think about the ‘70’, the ‘20’, and the ‘10’ when designing learning programs.
For more on the origins of 70:20:10, see this blog post from Charles Jennings of The 702010 Institute, who is joining us next week on the show.
Carl’s acronym for workplace learning was ‘Performance RECIPES: Reflection, Experimentation, Connection, Information, Practice, Environment and Support’.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen discussed a new paper from Nature, which didn’t really impress him: Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 1-6.
Ross learned the unfortunate fate of 440 squirrels.
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
· Owen Ferguson
· Ceri Sharples
· Cath Addis
· Carl Akintola-Davis
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A summer holiday holds the potential for distraction-free reading. With that in mind, in this week’s episode our podcast team suggest books that hold lessons for L&D practitioners. Which might you take on holiday this summer?
Book list
Right Kind of Wrong. Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive (2023) by Amy Edmondsonwww.amazon.co.uk/Right-Kind-Wrong-Learning-Thrive
Counter-Intelligence: What the secret world can teach us about problem-solving and creativity (2024) by Robert Hanniganhttps://www.roberthannigan.com/
The Tyranny of Metrics (2018) by Jerry J. Mullerwww.amazon.co.uk/Tyranny-Metrics-Jerry-Z-Muller
How big things get done. The surprising factors behind every successful project (2023) by Brent Flyberg and Dan Gardnerwww.amazon.co.uk/How-Big-Things-Get-Done
A history of the world in twelve shipwrecks (2024) by David Gibbonswww.amazon.co.uk/History-World-Twelve-Shipwrecks
Performance-focused learner surveys (2022) by Will Thalheimerwww.amazon.co.uk/Performance-Focused-Learner-Surveys-Distinctive-Effectiveness
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia spoke about how former PM Harold Wilson funded his Alzheimer’s care www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/23/former-pm-harold-wilson-sold-private-papers-fund-care-alzheimers
Ross Dickie also mentioned the traditional Greek bagpipe, known as the ‘tsampouna’, which he discovered during a recent holiday on Santorini.
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:
· Nahdia Khan
· Owen Ferguson
· Ross Dickie
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According to a recent study from Ipsos, and commissioned by Amazon, 86% of respondents said that career development is essential, very or fairly important to them. But, in our experience, it tends to become a lot less important when the day-to-day demands of work crop up.
So, in this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, return guest Neil John Cunningham from Align Learn Do joins Ross G to ask why this is, and what to do about it.
We discuss:
How to build the credibility of your L&D function
The extent to which marketing L&D works
What to do about a ‘disjointed’ L&D offering.
You can read Amazon’s study online.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discussed the Lokiceratops Rangiformis.
For more from Neil, including his book Narratives and Numbers, see alignlearndo.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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Neil John Cunningham
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In part three of our #BuildingBetterManagers series, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined for one last time by Dr Anna Barnett from the Mind Tools Insights team. If you’ve been listening along recently, we’ve already covered the capabilities that make a ‘good’ manager, and how we can develop them. In this week’s episode, we’re looking at how we support more experienced managers.
We discuss:
The long-term impact of early management training
Differences (and similarities) between new and experienced managers
How we can provide constant ongoing support to more experienced managers.
During the discussion, Nahdia referenced our podcast with Georgie Rudd on listening.
You can read our report, ‘Building Better Managers’, now.
If you need helping building better managers, we can help you measure and improve capability no matter your context. Email [email protected] or visit mindtools.com/business/poducts/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Anna discussed scenario-based learning. See Episode 356 of this podcast for more on that.
Ross G discussed research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on the ‘power of proximity’.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Dr Anna Barnett
Nahdia Khan
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Last week, we kicked off our three-part #BuildingBetterManagers series with an overview of the 12 capabilities that we know make a difference to performance. Now we’re asking: How do we help managers build those capabilities?
To answer this question, Ross G and Ross D are joined once again by Dr Anna Barnett, from the Mind Tools Insights team, to discuss her recommendations from our latest report: ‘Building Better Managers’.
We discuss:
Evidence-based approaches to improving manager capability How Mind Tools factored this evidence into our product design An example of a custom management programme that made a measurable difference to manager capabilities.If you need help building better managers, we can help you measure and improve capability no matter your context. Email [email protected] or visit mindtools.com/business/products/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross D discussed the film Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off, about the career of Tony Hawk.
Anna discussed the book The Migraine Brain by Carolyn Bernstein.
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 Content Library, our Off-the-Shelf e-learning, and our Custom work.
Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Dr Anna Barnett
Ross Dickie
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What does good management look like? What skills and capabilities does a manager need? Are you a good manager?
In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Owen Ferguson are joined by Dr Anna Barnett, from our own in-house Insights team, to discuss the findings of our latest report: ‘Building Better Managers’.
In the first of three episodes exploring how we can improve management capability for our people and organizations, we discuss:
· How we define a ‘good’ manager
· The capabilities all managers need to perform, no matter their industry
· How to measure manager capability.
We’ve used the results of Anna’s research to develop our own manager skills assessment. It can help your managers identify skill gaps, while also giving L&D leaders an insight into critical development areas that exist across their organisations.
To speak to us about running our management skills assessment with your people, get in touch! Email [email protected] or visit mindtools.com/business/poducts/mind-tools-insights to book a meeting.
During the discussion, Anna referenced the following papers:
Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001). The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test revised version: a study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(2), 241-251.
Carmeli, A., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Ziv, E. (2010). Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity Research Journal, 22(3), 250-260.
Our report, ‘Building Better Managers’, will be released on July 9.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Owen shared how disagreement is often mistaken for bad listening.
Ross discussed the app Finch, for motivating behavior change.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Ross Garner
· Owen Ferguson
· Dr Anna Barnett
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For eight years, the team here on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast (formerly The GoodPractice Podcast) have been chatting work, performance and learning with some of the brightest minds in learning and development.
This week, to celebrate the release of our 400th episode, our friends Phil Willcox from Emotion at Work and Ady Howes from Digital Skills People have pulled together a tribute episode for us.
We discuss:
· the Mind Tools team’s favourite episodes
· what we learned from 400 episodes of podcasting
· what others think of the podcast.
During the discussion, Ross Garner referenced his favourite episode: 279 — Why work is the ideal place to talk about race.
Margaret Greenberg and Gina Greenlee’s book is The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace and Why It's Actually Good for Business (published by McGraw-Hill). The coauthors work with organizations to embed racial equity into their business strategy. For more information go to their website BusinessofRace.com and click on the Work with Us tab.
Ross D’s favourite episode was Don Taylor’s regular Global Sentiment Survey appearances.
Nahdia picked: 382 — You don’t have to talk to add value, with Georgie Rudd.
Owen picked: 323 — Making decisions with data and intuition, with Oded Netzer.
Gemma picked: 300 — Celebrating live from London!, with Phil Willcox and Julie Dirksen.
Thanks to David Hayden, Sukh Pabial, Michelle Parry-Slater, Dan Wiseman and ChatGPT for their contributions.
Ross G’s novel, Centauri’s Shadow, is available now from Amazon UK and Amazon US.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
· Phil Willcox
· Ady Howes
· Ross Garner
· Ross Dickie
· Nahdia Khan
· Gemma Towersey
· Owen Ferguson
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Digital learning content offers a scalable, always-on option to help your people build their skills and overcome workplace challenges. But often these libraries get dusty, bogged down by out-of-date content with little relevance, or hidden away in a dark corner of the intranet where no one can find them.
So in this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Virgin Money’s Martin Ritchie, Digital Learning Manager, joins Ross Garner and Lara to share:
How Virgin Money raise awareness of their Mind Tools content library
Techniques for promoting a proactive learning mindset
‘Push’ vs ‘pull’ learning.
During the discussion, Ross referenced a recent academic paper: 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.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discussed ‘pebbling’, as covered by The Guardian.
For more on how Mind Tools work with Virgin Money, see our case study.
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 and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.
Connect with our speakers
If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:
Ross Garner
Lara Kidd
Martin Ritchie
- Se mer
