How do you run an organization-wide learning function with just two people? At LV=, that's the main focus for Talent, Learning and Development Partner Rob Foster.

This week on The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Rob joins Claire and Ross G to discuss:

• how building relationships throughout the organization helps support induction, mentoring and reverse mentoring programs
• how internal champions expand the impact of digital resources (like Mindtools!)
• advice for teams working on a similarly small scale.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed the structure of Taylor Swift's 'The Fate of Ophelia'.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Ross Garner
• Claire Gibson
• Rob Foster

The L&D industry has always talked about 'business value' as an elusive concept. Now, a new book from Laura Overton and Michelle Ockers, The L&D Leader: Principles and Practice for Delivering Business Value, articulates what that looks like in practice.

This week on The Mindtools L&D Podcast, they join Ross D and Dr Anna to discuss:

• how L&D teams can transition through different stages of maturity
• the role of data in shaping business value
• the role of community and where to find it in the post-Twitter world.

The book, The L&D Leader: Principles and Practice for Delivering Business Value, is available now from Kogan Page.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Ross Dickie
• Dr Anna Barnett
• Laura Overton
• Michelle Ockers

In many organizations, not least within L&D, urgent and important short-term challenges often crowd out the bigger picture. So, how do we step back and take the long view?

In this week's episode, Ross D and Claire are joined by Nina Bressler, founder of Reimagined Value, to discuss:

• Nina's background and what she means by the term 'societal learning'
• How to work with business stakeholders to help them decide what to focus on
• How to measure the impact of long-term initiatives.

To find out more about Nina's work, check out Reimagined Value.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross D mentioned the article 'Hollywood's Music Biopic Boom: Quantifying the Rise of a Soulless Genre' from the Stat Significant newsletter.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Ross Dickie
• Claire Gibson
• Nina Bressler

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Donald Taylor and Eglė Vinauskaitė have released four reports exploring L&D's use of AI.

In this week's episode, Don joins Ross D to discuss the latest report — AI in L&D: The Race for Impact. We cover:

• What's changed over the last three years, and why we're at an inflection point
• How L&D's use of AI has slowly matured over time, evolving into more sophisticated use cases
• A vision for the future of L&D, beyond content-creation.

You can download a copy of the full report here.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Don recommended the book Amorous or Loving?: The Highly Peculiar Tale of English and the English.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Ross Dickie

• Donald Taylor

In his book Targeting Turnover, Dick Finnegan argues that, as the global population ages and more people enter retirement, it is imperative for organizations to retain the talent they already have.

In this week's episode, Dick joins Claire and Cammy to discuss:

• Why turnover is a problem for businesses
• The strategies organizations can deploy to reduce turnover
• The impact this might have on the L&D industry.

You can pick up a copy of Targeting Turnover here.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Claire Gibson
• Cammy Bean
• Dick Finnegan

Hello listeners! No new episode this week, but we wanted to take the opportunity to revisit our 2021 'documentary special' on product management.

It took a lot more work than our usual roundtable format, but we think it paid off. ;)

To make this episode, we spoke to Myles Runham, Sukh Pabial, Danny Seals, and Gemma Paterson, discussing:

• what product management is
• what L&D can learn from product management
• what 'the product' is in L&D - is it L&D itself?

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

Like the show? You'll LOVE our newsletter! Subscribe to The L&D Dispatch at lddispatch.com

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• Ross Dickie
• Ross Garner
• Owen Ferguson
• Myles Runham
• Sukh Pabial
• Gemma Paterson
• Danny Seals

When Dr Anna Barnett, Ross Garner and Ross Dickie discussed the role of empathy in decision-making in Episode 463, they started to ponder the role that AI plays in our decisions.

In this week's episode, Ross Garner, Anna and Gemma return to the topic of smart decisions to continue that conversation. We discuss:

• The impact AI is having on our decisions and decision-making processes
• The pros and cons of using AI to help us make decisions
• How we might use AI to make more effective decisions.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Anna recommended using the 'Maps. the hug' app to plan your outdoor adventures.

Ross introduced us to Quipu. You can read about this cluster of universes in EarthSky's article 'Meet Quipu, largest known structure in the universe'.

To read all of our reports, visit mindtools.com/thought-leadership/reports

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

Like the show? You'll LOVE our newsletter! Subscribe to The L&D Dispatch at lddispatch.com

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• Gemma Towersey
• Dr Anna Barnett
• Ross Garner

According to Donald Taylor and Egle Vinauskaitė's recent AI in L&D: The Race for Impact report, 'creating learning content' and 'learning design tasks' remain the primary use cases for AI in learning and development. But should they be?

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, L&D consultant Heidi Kirby joins Ross D and Claire to discuss:

• the obvious appeal of using AI to scale learning content;
• why Heidi believes outsourcing development to AI is a mistake;
• what L&D could or should be using AI for, if not content generation.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross mentioned the website mcbroken.com.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

Like the show? You'll LOVE our newsletter! Subscribe to The L&D Dispatch at lddispatch.com

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• Ross Dickie
• Claire Gibson
• Dr Heidi Kirby

All children play but, over time, that instinct goes away. We don't lose it, we don't forget. Instead, we get taught to stop.

For author and toy designer Cas Holman, that's a problem. With a very real impact on business performance.

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, Cas joins Ross G and Gemma to discuss:

• how traditional workplaces surpress play
• the business benefits of play at work
• how to encourage play when your organization won't tolerate it.

You can find out more about Cas and her book Playfulness at casholman.com/book. You can also see her in the Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design.

In 'What I Learned This Week', Ross discussed peculiar experiments involving moths, via The Economist.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

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• Cas Holman
• Ross Garner
• Gemma Towersey

Why does L&D so often feel like the drive-thru window of requests—'one leadership program, hold the ROI please'? As L&D professionals, it's not who we understand ourselves to be. So how can we flip the script so that we're seen and treated as strategic business partners?

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, we're joined by Jess Almlie, author of "Order taker no more!"

We discuss:

• What keeps us stuck in an order taker role?
• What are the foundations of great strategic business partnering?
• What might a move into this new role look like?

You can find out more about Jess, her work and book on her Almlie Consulting website.

In What I Learned This Week, Gemma mentioned the Tree Equity Score website.

Sadly we don't have a photo of Ross on a horse.

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

Like the show? You'll LOVE our newsletter! Subscribe to The L&D Dispatch at lddispatch.com

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• Jess Almlie
• Ross Dickie
• Gemma Towersey

Decision-making is a key aspect of being a manager, and a complex mix of skills, experiences, judgments and instincts. So how do you help your managers make smarter decisions at work?

In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast, our own Dr Anna Barnett reveals insights from our new report 'The empathy problem: Balancing emotion in decision-making', part of our Building Better Managers series.

We discuss:

• Whether managers are more inclined to delegate difficult tasks than those they think will be achieved
• Why too much empathy is a problem in decision-making
• How to build emotionally intelligent managers.

During the discussion, Anna referenced the following papers:

• Maas, V. S., & Shi, B. (2023). 'The effects of target difficulty and relative ability on managers' delegation decisions'. Management Accounting Research, 60, 100851.
• Kaiser, R. B. (2024). 'Has empathy really become more important to leadership since the COVID-19 pandemic?'. Consulting Psychology Journal.

To read all of our reports, visit mindtools.com/thought-leadership/reports

For more from Mindtools and Kineo, visit mindtools.com. There, you'll also find details of our new face-to-face and virtual workshops, each aligned to our Manager Skills Assessment.

Like the show? You'll LOVE our newsletter! Subscribe to The L&D Dispatch at lddispatch.com

Connect with our speakers

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

• Ross Dickie
• Dr Anna Barnett
• Ross Garner