The Mind Tools L&D Podcast Mind Tools Ltd

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 But often these libraries get dusty, bogged down by out-of-date content with little relevance, or hidden away in a dark corner of the intranet where no one can find them.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 

In ‘Measure of a Man', episode nine of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise crew debate whether their robot companion, Data, is truly alive. More interesting for us, though, is the way they interact with artificial intelligence (AI) in general. Not just for what it tells us about how AI tools might evolve, but also for how we humans work with them.
So in this special episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Ganer, Claire, Ross Dick and Nahdia discuss:
·       How closely the Enterprise computer reflects current tools like ChatGPT,
·       Whether we want robots to work alongside us,
·       Whether the Turing Test still has relevance.
During the discussion, Ross Garner talked about how Moderna is using ChatGPT, how ELIZA passed the Turing Test, and the ongoing discussion around whether ChatGPT’s new voice is too similar to Scarlett Johansson’s.
Ross D discussed Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, Brian Christian’s book The Alignment Problem, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s views on neural networks.
In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia recommended the movie Atlas, available on Netflix.
Ross Garner recommended following visual effects artist Todd Vaziri.
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
·       Nahdia Khan
·       Ross Dickie
·       Claire Gibson

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