Leaders’ role is to create psychological safety in their team, encourage curiosity, empathy and learning and help employees develop new skills to work alongside technology.
Category: Learning and Development
What is business acumen? (and why is it important?)
I worked at a life insurance company in my mid 30’s. In my first few weeks, Mark, who headed up product development, told me that he thought my boss Neil had made a poor decision in hiring me. Before joining the company, I worked as a consultant, and Neil was my...
The Training Function’s Journey
When I was little, my family had a large vegetable garden in our backyard. It seemed to get larger over the years, and my memory is that it was half the size of the backyard by the time I was a teenager. We grew various vegetables – some more successful than others...
Simlish and the language of business
My daughter plays The Sims, a life simulation video game. She builds houses and buildings and creates cities. She makes characters and guides them through their video game lives. The characters make noises and talk, but because the game is international, it’s a...
The Manager’s role in leading the training function
In January 2022 my husband moved into a management role. He had been a people manager a decade ago and has been successfully leading a project team for years, but he needed to relearn the people management skills. He had to let go of doing the work himself and start...
Skills to lead the training function
I've been meeting with folks over the last few months having coffees and breakfasts, which has been fabulous. [I love back I person!] We’ve been discussing a model I've been working on that is the basis for a program and perhaps my next book. The model identifies the...
Designing an online blended training program
I’ve had a few people contact me recently about redesigning their in-person programs for online delivery. It’s different from two years ago when people scrambled to move to virtual. These folks are looking for a more sophisticated way of engaging with their...
Who owns learning and development?
A regional municipality had a change of leadership. The new Chief Administrative Office (CAO) wanted to focus on leadership development as one of the strategic pillars of the organization. The Manager, Learning and Development started assessing the leadership...
Training needs assessment
You work in a learning and development department in a medium to large organization. The VP, Service Delivery runs the four call centres and has approached you saying, “Team leaders need training on coaching.” The VP says the latest Employee Opinion Survey results...
Neuroscience and Learning Design
Neuroscience is the study of the human brain and nervous system. Findings and insights from neuroscience can help us design training so participants are more likely to: Encode information into their long-term memory. Be able to retrieve it...