Reflection is a good practice, in life and in learning, especially for those working in and for learning businesses. But it’s all too easy to skip because taking time to reflect often isn’t as pressing and urgent as other things on the to-do list. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele act as avatars and model doing the behavior they encourage others to engage in periodically as they reflect back on 2023. Show notes and a downloadable transcript are...
Jan 09, 2024•29 min
Strategy and collaboration in open, loosely connected, complex networks require a different approach than the top-down planning that has long dominated organizational strategy-setting. In this redux episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Ed Morrison, who pioneered Strategic Doing, an approach to strategy and collaboration in open, loosely connected, complex networks, and who co-authored Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership . Celisa and Ed talk about...
Jan 02, 2024•39 min
Giving and receiving feedback is harder than most people think. Learning business professionals need to take the time to study the art and science of feedback because of the critical role feedback plays in learning. In this redux episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele discuss how to give and receive feedback effectively, common misconceptions about feedback, and the tremendous impact feedback can have on learning. Show notes and a downloadable transcript ar...
Dec 26, 2023•26 min
Trust is fundamental in marketing. Without trustworthy marketing, products and services, no matter how excellent, will languish because today, by default, audiences doubt what marketers say. What this means is learning businesses need to do the work to collect and use evidence to back up their marketing claims. In episode 388 of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with Melanie Deziel about exactly how to do that. Melanie is co-author of Prove It: Exactly How Modern Marketers Ea...
Dec 19, 2023•31 min
Marketing has arguably undergone more change in the last decade than any other field, which means learning businesses have to stay on top of their marketing game to make sure they reach the right learners and bring in the critical revenue that keeps them humming along. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, number 387, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Greg Stuart. Having spent over three decades in the field, Greg has contributed majorly to the transformation of marketing and media. He...
Dec 12, 2023•35 min
What is capacity? The dictionary defines capacity as “the facility or power to produce, perform, or deploy.” But we dig deeper to look at what capacity means for learning businesses. We explore three key facets of capacity (people, technology, and processes), look at capacity both as an assessment of current reality and a way to think about an ideal future state, and touch on how capacity plays out at three levels (individual, organization, and community). Show notes and a downloadable transcrip...
Dec 05, 2023•25 min
You’ve heard it said that culture eats strategy for lunch, and getting culture right is arguably even more important for learning businesses than for other types of organizations because the creation of a culture that truly embraces learning is so integrally tied to both what a learning business does internally and what it offers externally. This means learning business leaders need to give time and energy to fostering an awakened culture. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, number ...
Nov 28, 2023•30 min
On average, we make 35,000 decisions a day. The sheer quantity means a process for making effective, successful decisions is a foundational aspect of leadership. But decision-making isn't often taught in school or on the job. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, number 384, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Jack Flaherty, author of The Decision Switch: 7 Principles of Successful Decision-Making , about his decision-making framework, decision-making as a process (not an event), the...
Nov 21, 2023•32 min
Learning styles are a pernicious myth, but learner preferences are a reality that learning businesses disregard at their own risk. Learning businesses need to balance using effective learning strategies and approaches with giving learners want they want. Show notes and a downloadable transcript are available at https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode383 .
Nov 14, 2023•19 min
Learning businesses that look for results strive to change behavior. They want to develop and deliver learning experiences that support learners in doing something new or doing something better. But designing for behavior change requires a specific focus and understanding of how learning works. Luckily, Leading Learning Podcast co-host Jeff Cobb gets to talk with an expert in designing learning for behavior change in this episode, number 382. Julie Dirksen is a learning strategist who has spent ...
Nov 07, 2023•37 min
This episode will take 30+ minutes to listen to—or less if you like to speed up the audio. But, however long it takes you to get through the episode, we hope you’ll take away at least three things you can use in your learning business. Find a sheet of paper or open a note-taking app, and write down the numbers 1, 2, and 3. As you listen to this conversation with Dr. Brian McGowan, fill in a takeaway beside each number. Brian has studied clinician learning for the last 20 years, and, for the last...
Oct 31, 2023•39 min
The average learning business does a lot. Add what a learning business could or should do to what it already does, and the list of possibilities is overwhelming. This episode of the Leading Learning Podcast focuses on four often-overlooked areas where we think investing more time and energy will pay off for learning businesses: supporting subject matter experts, providing practice opportunities, evaluating impact, and telling a coherent value story. Show notes and a downloadable transcript are a...
Oct 24, 2023•35 min
Developing effective learning products should be a central goal of all learning businesses, and one way to gauge effectiveness and then refine learning products is with learner surveys. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Jeff Cobb talks with a true expert in the domains of learner surveys and learning effectiveness: Dr. Will Thalheimer. Will is a consultant, speaker, researcher, and author of Performance-Focused Learner Surveys: Using Distinctive Questioning to Get Actionab...
Oct 17, 2023•39 min
Learning businesses should base their design choices on evidence-based practices. But keeping up with the latest research takes time and energy that many learning business professionals simply don’t have. Luckily, people like Jane Bozarth exist to help bridge the gap between academic research and the implications for the design and delivery of learning experiences. Jane Bozarth has spent many years as a trainer, a facilitator, and an e-learning designer, and she currently serves as the director ...
Oct 10, 2023•39 min
Practice is a powerful tool for learning, and, when you stop to look at what you do on a daily or weekly basis, you’ll see how common and natural practice is in so many realms. But too often learning businesses don’t incorporate practice into their portfolio of offerings. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, we focus on practice, but, rather than take a learning science-backed view, we take a look at a specific, real-world example of practice. Co-host Celisa Steele interviews co-host...
Oct 03, 2023•31 min
Soft skills training is a different beast than technical training, and Manny Avramidis, president and CEO of the American Management Association, knows this well. AMA provides management development and educational services to individuals and organizations in over 100 countries, with a primary focus on soft skills. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, Manny talks with co-host Jeff Cobb about how the market for professional development and education has changed and matured during his ...
Sep 26, 2023•35 min
Social learning is a fundamental, age-old method of learning. But it got somewhat lost in the broader adoption of digital learning, especially self-paced e-learning, that happened in the last 20 years, and social learning suffered again during COVID. But, done right, social learning is a highly effective and efficient way to learn. Our guest in this episode is Nellie Wartoft, founder and CEO of Tigerhall, a social learning platform that’s trying to change how professionals learn from one another...
Sep 19, 2023•38 min
The Leading Learning Podcast is just one part of what we do at Leading Learning. In this episode, we reintroduce Leading Learning and the range of resources, education, and insights Learning Learning provides to learning business professionals. In brief, Leading Learning provides resources, education, and insights to learning business professionals, and we provide those resources, education, and insights via several avenues, of which the Leading Learning Podcast is just one. Show notes and a dow...
Sep 12, 2023•35 min
On the Leading Learning Podcast, sometimes we get to talk with someone whose thinking and research have deeply influenced our work and lives. Such is the case with Ellen J. Langer, AKA the mother of mindfulness. Dr. Langer was the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard, where she is still professor of psychology. The recipient of three Distinguished Scientists awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Liberty Science Genius Award, Dr. Langer wrote the international bestseller Mindfuln...
Sep 05, 2023•41 min
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are important goals for any business, including learning businesses. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, DEI gained ground, but many initiatives, unfortunately, have faltered or been cut completely in the years since. Our guest in this episode is Miranda McKie, founder and CEO of McKie Consultants, a strategic consulting firm focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion and inclusive product design. Miranda believes in the need for evidence-based, long-te...
Aug 29, 2023•32 min
Business models are a key part of the strategy of any business. But, in our experience, learning businesses often take a set-it-and-forget-it approach to business models. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, we make the argument for why you should regularly revisit your business model. We also discuss the four key facets that are part of any business model: those are who you charge, what you charge for, how much you charge, and who you share costs or profits with. Show notes and a do...
Aug 22, 2023•32 min
There are three goals at the heart of almost all learning businesses: reach, revenue, and impact. Generating revenue is essential in helping learning businesses reach the right audience and make an impact. In this episode, co-host Celisa Steele delves into the topic of revenue with Brent Keltner. Brent began his career as a PhD social scientist and spent 10 years conducting qualitative research interviews at Stanford University and the RAND Corporation. He’s now president of Winaltyics, a go-to-...
Aug 15, 2023•30 min
Learning ecosystems, learning engineering, learning in the flow of life and work—these could be a list of top buzzwords. But each has gained attention for a reason. Each is important in the design and delivery of effective lifelong learning, continuing education, and professional development, and each gets its due in this episode, which features a conversation with Sae Schatz. Sae formerly served as director of the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, and she was ...
Aug 08, 2023•34 min
Innovation is crucial to the continued success of any organization, and that’s arguably truer for learning businesses than it is for many other types of organizations because of their focus on external learners and the field, industry, or profession those learners serve. In this episode, we unpack that assertion while also breaking innovation down. Innovation isn’t monolithic and uniform. Rather innovation is variable and nuanced, and that’s what we want look at, with an eye specifically to exte...
Aug 01, 2023•26 min
Managing content well and communicating effectively with audiences are two key competencies needed by a learning business that wants to thrive, and taxonomies and metadata can play an important role in both. Stephanie Lemieux is an information management consultant specializing in taxonomies and metadata. Educated as a librarian, Stephanie is now president and principal consultant at Dovecot Studio, which helps organizations optimize the way they structure and manage their mission-critical conte...
Jul 25, 2023•38 min
Empathy is essential to both learner-centered design and effective leadership, and empathy with doubly disadvantaged individuals, like Black women, can be that much more important—and rare. L. Michelle Smith is a certified executive and personal coach whose work is informed by positive psychology and neuroscience. She’s the author of three books, including Yes Please! 7 Ways to Say I’m Entitled to the C-Suite . L. Michelle’s specialty is moving women and women of color to the C suite and E suite...
Jul 18, 2023•33 min
Travel can serve as a field laboratory for learning. Whether a trip is short or long, near or far, done alone or with others, travel offers an opportunity to learn. In this episode, co-hosts Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele discuss the pre, during, and post phases that make up both travel and learning experiences; feelings of belonging and othering that can arise; and the value of learning business professionals reflecting on their own experiences to help them design better and more empathetically fo...
Jul 11, 2023•38 min
If we had to pick just one thing as the key to the success of a learning business, we would argue for the learning experiences offered because those learning experiences are at the core of what learning businesses do. In order to offer effective learning experiences, we need a solid understanding of adult learning theory. Although many of learning business professionals are already familiar adult learning theory, there can be tremendous value in taking time to periodically revisit it. In this re...
Jul 04, 2023•26 min
It’s an old debate in education, whether learning needs to be for something or whether learning in and of itself is of value. Looking at the rise of STEM and the growing focus on skills-based, job-relevant training, one might conclude that the for-something side is winning the debate. And, yet, soft skills and less immediately applicable subjects endure. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-host Celisa Steele talks with Jeffrey Scheuer about the role of the liberal arts in creatin...
Jun 27, 2023•28 min
The traditional long summer break from school in the U.S. can mean fun in the sun—and summer learning loss (SLL). While SLL is a documented phenomenon, not all K-12 students lose the same skills and knowledge over the summer. In fact, some make gains over the summer holiday. One of the most important things students can do to improve is read. And reading can be a powerful driver of learning for adults as well as K-12 students. In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, co-hosts Jeff Cobb a...
Jun 20, 2023•29 min
