This is The End
Welcome to the final episode of the Trainer Tools Podcast - not much happens, I just say goodbye and avoid the temptation to end on a song!
Episodes
Trainer Tools
A series of overlong discussions between Learning & Development professionals about L&D stuff - contact via johnrtomlinson.com
Episodes
Reshaping Learning and Development with Artificial Intelligence: Insights from an Industry Expert
(I didn't write this, it was the AI function on the podcast platform ... see what you think): In this enlightening (hmm, that's a bit much - JT) episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, explore the far-reaching influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in learning and development mechanisms. Our distinguished (I'd never use the word "distinguished" - JT) guest, David Ly from cutting-edge technology conglomerate Iveda , masterfully (it's a bit over-the-top, isn't it? - JT) simplifies the intricate c...
Evaluation: measuring the impact
In this episode John Tomlinson discusses a favourite topic with Omer Glass: learning evaluation (no, seriously, it is a favourite topic ...). It's easy to evaluate at the reaction level with a happy sheet, but how do we answer the so-what question? That was great training, but so what? What difference did it make? That challenge is one of the most interesting parts of L&D! Omer Glass is the Co-Founder and CEO of Growthspace . Before co-founding Growthspace, Omer worked as a Management Consul...
Finding Your Voice: tips to improve the impact of your voice
In this episode John Tomlinson speaks to Robert Kirby of People People about the role of the voice in our personal impact, not just in the training room, but more generally how we can train ourselves to improve how we come across with authority and influence. Rob is Director of People, People , which provides workshops, courses and coaching using the ‘People, People Way’. It combines psychology, acting tools and coaching principles to improve productivity, performance, and employee engagement fo...
Stop focussing on content, focus on problems!
In this podcast John Tomlinson talks to David James of 360Learning about how we need to align out digital learning strategies to fixing real problems quickly, rather than building up cumbersome libraries of generic content. It's more fun that I just made it sound, I promise. David James is Chief Learning Officer at 360Learning (formerly at Looop) and has been a People Development professional for more than 20 years, most notably as Director of Talent, Learning & OD for The Walt Disney Company ac...
Transforming Communication in Organisations
Heather Hansen focuses on helping organisations communicate better, and helping individuals at work get their voices heard. Her book Unmuted talks through her holistic process of building confidence, capability and connection - not just ticking some training boxes. In this episode John Tomlinson talks to her about how she makes this work. Heather Hansen helps multinational companies enhance collaboration, innovation and inclusion across their global teams through greater understanding and strong...
The medical profession: the best example of a learning culture and continuous development?
I've always though that hospitals are the best example we have of a good learning organisation, and the medical profession the best example of continuous professional development, so I was keen to chat to someone who understood this field better than I did (my medical training is entirely made up of watching Grey's Anatomy) - and so I was grateful to have the opportunity to have a conversation with Dr Alex Young, a qualified surgeon and L&D entrepreneur (and marathon runner etc.). Dr Alex Young ...
What can we learn from the movies about deep learning experiences
In this episode John Tomlinson talks with Kushal Bose about his remarkable career and how he's used his engineering and film making background to create deep learning experiences in organisations. Kushal Bose is the CEO of teledec.com and learning & development facilitator for corporate clients. He helps companies reduce costs and improve bottom line through the art of storytelling. With advanced degrees in engineering and film production, he founded Teledec International in 1987 to create engag...
Top Five Mistakes by a Learning and Development Professional
We all make mistakes, and when we're forced to suddenly start working entirely online after a lifetime of facilitating training in training rooms, we might make a lot more of them! No problem, mistakes are learning opportunities, and so in this podcast John Tomlinson talks to Caroline Black about five mistakes she's made since the Covid pandemic and moving her learning and development sessions into the virtual world. Caroline Black is a specialist in leadership development and communication skil...
Leadership training in the virtual world
In this episode, John Tomlinson talks to Mary Brunton about her experience of bringing leadership training into the virtual world as the pandemic took hold and face-to-face training was stopped. In this conversation, Mary and John share their experiences and discuss how imposter syndrome has increased with the new ways of working. Mary L Brunton MA (Hons) CIPD has been working internationally for over 20 years and in more than 30 countries. Mary has extensive professional experience of designing...
From inclusion to belonging in Learning and Development
In this podcast John talks to Sunita Sehmi about how Learning and Development professionals can approach inclusion in our work, and how we can move from talking about words like "diversity" and "inclusion" to thinking about "belonging" Sunita Sehmi is a Certified Executive Coach, Consultant, Speaker and Trainer. She is of Indian origin and was born in London before moving to Geneva in 1992. She has a Psychology degree, specializing in Occupational and Developmental Psychology and a Post Graduate...
Information design in learning: tips for making great visuals
In this episode John Tomlinson talks to Lydia Hooper of Venngage about how to make great visuals for use in education and training, or more generally to communicate complex information in an engaging and effective way. Examples used during the discussion: Visuals about diversity, equity, and inclusion: https://venngage.com/blog/designing-for-diversity/ Visual about vaccine barriers: https://venngage.com/blog/vaccine-education Examples of good infographics (including relationship timeline): https...
The Dos and Don'ts of Coaching Skills Training
In this episode John Tomlinson talks to Matt Somers about his five dos and five don'ts when training managers on using a coaching style of management. Matt Somers is a coach, trainer and author. He helps managers get good at coaching and with the areas people most want coaching on: Sales, Leadership and Communication. He has been in the training and development business for most of his career, focusing on the idea of the Leader as a Coach since 1995. His training programmes, books, articles and ...
Leadership development starts with self-awareness
Most leaders are not succeeding in their roles as leaders, sometimes because they're in the wrong job, and sometimes because they're not self-aware enough and so cannot manage their behaviours to improve their effectiveness. In this episode, John talks to Nancy Parsons about the work she does in coaching leaders and running leadership development programmes, and how her company has developed a suite a tools to really dig deep on self-awareness. Nancy E. Parsons is the President and CEO of CDR Co...
Serious Lego: how to use Lego in learning
In this episode of the Trainer Tools podcast, John Tomlinson talks to Nikie Forster about how we can use LEGO in Learning and Development. Nikie Forster was convinced she was going to be a Radio One presenter from an early age, so took a less than conventional route into the world of Learning & Development. This has given her a wide range of experiences that enables her to see learning in every interaction. Two decades later, having backed up these experiences with a plethora of professional qua...
What we can learn from MIT about leadership development
Universities and colleges like MIT are fantastic at the theory, and great at technical training, but they have traditionally been less strong on teaching their students the practical skills needed to succeed in the workplace. Mark Herschberg works with MIT as a mentor-instructor, his role is to work with students to plug this gap, teaching them essential professional skills and lessons in management and leadership. He has captured 20 years of his learning into his book, The Career Toolkit (see l...
Using positive psychology to power social learning
So often L&D is about righting wrongs and filling gaps in our knowledge or skills, and OK ... yes, this has a place for specific learning needs, but when thinking more deeply about personal development, positive psychology gives us an engaging way to focus on the good stuff and build on strengths and opportunities, and not just fixing the crap stuff. In this episode, John talks to Alex Bailey about how we can use positive psychology in L&D, and especially for social learning where the focus is o...
How to make online learning experiential
John Tomlinson talks to Shirley Gaston about how we can make our online learning sessions more experiential and engaging - feels like an important intervention given the amount of PowerPointy crap there is out there! Some links mentioned in the podcast: article on online games can be downloaded free at https://www.azesta.co.uk/resources Learning with Lego link: https://www.curiouslighthouse.co.uk/learning-with-lego-courses.html and the direct link to the PDF for an introduction to Lego serious p...
Three Ways to use Stand-up Comedy to help Wellbeing at Work
In this episode John talks to stand-up comedian Sam Carrington about how organisations can use stand-up comedy for staff wellbeing, leadership development and running fun and engaging away days - we talk mainly in the context of remote working where issues of wellbeing, mental health and motivation are especially pertinent. Sam Carrington is a working stand-up comedian who has done over a thousand gigs, including three stints at the world famous Edinburgh Festival. He also runs Smirk Experience ...
The End of Jobs: what knowledge and skills will we need in the future workplace?
John Tomlinson speaks to Jeff Wald about the future of work, what knowledge and skills workers will need in the future, and why he put up $10 million dollars for a prize! Jeff Wald is the Founder of Work Market, an enterprise software platform that enables companies to manage freelancers (acquired by ADP). Jeff has founded several other technology companies, including Spinback, a social sharing platform (eventually purchased by salesforce.com). Jeff began his career in finance, serving as Managi...
How to create magic at work
In this episode I talk to author and coach Amy Lyn Durham about her approach to tackling loneliness at work through creative "magic": crearing emotional and meaningful workplace experiences Amy Lynn Durham is a U.C. Berkeley Certified Executive Coach and Emotional Intelligence Practitioner who has spent years in the corporate world successfully managing hundreds of employees for private and publicly -traded companies. She is often referred to as a Corporate Mystic due to her unique ability of pr...
Improving quality, motivation and innovation with attention to detail
In this episode John Tomlinson chats to Chris Denny about his approach to teaching attention to detail. This isn't what you might expect, it's not about to become more pedantic, or being a completer-finisher, it's about an approach to quality and thoroughness than can impact every aspect of your, and your team's, performance Chris Denny is a researcher, trainer, author, consultant, and business owner. When he is not running a business or spending time with his family, he is researching attention...
Five ways to engage reluctant learners with e-learning
This isn't just about how to do e-learning better, it's about how to use e-learning well to complement face-to-face learning and get more engaged learners, leave fewer people behind, improve learning retention, and make the job of the trainer more interesting and rewarding. In this episode Clint shared what he has learnt from developing Brainitz that we can apply to the corporate training world. If it works on teenagers, it's got to work on adults, surely! Clint Knox is a National Board Certifie...
The 4Ts Model of Online Training: How to Avoid Disaster
Under pressure of lockdowns and limited travel, many of us are rushing to create a decent virtual L&D offer to fill the gap. A lot of the time this is a lecture + PowerPoint slides delivered via Zoom rather than in a classroom, and that's really not good enough. In this episode of Trainer Tools, Paul Levy argues that we need to rethink the whole thingand not just transfer the old slides online. Paul Levy is a writer, facilitator and senior researcher at the University of Brighton and also an ass...
How to create a truly inclusive culture that changes people’s biases
Three white middle-aged men chat about the importance of diversity and inclusion and how Learning and Development can help create more inclusive connected workplaces. With Rich and Ralph Brandt of RDR Group When it comes to diversity trainers, Ralph and Rich are not what you’d expect. Being white males and identical twins, they’re an anomaly. And yet, Ralph and Rich are living examples that bias can change. Growing up with a twin had its benefits — a constant playmate, a study partner, and a fri...
The future of work and what it means for L&D
In this episode John Tomlinson talks to Spencer Ayres about the future of work and what it means for L&D Spencer Ayres is an entrepreneur, product designer and educator focused on enabling people to become the best they can be through human and digital experiences. Spencer (link - https://spencerayres.com/ ) is Co-Founder and COO of Future Builders (Link - https://futurebuilders.co ) - who's mission is to make meaningful learning as impactful and easy to access as possible, with the goal of maxi...
The art of elegant measures that improve learning retention
How we measure learning makes a big difference. The right measure can be motivational and harnessing gamification to get a virtuous circle going that reinforces learning, the wrong measures can do the opposite. They can be a costly overhead that reward the wrong behaviours, demotivate, and probably track things that don't really matter. In this episode I talk to Rich Lanchantin of Qstream about the importance of productivity/performance metrics in a company's ROI measurement of their L&D efforts...
The future of Learning and Development at the heart of the organisation
In February 2020, Ulead Media invited me to speak at the L&D Summit event in Madrid. My session was about the future of L&D, and what we needed to do to stay relevant and get right into the heart of the organisation. In this talk I share six things I think we need to do to achieve that. Thanks to Ulead for inviting me.
What do Marketing need from Learning and Development?
In this podcast Krystyna Gadd talks to Harriet Bell, Marketing Director from Emerald Publishing, about what their marketing department needs from Learning and Development. What's great about this interview (in my opinion) is that in the last section, Harriet's view exactly fits with my own about what we need to be doing: close partnerships with the business, focussing on problem area and performance opportunities, and co-creating content to fit their specific needs and circumstances. Harriet Bel...
What learning and development can learn from stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedians have to be confident storytellers who keep the attention of their audience for long periods of time, they also work hard on "finding their voice" so they know who they are when they dare to stand on stage under the lights and demand their audience's attention - so what skills and techniques do they develop to pull this off, and what can we use in L&D? Sam Carrington is a working stand-up comedian who has done over a thousand gigs, including three stints at the world famous Edi...