sheridan@keystonedevelopment.co.uk
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Digital Discrimination in Training

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Firstly, the irony that I’ve chosen to post this via video doesn’t escape me – but I’d like to point out that it took 5 hours to upload!! I also want to be clear that I’m NOT anti-tech: In fact, I’ve every intention of creating some on-line courses and running webinars as soon as my infrastructure allows it. BUT – we need to be mindful that we aren’t discriminating against a whole bunch of people who can’t participate in virtual events… just as we must be mindful of leaving those out who live in remote areas from live learning opportunities. I’d love to get your reaction on this Video Blog/Rant

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World of Learning – How to make learning COOL again

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This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just “like literally” what I took away. This was a fun session delivered with energy by Di McDonald of Like Literally (formerly with Apple, EE, Expedia and L’Oreal). She works with interns and graduates and found that there was a fundamental difference between the way these young people expected to learn, and the way organisations expected to train them. They don’t want to learn from middle-aged people with 20 years experience – they want to learn from people like themselves, who are just one step ahead of them. Di said that 3 things matter: Audience – who they are as a whole person. Working and learning must be integral to actual lifestyle. Brand – learning needs to be sexy so give it a brand – make sure it’s seen as different to normal communications. Make it stand out, give it a personality, a logo. Think like an agency… you want them to buy into what you’re offering. Content – create content quickly, keep it punchy. Provide…

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World of Learning – How to Curate Learning

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This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. This session was of particular interest. Not only do I know the speaker, Mike Shaw, a little, but curation is an increasingly important part of my role, so I wanted to see if there were any tips I could pick up to do it better! Firstly, Mike explained what Curation is: Its about providing resources, not courses and helping people to create their own learning journeys, utilising a wide range of sources. He said that the role of L&D is to provide recommendations, but also encourage people to find their own… this exploration helps to aid the transfer of learning as they’ve invested time in finding and selecting it. Content that is provided on a plate may not always deliver the same levels of engagement. In terms of HOW to curate, he suggested we follow the 3 S’s: Seek, Sense, Share. Seek – Look for content in many places, not just the ‘approved’ ones. Actively seek out views that may be…

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World of Learning – L&D as Change Makers

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This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. Melanie Lepine talked about the VUCA environments that we all operate in, and what this means for the skills our leaders need, including commercial acumen, resilience, emotional intelligence, curiosity and creativity and cognitive agility. This has an impact for L&D. Again themes of curation, blended learning, agile learning and connecting people came through, as did the importance of demonstrating the value that L&D adds – not just to senior managers but also to the people you want to embark on learning. She suggested that to drive change from within L&D we need to: Connect people and with people… AND engage in PR in our own organisations! Link and label content – find/create great contact and explain how it adds value Hold up the mirror to ourselves Be pro-active – don’t wait to be asked by the business for a solution Be agile – we shouldn’t be driven or bound by rigid processes Know what metrics matter to the organisation and deliver…

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World of Learning – Key Ingredients of Learning Impact

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This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. I have to say that this session was one of the most insightful and useful – based on transfer of learning, which is a topic that is very important to me. This was an interesting session about an area of learning that matters to me… transfer to the job. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel explained that in most traditional training, 15% of learners get a positive outcome in that they transfer learning to the job successfully; 70% attempt to transfer learning but (for a range of reasons) fail to do so; and 15% don’t even try. So what is the reason for this lack of transfer? Her research identified over 100 factors that influence transfer of learning… she focused on 12 factors that L&D professionals can influence, which she has called 12 Levers of Transfer Effectiveness. These Levers fall into 3 categories: Trainees, Design and Organisation – You can imagine my delight when the importance of training design (not delivery) was highlighted as one…

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World Of Learning – The Future of L&D

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This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. The opening keynote speaker, Rafal Szaniawski) defined learning as an on-going, active process of enquiry, engagement and participation that living organisms go through to change. He asked us to remember the key lessons we’d learned in our lives. Although this wasn’t explored in detail, it was clear to me that all of my important lessons were EVENTS or CONVERSATIONS. No significant learning has ever been achieved without the involvement of others (though of course, reflection is necessary in some form or another). In a world where we are constantly being persuaded that the future of learning is digital, I have my doubts. Indeed, Raf said that learning needs are complex and multi-dimensional… so our approach to learning needs to be too. Raf then explored two ‘forces’ of future learning; curation and enforcement. He suggested that the L&D departments of the future will be more like DJs – creating a prefect mix tape for a specific person, but they will all have…

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Training Design and Learner Maturity

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In September I ran 2 (identical) workshops for one of my main clients. One of the topics we were covering was Conflict management. It’s not my strongest subject to cover, so during the design phase I spent a lot of time researching different theories and models to get myself up to date. None of the models or theories jumped out at me as being particularly relevant for my client and the likely conflict situations my delegates would find themselves in. So I did something I would never normally do… I DIDN’T design part of this section of the workshop. As someone who ALWAYS designs in detail (I figure it’s better to give the trainer more than they need than not enough – even when that trainer is me) I felt nervous about this. Just to clarify – I didn’t leave a hole full of nothingness: I did include a section on exploring what conflict is, what causes it and created some bespoke case studies/role plays to explore the practical side of conflict resolution. What I DIDN’T do was prescribe HOW conflict should be resolved. Instead, I asked delegates to complete their own independent research into conflict resolution as pre-course work,…

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Conscious Competence – It’s bloomin’ hard work!!

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I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Centre Parcs – my kids’ favourite place in the world. As part of our mini break, we went quad biking. To be honest, it’s one of those activities that’s actually very easy to pick up – but difficult to do well. I was probably the worst in the group, and despite the very good instruction by Josh, I was still the worst at the end – but I had improved. But boy, was it exhausting!!! Not just the physical side of it, but the continuous concentration, the identifying the nature of the next obstacle, thinking through how to tackle it, and then doing it, and working out how adjust if my approach wasn’t quite right. My husband (and ex motocyclist) said that I should just relax and feel my way around – but that’s OK for him – he had lots of (similar) experience to fall back on. I did not. Everything was a conscious process for me. Thinking everything through worked, but it was hard work. It made me realise how much we are asking of people at the end of a training event. I always stress that training is…

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Self-Serve Learning: Magic Bullet or Cop Out?

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Over the weekend, I was listening to a podcast about simplifying learning. The feeling was that we (as learning professionals) should be encouraging people to source their own learning, but making it easy for them to do that. Why do we put people on a full day Excel course when they just need to learn how to do two functions? Of course, encouraging ‘just-in-time’ learning and making it easy to access is a brilliant thing for us to be doing: Agility in the workplace is increasingly important, and enabling people to learn what they need to learn, when they need to learn it is a no-brainer. BUT… What when we don’t know what we don’t know? That’s when a formal workshop or course can be massively helpful. People may enrol on a workshop or on-line course because there’s something specific they want to learn. However, this might only form 20% of the content. OK, maybe 20% of the rest of the content is irrelevant, and maybe they already know another 30%. That means 30% of the session is extra ‘bonus’ learning. Things they didn’t realise they needed to know, or is just helpful in other ways. Case in point: A…

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The Great British Train Off

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I was asked a question by a freelance trainer in my network who had been running events for a client – “Should I hand over my training materials?” The client then asked to have all of the training materials so they could mop up and run events in the future. My contact was reluctant. The client felt it was their right. It’s a tricky one unless (like me) you always intend to share materials and factor the cost of design into your work: If my clients pay me for the time it takes to design the materials, they can have them. If they don’t, they can’t. It’s quite straight forward, and I’ve written before on this topic. Ultimately, it depends on the agreement between client and supplier and there’s certainly no right or wrong approach. But, as the Great British Bake Off started again this week, I couldn’t help but compare the two situations: You could provide me with all the equipment, the ingredients and detailed instructions to make some of those show-stopper cakes, and they would be a disaster (though I’d like to think I’d make a reasonable success of some of the challenges!). Skill and experience make the…

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