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Josh Bunyan, a business development manager at Redware, an automotive learning technology company based in the UK, talks about how branding can help L&D functions help engage learners. Key takeaways: L&D functions can and ought to learn and borrow from marketing. It ain't rocket science, but branding works best when it's based on the needs and desires of the intended audience. For L&D, branding should speak to the ways in which training is relevant to and useful for learners in their day to day work. The cost of poor branding, or a lack of branding, is learning that fails to engage learners and ends up wasting everyone's time.

Nick Howe, Chief Learning Officer at Area 9 Learning, talks about the value of "automaticity" as a learning strategy. Key takeaways: Automaticity is when things become second nature, such as knowing times tables (2x2, 2x3, etc.). Automaticity is achieved by using adaptive learning techniques and technologies, i.e. learning adapted to the specific needs of individual learners.  Achieving automaticity through learning is arguably superior to relying mostly on looking things up on crowdsourced platforms such as YouTube. How do you get more employees to achieve automaticity across a variety of tasks. The typical one-time-event training session will not get it done. Spaced repetition is crucial, which requires systems and technologies that make targeted repetition of learning easily accessible when and where employees need it.

Todd Macey, president at Vital Learning, a leadership and management L&D firm based in Denver, talks about the importance of getting learner buy-in for training initiatives and how to get it. Main takeaways: Why does training buy-in matter? When you get buy-in from the get-go, the learning outcomes tend to improve dramatically. Buy-in is just as important as the solution you’re rolling out. The most important thing to communicate is the “why”. Why is this training useful and necessary for your job? How might it be valuable even outside of work? Testimonials from employees who’ve gone through the training and can speak to its benefits can go a long way toward helping to sell the training and get buy-in.

Summer Salomonsen, chief learning officer at Grovo Learning, goes beyond the hype and demystifies what microlearning is, how it works, and why it's so valuable as a corporate learning strategy. Key takeaways: Microlearning works by focusing on one idea or concept at a time, instead of trying to cram dozens of concepts into a single training session. A key to microlearning success is making the learning available within employees' workflow. To start a successful microlearning program, start small by focusing on the core skills that employees must master in order to advance corporate goals. L&D professionals must stay focused on the single concept approach and guard against the tendency of managers to want to cram leaning full of every possible thing they want their employees to learn. Make learning stick by integrating it into the day-to-day work of the typical employee.

Kevin Armstrong, speaker, business advisor, and the author of “The Miracle Manager: Why True Leaders Rarely Make Great Managers”, talks about why leaders and top sales people typically do not make for good managers. Key takeaways: The qualities that make for good leaders--having a singular vision, inspiring people to follow and promote that vision, significant self-focus and self belief--do not translate into effective management skills. Why? Because in contrast to leaders, the best managers are all about enabling others to succeed. Managers prefer operating in the background and shining the spotlight on the people they manage and coach. Many businesses suffer by making the mistake of promoting top performing salespeople to sales management roles, even though the attributes that enable the best salespeople to succeed are often the opposite of the attributes necessary to be a good manager.

Doug Seifert, CEO of Syandus, a company that specializes in immersive learning technology, talks about how game technology--but not gamification--can be an immensely powerful tool for learning and development. Main takeaways: Gamification works best for acquiring knowledge by making the process more engaging and entertaining ... But gamification does not work nearly as well for learning new skills, i.e. putting knowledge into practice. Game technology, on the other hand, has proven very effective at training learners on new skills. How? By enabling learners to practice those skills in immersive digital environments that simulate real-world scenarios. Combined with simulated and real-life coaching, game technology platforms can not only engage learners but provide a unique opportunity for learning and practicing critical skills.

Randy Goruk, founder of Leadersedge 360, talks about the consequences of employee disengagement and how L&D professionals can help boost engagement across organizations. Main takeaways: Disengagement happens for a variety of reasons, varying from organization to organization, but generally employee disengagement stems from a problem with leadership failing to engender a culture of engagement and individual responsibility. Signs of employee disengagement include minimal effort, a lack of passion among employees, and a lack of loyalty to the company. Disengaged employees affect an organization on many levels, including harming productivity and resulting in less than optimal customer service. Addressing employee disengagement involves measuring levels of engagement and disengagement among employees, establishing clear and transparent lines of communication among leaders and team members, and fostering a culture and environment of inclusion through coaching.

Annabel Dunstan, founder and CEO of Question & Retain and author of the book The People Business: How Ten Leaders Drive Engagement Through Internal Communications, talks about what L&D can learn from internal communications, and vice versa. Main takeaways: Sharing best practices can help both L&D and internal comms learn how to communicate better with their intended audiences. Both functions can benefit from learning how the other uses technology and social media platforms to drive engagement. Internal comms and L&D, by virtue of sharing vital information and training employees on vital processes and industry standards, respectively, are both engaged in enabling employees to be effective brand ambassadors whenever they talk about the company to each other and to the general public.

Don Brown, founder of Don Brown Learning & Development, talks about the value of letting go of bad habits and making mental shelf space for learning better, more profitable habits.

Charlie Gillette, president and CEO of Knowledge Anywhere, talks about why and how to make a business case for investing in a learning management system (LMS).  Main takeaways: You need to make a business case for an LMS, especially for a medium-sized organization, because chances are the company has been doing fine without an LMS and you need to persuade the c-suite of its value. But, don't refer to the system as an "LMS," because c-suite execs may not know what the acronym means. Use "learning platform" or "learning management system." Have a true and complete handle on the costs involved, including purchasing the system and monthly fees and the cost of developing and/or purchasing content. Be able to outline the main benefits of a learning system, including retaining employees, better employee engagement, and improved onboarding. Use data to help make the case. Look at exit interviews and employee satisfaction surveys to collect data about the percentage of employees calling for better training and learning opportunities.

Dan Gizzi, VP of business development at Learning Tribes, talks about training employees to work with and alongside AI-enabled machines. Main takeaways: Employees can help implement and improve AI, especially concerning customer service. AI-enabled tech is transforming the world of L&D, too, in terms of how trainers deliver training and how employees access it. The advent of AI in the workplace today is similar to how robots transformed automobile assembly lines, requiring that line workers be retrained to maintain the machines. Workers in other industries must learn to use AI-enabled technologies and learn new skills to handle higher-level tasks currently beyond the reach of AI.

Lola Gershfeld, founder and CEO of Level Five Executive, talks about how training that focuses on emotional connection can help leaders become more effective in directing and motivating their teams.

Byron Matthews, president and CEO at Miller Heiman, talks about breaking the buyer apathy loop. Main takeaways: * The buyer apathy loop happens when buyers view sellers as merely meeting expectations, i.e. seeing sellers are representing products but not as problem solvers. And so, buyers wait until they want to learn about a product/service before consulting a seller … resulting in sellers having fewers opportunities to articulate and demonstrate value, making it harder for sellers to differentiate themselves … and so sellers meet but don’t exceed expectations. * Breaking this loop means seeking opportunites for connecting with buyers earlier in the process, i.e. when buyers are buying something perceived as risky, when they’re buying something for the first time, and when the buying decision impacts several departments. * Sellers need to go beyond just meeting expectations by getting to know the buyer and by positioning themsel [...]

Kelly Frey, VP of marketing and customer success at SalesHood, talks about bad sales enablement: how to recognize it and how to avoid it. Main takeaways: * Alignment is key. Strong sales enablement requires alignment not only between sales and marketing but among all business units and functions. Strong enablement happens when the entire organization is aligned around a common purpose and messaging.  * Be very thoughtful about what your sales enablement strategy is and about who owns it within the organization. Sometimes it will be owned by sales operations, sometimes it’ll be owned by product marketing, sometimes it’ll have its own a group within the sales organization. So, be very mindful of who own sales enablement and what are the overall goals of the organization. * Make sure that you’re constantly testing how effective your enablement strategy is as it relates to your attainment goals. What activities are you asking your sal [...]

Juliana Stancampiano, CEO of Oxygen, talks about the value of role-based enablement and how trainers and coaches can help people better thrive in their roles. Main takeaways: * Enablement works best when it is role-specific, i.e. tailored to help people perform in their specific roles, as opposed to generic enablement designed to cover all roles. * Different roles may require very different types and styles of training. * Training content must be easy to access on the go, on a variety of devices.

Just a quick announcement to let you know that the podcast has a new name: "The L&D Show". I changed the name because over the past several months, the show has evolved from one focusing primarily on sales training and coaching to a broader focus on learning and development more generally. And so, the name change seemed overdue.

Fredrick Schuller, a senior vice president at BTS, talks about how to measure training ROI. Maintakeaways: * Smile sheets and post-training surveys are not enough to truly measure ROI. * Training ROI should reflect not merely that participants learned new things but that those things had a measureable impact on their day-to-day performance. * Designing training around desired business outcomes make it easier to measure the impact of training.

Nolan Hout, marketing director at InfoPro Learning, talks about why you should be doing even more product training. Key takeaways: * The best sales tactics and process are worthless without the sort of deep product knowledge you need to articulate value in a way that resonates with prospects. * Selling skills still matter, of course, but don’t make the mistake of leaning so far in the direction of training on sales tractics that you skimp on product training. You need to find a strategic balance.  

Brad Albright, founder of Vitality Teaming, talks about how “catalytic” training games help improve onboarding by making new employee training more engaging useful. Main takeaways: * Well-designed games can foster teamwork and help new employees form bonds. * Games can introduce company culture in a ways that’s fun and engaging. * Games can be beneficial for any learning objective or for leadership training.

Maria Chilcote, managing partner at The Training Clinic, talks about how L&D professionals can successfully market their services, and why it’s important to do so.  Main takeaways: * You can’t wait until management comes to you with a problem. You need to proactively market L&D as a provider of business solutions. * Make alliances within the company and find champions who understand the value of L&D. * Cultivate champions by educating yourself about the most pressing challenges facing the business and then create L&D solutions to help meet those challenges.