My latest guest on the Learn to Grow Podcast is Erika Ullmann, Learning and Development Director at Virgin Media Ireland. Erika is one of the most conscientious L&D leaders I have met, and she is doing incredible work not just providing learning opportunities, but opening peoples eyes to their identities as learners. In our conversation, we discuss: How to align learning with a strategic visionThe importance of a holistic approach to learning that considers the human at the coreWhy great learners are happy learnersWhy self awareness is the basis of effective learning The role of deliberate practice in learning and growth The importance of organic (inspirational!) conversations between learners with shared passionsThe evolution of L&D and the need for empathetic leadershipYou can find Erika on LinkedIn!To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations.To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning Experience. Thanks for listening!

Christopher is the dynamic and engaging host of Learning Tech Talks and founder of Learning Sharks, both projects that feature as part of his mission to shape the future of workforce development. He is the Chief Learning Officer at ChenMed and a vastly experienced learning professional with a passion for exploring not just how we do things, but why we do them. Let me quickly explain the premise of todays conversation – at the beginning of the year, top trends reports and 2022 predictions tend to pour out of the woodwork. They are often hugely helpful, and sometimes they can lead to overreactions, exaggerations, and old fashioned mistakes. So we are putting our own spin on a trends episode – we are calling it the airing of grievances, which I will explain in more detail at the beginning of the conversation with Christopher. In the show, we discuss: Trends that are so obvious they’ve been there since 2001The desire of companies to retreat back to in-office Why the most important reasons are at the bottom of priority listsThe misconception that we can only connect in personThe great resignation as a collective airing of grievancesThe need and opportunity for internal job marketplacesTo get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations.To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning Experience. Thanks for listening!

I am delighted to kick off Season 3 of the Learn to Grow Podcast with Todd Moran, Chief Learning Strategist at NovoEd. Todd is one of the industry’s great thinkers, a learning professional deeply attuned to what’s happening right now in the world of workplace learning and development. The conversation is filled with insights and practical tools, and includes an invitation to learn with NovoEd. In our conversation, we discuss:The role of platforms as work hubsHow learning and culture are intertwined in a healthy workplaceWhat a truly collaborative experience looks likeThe importance of growth mindset, resilience, and adaptabilityThe needs behind the great resignationPutting purpose at the center of everythingThe upcoming (free) Learning Experience Design course starting in January 17 at NovoEd (https://www.novoed.com/resources/learning-experience-design-course/)To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations.To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning Experience. Thanks for listening!

This week’s episode comes in the form of a reading recommendation! In our most recent episode we discussed the fact that learning can’t simply take place at the beginning of our “careers” it has to happen throughout. That is exactly the point Michelle Weise makes in her excellent book “Long Life Learning”. Weise highlights the fact that our careers now span 60 years or more and that our systems of education were never designed for continuous learning. Her book looks at the status quo and suggests a new model for a learning ecosystem that supports continuous, lifelong learning. Thanks for listening!

My guest this week is content guru Kirk Werner who is the VP of content at Udacity. Kirk played a major role as Lynda.com revolutionized online learning and continues to push the envelope at Udacity helping learners build future-focused skills. If you are at all interested in where the future of learning is going, this is the podcast for you. Kirk is so knowledgeable when it comes to learning trends, and has some fantastic insights on how and why we learn. We discuss the evolution of content and its increasing importance as part of a successful learning experienceThe future workplace and its emphasis on lifelong learningThe importance of learning something new every day and becoming adaptable in the face of changeI could have talked to Kirk all day long – he knows his stuff, knows the industry inside out, and has a prescient ability to identify what’s coming next. I hope you enjoy the conversation!

Today I am following up on the conversation with Ruth Gotian, Chief Learning Officer at Weill Cornell Medicine and author of The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business Performance – I will add a link to the pre-order Ruth’s book in the show notes. (pre-order here 😊) My favorite aspect of this conversation was the focus on the practical aspects of learning. As I have discussed with numerous guests, AI and machine learning will revolutionize the future of work by automating repeatable tasks. At a very basic level, the demand for physical, manual, and basic cognitive tasks will fall, while the demand for higher cognitive technological skills will rise along with the need for social and emotional skills. In the face of accelerating change, we will need to upskill and reskill continually to keep pace with the demands of the workplace. In short, we will have to be come better learners. But, there’s a problem. Tell someone they need to become a better learner, and they might not even know what that means or where to start. The thought of learning how to be a better learner feels like a concept that folds into itself a bit – it’s intimidating!I have become fascinated with frameworks for becoming a better learner, and I loved chatting with Ruth about the conscious competence model. And I loved the simple, practical tips Ruth gives for becoming a more efficient learner, taking small steps starting with becoming aware of the things you want to learn and grow in. We need to become more adept at recognizing the skills and process we want to learn and systematically applying an approach of continual improvement to take incremental steps to accomplish our goals, and I think Ruth gives some great suggestions for how to do that. Self awareness is crucial to learner progress and is crucial to everything we do.That’s why the framework of becoming better at identifying the things you need to learn, then deliberately taking steps to close the gaps, taking time to be reflect and take action in a repetitive cycle. If you are interested in the science of learning, I also want to plug what has for me been an invaluable resource. Andrew Huberman, Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine has a wonderful podcast called the Huberman Lab Podcast. His goal is to bring simple, actionable insights from scientific research to the general public, and he devotes several episodes to subjects like how to increase focus, how to learn faster, and how to optimize your brain. The episodes are filled with simple, actionable, practical insights that will change the way you think about your brain and how you go about your day. Next week, Kirk Werner, VP of Content at Udacity!

My latest guest on the Learn to Grow Podcast is Dr. Ruth Gotian who is the Chief Learning Officer at Weill Cornell Medicine and Assistant professor of education anesthesiology, former assistant dean of mentoring and executive director of the mentoring academy at Weill Cornell. Ruth is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Psychology today. Ruth interviews Nobel laureates, professional athletes, and other elite high achievers, and tries to understand what they do differently that allows them to achieve at such a high level. She has taken the wisdom from that conversation and distilled it into book titled: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business Performance.Ruth shares some of that wisdom in this conversation and we dive into some practical suggestions for how to be a more efficient and effective learner here, things you can take away and apply right now as you learn and grow personally and professionally! We discuss how elite high achievers define success, practical frameworks for learning absolutely anything, and why L&D functions are becoming increasingly like mentors among many other things. In this episode we discuss: How elite high achievers define successA practical framework for how to learn anythingHow to take an incremental approach to big tasks The importance of discovering your passions as a way to growIntrinsic motivation as the driver of productivityHow to leverage your schedule to make the most of your learning styleWhy adult learning is imperative for career successWhy good L&D programs are increasingly like mentorsThe importance of mentors and how to find themHow to practice your power skillsOn the episode, Ruth discusses a resource for those looking for tips on how to build a mentoring team – you can find that here!And here’s where you can pre-order Ruth’s upcoming book: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business PerformanceTo learn more about Dr. Ruth Gotian, you can check out all the latest on Ruth's website here!On the episode, Ruth discusses a resource for those looking for tips on how to build a mentoring team – you can find that here!And here’s where you can pre-order Ruth’s upcoming book: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business PerformanceTo get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations.To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning...

Reflecting on my conversation with Joe, there are so many things I love about his approach to labs. The first is that his story about how a training session inadvertently turned into a lab demonstrates some really cool aspects of learning – from both the mentor/educator perspective and from the student perspective.Joe explained a situation where software for training stopped working, just broke. As a mentor/teacher/ Joe opened it up to the students. Ego was taken out, and they turned instead to working on a solution. And the students we fired up about really using their skills, not just to provide a solution, but an elegant, efficient one. There was a natural curiosity there that couldn’t have happened otherwise. And that to me is the beauty of practical, hands-on training. We get to choose our own adventure rather than clicking through the one prescribed to us. And I have had conversations with clients and potential clients this week – it seems labs are such an essential element of training and learning, especially for software. You always need some sort of direct instruction/coaching, but then, go play. Go experiment. Go create. I would love to see cloud native virtual labs become more standard in learning, and Joe and his team are doing their part to bring that to some of our clients – and doing it very well I might add!Next week I will have Ruth Gotian, CLO of the Weill Cornell School of medicine on the show – looking forward to that! 

My guest this week is our very own Joe Mansfield, who heads up our Virtual Labs team as the lead technical content developer here at SureSkills. Joe and his team are building virtual lab training for some of the world’s leading organizations, and I thought it would be cool to have him on to discuss what has become a highly sought-after service. Joe and his team, and virtualized labs generally, have revolutionized lab training in some ways.  Hands-on lab training was historically challenging for a number of reasons. They required extensive, costly set-up, endless machine maintenance, a rigid, in-person schedule, a lack of instructor oversight. All of this meant they were impossible to scale and frustratingly impractical and really expensive.Joe and his team, however, have created an antidote to basically all of the historical challenges of lab-based training. They build cloud-native virtual labs that are available anytime, anywhere, and are infinitely scalable, all while providing an enhanced learning experience. And of course, they cater to the increasingly remote nature of workplaces and workplace training.They have built some high profile labs for high-profile companies, these virtual labs are becoming hugely popular. I thought it would be cool to have Joe on to chat about some of the ways he and his team think about the service they provide. In our chat, we talk about the basics, and Joe gives us an overview of why these virtual labs are in such high demand. We discuss:the basics of virtual labs how virtual labs provide immersive learning experiencesthe ability to replicate real environments to enhance retention of informationhow tracking facilitates real learning all the ways virtual labs can be used as a scalable toolthe challenges of satisfying learners through technical trainingallowing people to shine and show their skills through challenge labsIf you'd like to learn more about virtual labs you can head over to our website, and if you'd like to talk with one of our learning experts we offer free initial consultations to explore if virtual labs may be right for you. To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] for listening!

I have talked a lot about culture of late, so here are some reading recommendations if you'd like to dive deeper!The Culture Code, by Daniel CoyleMindset, by Carol DweckStart with Why, by Simon Sinek