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 is an NHS trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, and founder of Virti. Passionate about improving human performance, he built and sold his first company whilst at university, before boot-strapping and scaling another while still training in the NHS. Virti develops immersive training tools to improve human performance in organisations around the globe. They have won a wealth of awards including being named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2021. Check out Alex's website here (with links to his social media presence and YouTube channel) and here on LinkedIn.

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 engaging training tools that combine the different techniques of cinema, explaining complex technical concepts. For 35 years Teledec has been at the leading edge of innovative training development with an impressive client list of Fortune 500 companies including: Abbot, BP, McDonald’s, Philips, Northrup, Ameritech, Kraft, Cisco, Discover and many more. Their speciality is taking existing training material (PDF, Excel, AutoCad, Visio, MSWord engineering specs, job aids, etc) and publishing a seamless engaging presentation for an online audience. These presentations can be instructor led, self-paced, or blended. They excel in developing: Learning Solutions Compliance Training Technology Training Organization Development Training Sales Training Customized Training Solutions Teledec has an impressive in-house capability including subject matter expertise, video production, graphics and animation, programming, authoring, instructional design, technical writing and LMS administration.

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 skills. She is a Fellow and Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Caroline designs and delivers bespoke online and face to face training courses, workshops and webinars. She is also a corporate event facilitator (online and face to face) and conference chair. Her clients in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors include the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Cabinet Office, The Royal Navy, ACCA and Lloyds Banking Group. Caroline is a published author of The PR Professionals handbook (Kogan Page 2014) and The PR Practitioner’s Desk Top Guide (Thorogood second edition 2009). In her spare time, she runs baby namings, weddings and funerals on behalf of Humanists UK. Visit her website here or follow her on Twitter (@caroblack) or visit her profile on LinkedIn.

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 and delivering senior leadership training and executive coaching for teams and individuals. Clients include the UK Civil Service, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), EU institutions, the British Council, the World Bank, OECD, the Commonwealth Institute and Deutsche Bank. For over a decade Mary has been selected as an Executive Coach for the most senior grades in the UK Civil Service and has specialist expertise in promotion, resilience, branding, personal impact and public speaking. Mary is an independent consultant and the Senior Director of the successful Pilot HR Consultancy (established 2006) which delivers training, coaching and facilitation services to organisations in the UK and internationally. To contact Mary, email: [email protected]

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 certification in the Development and Training of Adults from the UK. She also has a Masters in Human Resources, Coaching and Career Management from HEC University of Geneva. Where she wrote her Master Thesis “How does proficiency in English affect French-native professionals at work?” A qualitative research conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. She is the founder of Walk The Talk, which provides tailor-made professional coaching consultancy and training. Her business background includes working with International companies in banking, finance, media, pharmaceuticals, and FMCG industries. Sunita’s coaching style advances the skills and approaches needed to develop performance. Her forte is the fact that she has studied and worked in several different countries and thus her understanding and knowledge of language communication and culture is compact and solid. During her twenty-five years of international experience, Sunita’s objective has always been to support people to uncover and utilise their potential and to help individuals and organizations to perform at their very best. Sunita is an accomplished speaker and business writer furthermore she has had several articles published articles in the press. She has written two books: The Power of Belonging How to Get Out of Your Own Way

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://venngage.com/blog/good-infographic Other articles by Lydia on Venngage: https://venngage.com/blog/author/lydia-hooper Lydia Hooper is the information design expert at Venngage, the simple and powerful design solution for making infographics for business. She has designed and facilitated workshops for dozens of organizations including the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Association for Talent Development and the American Institute of Graphic Arts-Colorado. Her writing has been published by numerous publications including Training Journal and SAGE Publishing’s MethodSpace, and she is the co-author and editor of the forthcoming Authoritative Guide to Designing Infographics. You can follow Lydia on LinkedIn.

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 seminars have helped hundreds of leaders achieve outstanding results through their people and teams. He has an MSc in Human Resource Development and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). Working internationally, he has helped multiple high-performance organisations, including HSBC, Citigroup, Scottish & Southern Energy and Sage PLC. To get in touch or find out more, please drop an email to [email protected] or connect on LinkedIn.

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 Companies. She is one of today’s foremost experts in combining the science of assessments with the art of developing people. As CEO and President of CDR Companies, LLC, she and her team shed new light on personality strengths, inherent risks and motivation and change performance, careers and lives. Esteemed author of two research based books including the Amazon best-seller, Women Are Creating the Glass Ceiling and Have the Power to End It, Nancy is the 2019 MEECO International Thought Leader of Distinction in Executive Coaching and continues to break barriers in her field.  In 1998, Nancy and Kimberly R. Leveridge, Ph.D, authored the break-through CDR 3-Dimensional Assessment Suite®, an ideal coaching tool for global clients. The CDR 3-D Suite measures character traits, inherent risk factors for derailment, and drivers and reward needs. Combining this scientifically-validated assessment suite with cutting-edge technology, Nancy and her team launched CDR-U Coach in July of 2020. This product is the first of its kind that provides a scalable, personalized, online coaching feedback solution based on the results of the most in-depth assessments available on the market today. Because of the rich data source, predictive results, and complex algorithms, CDR-U Coach provides an A/I type experience for users with no two users having the same feedback. Nancy works with global leaders to accelerate success by helping them identify and develop their true talent at the launching point of a coaching engagement. She provides executive coaching services for the C-Suite and leaders across all sectors, facilitates strategic executive team development sessions, and instructs custom “Authentic Leadership” and “Women in Leadership” workshops. Additionally, she instructs and leads CDR Executive Coaches’ Certification Workshops and teaches advanced coaches’ programs. She has authored countless articles and blog posts on topics ranging from diversity and inclusion in the workplace to employee retention and has presented at international, national, and regional industry conferences. In 2016, Nancy developed the architecture of “Vets Coaching Vets,” which is a philanthropic initiative helping to accelerate veterans’ success in the job market. CDR Companies has worked with more than 5 veterans’ organizations and has provided assessments, individual coaching, and training workshops for over 50 veterans. CDR Companies, LLC is certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s largest third-party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women.   Social media links Instagram: @cdrugroupFacebookLinkedIn

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 qualifications, she is now Director and Founder of Curious Lighthouse Learning Consultancy, where she specialises in enabling Curious, Creative, and Credible training solutions for Managers, Trainers, and Entrepreneurs to enhance their performance, whether they are at the very start of their journey or experienced professionals. She often uses LEGO in her learning solutions and has created several online courses to help others do the same.   ​​​​​​​​​​Curious Lighthouse is based in Hampshire and mainly serves the south coast and worldwide virtually. Link to the main page for Nikie's Lego courses, including a freebie: ‘Introducing your Learners To LEGO’ 14-page free guide Link to the open-source Lego Serious Play guide (PDF download)

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 link below). In this podcast he talks to John about the methods they use at MIT for leadership development and other practical workplace skills, and, as a special bonus, we add the terms "firm skills" and "Schrödinger's opinion" to our vocabulary!   Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in Physics, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and a M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, focusing on cryptography. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools. He also works with many non-profits, including Techie Youth and Plant A Million Corals.