Train Like You Listen Podcast

The Train Like You Listen Podcast is focused on small nuggets that trainers, instructional designers, part-time trainers, and jack’s of all trades can use to improve their presentations and training sessions.

Leaders Assemble! Leadership in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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What kinds of serious organizational leadership concepts can be learned by watching movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)? Authors Sy Islam and Gordon Schmidt argue that there are a lot of leadership lessons to be learned. There are so many lessons, in fact, that they teamed up to write a book about the subject entitled Leaders Assemble! Leadership in the MCU.

Recently I has a chance to talk with Sy and Gordon about their book, about which characters from the MCU were the best leaders (spoiler alert: neither Iron Man nor Captain America made the cut… although there was an interesting spin off to this conversation that revolved around Thanos!) and what specific steps you can take to bring leadership through the eyes of the MCU into your organizations. Plus, there’s an ultra-nerdy trivia battle at the end of our podcast which mixes leadership as well as Marvel trivia.

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Mentoring: What is it and how is it different from coaching?

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I recently had the pleasure of talking with Wendy Axelrod, who is an executive coach, mentor coach and author of a handful of books around mentoring. She shared her thoughts on what mentoring is, how it’s different from coaching, whether it’s appropriate for someone to mentor someone who is older or more experienced than them and what an organization may want to consider if they’re thinking of starting a mentoring program.

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Benefits of Getting Involved With Your Local ATD Chapter

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About 10 years or so ago, I decided to join my local ATD chapter so that I could connect with other training professionals in the Seattle area. Bit by bit, I grew more involved. I’d attend a monthly member meeting/workshop before work. I’d attend their conference. Eventually I had an opportunity to present at the local ATD conference, and later I began to volunteer. Through my local ATD connections, I’ve found new friends and I’ve also cultivated relationships that have led to training projects.

Recently, I had the chance to speak with Sarah Schillen (president of ATD Puget Sound in Seattle) and Gwen Navarrete Klapperich (president of ATD Hawaii) to hear their thoughts on the value of getting more involved in local ATD chapters. Give it a listen for their thoughts on the benefits of getting involved in a local ATD chapter… stay to the end to hear them go head-to-head in a tightly contested match of training trivia!

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Microlearning Basics

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A few days ago I had an opportunity to speak with Robyn Defelice and Karl Kapp, authors of the book Microlearning Short and Sweet. They shared their insights on what microlearning is, what it isn’t, whether a specific time limit is appropriate in order to qualify as “microlearning”, whether microlearning saves time when it comes to training development and they named at least six distinct uses for microlearning. They wrapped the conversation up by squaring off against one another in a training trivia challenge.

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L&D Beach Reads: 2022 Edition

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We’re smack in the midst of summer (here in the US, anyway) – a time when many folks take off from work and find relaxing spots. For some it’s the beach, for others it’s the mountains, still others it’s a screened in porch, listening to the rain. Wherever this summer may take you, if you’re looking for a few books to pack away, you actually won’t find them in this week’s podcast.

That’s because I may offer some thoughts on five new L&D books, only one of them is actually in print at the time of today’s podcast (the others will be released each month, beginning in September, that’s how new this list of book recommendations is!).

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What is “training” for?

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Recently I had a chance to sit down with a couple of the most creative people in the world of learning and development: Kassy LaBorie and Betty Dannewitz, to talk about training and to answer the question: If learning is supposed to be a process, not an event, then what is “training” (the event) even good for?

Listen to this week’s podcast for some answers from two very smart people who come from very different backgrounds… stay for the first ever edition of Train Like You Listen Trivia to find out who was crowned the first ever champion!

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Instructional Design for Non-training Professionals

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Guy Wallace has been working in the field of training and instructional design since the 1970s. He’s seen a lot of fads come and go, and he’s also seen some models and research that has withstood the test of time.

We recently had an opportunity to talk about his experiences, especially as they relate to people who just want to help their employees grow and learn but who have jobs that don’t let them spend vast amounts of time on social media debating the merits of ADDIE vs. SAM nor do they have the time to read a bunch of scholarly articles about how learning happens.

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Is it possible to learn from other people via social media?

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If you’ve ever jumped into the comments of a social media post, you have have found some not-so-nice comments. I’ve gotten the feeling that social media is often where people go to shout their thoughts and beliefs, but they rarely go there to understand others’ perspectives.

Lauren Hug, author of four books and someone who has spent the past few years really examining how people engage in the digital space, is a bit more optimistic. In today’s podcast, she shares her thoughts on how we can still learn from many other people via social media.

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Have FOMO after seeing everyone’s posts about ATD ICE last week?

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I gotta admit, I missed being at ATD ICE in Orlando last week. The L&D community truly is the community in which I feel most at home, and the energy I feel when I’m at an industry conference is unparalleled.

That said, there are other ways to take our skill set and raise the bar on our craft to the next level. In this week’s podcast, I spend a little time talking about why we should constantly be looking to raise our own bar, and several specific ways we can improve even if we can’t get to a big industry event.

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What’s on the horizon for L&D according to Andrew Scivally

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Over the past two years, ELB Learning (formerly eLearning Brothers) has acquired 6 companies and, as you can see, has changed its name from eLearning Brothers to ELB Learning.

Last week I had a chance to sit down with the co-founder and CEO, Andrew Scivally, about the path that led him to start eLearning Brothers (alongside his brother), the evolution of the field of learning and development that led to the company’s name change, and his thoughts on the challenges that L&D professionals will need to be prepared to face over the next few years.

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