L&D Spotlight

The role and purpose of L&D in the organization

In this episode, we talk about L&D's role and place in the organization, both in terms of org structure and purpose. We dive into L&D's internal customers, how to improve L&D's understanding of the business, the access to the company's strategy and how L&D can contribute, the multidisciplinary aspect of L&D work, whether the function should be rebranded, how to work together with the other People functions, and personal development for L&D professionals. Guest: Deeksha Hegde, Talent Develop...

Designing a Learning Ecosystem for Measurable Outputs

In this episode, we take an in-depth look at what it means to build a data-driven learning ecosystem. We talk about learning design practices that enable the right tech stack to produce measurable results - both for the learner and the business. Guest: Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist at Amazon, responsible for the effective and efficient data, measurement, and evaluation strategy for the team to create more impact and less content. Before Amazon, for 20+ years, Zsolt held various l...

First 100 Days as L&D Manager

In this episode, we go through the first 100 days as a newly appointed L&D Manager. We look at the process of getting to know the company, the business model, and the industry it operates in. We also talk about laying the foundation of a sustainable learning strategy and achieving quick wins in the early days on the job. Guest: Karolina Roziewicz, a Learning Strategist helping individuals and organizations create and maintain a strong learning mindset. She focuses on aligning behavioral nud...

Imposter Syndrome in L&D

In this episode, we look at imposter syndrome, a feeling that very many L&D professionals get from time to time, while working under the pressure of wearing many hats and expectations. Guest: Ant Pugh, a performance consultant and learning designer who spends his days desperately trying to convince clients to avoid converting PowerPoint slides into eLearning. At night, he masquerades as a writer, bombarding unsuspecting learning designers with bite-sized, daily emails about creating high-va...

Impostor Syndrome in L&D

L&D and the Value Chain

In this episode, we look at how L&D can add value in a meaningful way to the organization and how it connects to the value chain. Guest: Bülent Duagi, Senior Strategic Advisor and Organizational Designer for Platform Scale-ups in Europe. When working with L&D teams, he helps them to increase their strategic impact, to connect learning results with business results and contributes to developing organizational capabilities. A breakdown of the episode’s topics has been graciously created by B...

Changing the Face of L&D

In this episode, we take an honest look at L&D: what does it mean today to be in L&D, what is the purpose of L&D, and how can L&D change its impact and perceived value in an organization to become a strategic contributor and get a seat at the table. Guest: Clark Quinn, Ph.D., an internationally known consultant, speaker, and author of seven books. He thinks ‘out loud’ at learnlets.com, tweets as @quinnovator, and works on behalf of clients through Quinnovation. Highlights: * Learning exper...

Leadership and (Self) Discipline

In this episode, we dive into what it means to create and maintain a discipline that helps both leaders and teams stay on track to achieve their goals. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Discipline in the context of leadership doesn't refer to authority. Quite the opposite, a person or team displaying discipline can self-assess while doing the work and bring t...

Leadership and Tough Conversations

In this episode, we look at how leaders can have difficult conversations with their team with positive, productive results in the long term. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * How leaders behave during tough conversations has a more substantial impact than CEO speeches or publicly announced company values. * Knowing how to have a difficult conversation is a sk...

The Skill Balancing Act

In this episode, we look at soft skills development and how they fit in the broader context of a company's talent strategy. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Most work contexts are well served by teams with a balanced skillset due to the company's mission, which is often ambiguously defined: grow the business, create new products. * The likeliness to have at ...

Why are soft skills important?

In this episode, we look at soft skills development and how they fit in the broader context of a company's talent strategy and learning culture. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Soft skills address practical aspects of working in a team: asking questions, suggesting ideas, having a conversation with someone who doesn't share your opinions, or presenting your...

Why are Soft Skills Important?

In this episode, we look at soft skills development and how they fit in the broader context of a company's talent strategy and learning culture. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Soft skills address practical aspects of working in a team: asking questions, suggesting ideas, having a conversation with someone who doesn't share your opinions, or presenting your...

Leadership Learning Programs

In this episode, we explore the best strategy for L&D to create and deploy leadership learning programs with a realistic reach and influence and what type of work the company's leaders have to do to adopt healthy leadership behaviors throughout the entire organization successfully. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Leadership is more nurture than nature; virt...

Leadership, Failure, Innovation & Psychological Safety

In this episode, we look at the relationship between leadership, failure, psychological safety, and the effect these have on a company's stability, growth, and ability to innovate. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Failure is neither always bad nor always good. When understood and internalized adequately, failure is an excellent tool for progress. * Failure i...

What is Leadership?

In this episode, we tackle a notion that has become a buzzword in recent years but is still sometimes misunderstood: Leadership. We're looking at defining leadership, how it ties into company culture and what mistakes we commonly see leaders and organizations make. Guest: Andrei Postolache, Founder at Xeriously, leadership and soft skills consultant focused on the IT industry, author of "Fun & Fearless Leadership". Highlights: * Leadership is a fundamental human behavior whose purpose is t...

Cohort-Based Learning: Yes or No?

In this episode, we talk about cohort-based learning: what it is, what situations it's most suitable for, and some of this method's shortcomings. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Cohorts are a method of offering knowledge to the same group of people synchronously, over a pre-defined amount of time, until the delivery goal has been reached. It's very similar to how formal education is currently offered to childr...

Using Nudges in L&D to Support Behaviour Change

In this episode, we take a look at nudges in the context of L&D and see how an organization can put in place such a tool to enable positive behavior change. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" shows us that humans are irrational creatures who rely on two systems to make decisions. If adopting a new behavior requires too much cognitive power from the brain, it will d...

Managing Up in L&D

In this episode, we look at how L&D can showcase its value in the business and speak to decision-making stakeholders. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * The L&D team typically sits between two business environment extremes. One side is when L&D is entirely disconnected from the business's objectives and metrics. The other one is when L&D is a true business partner and actively contributes to improving these metri...

L&D is Not Always the Solution

In this episode, we look at situations when L&D is not the right solution for performance or accuracy problems identified by the business. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Cathy Moore's flowchart is a good starting point to help guide L&D professionals in understanding whether knowledge or skill acquisition can solve a specific business problem - as seen in Offbeat Issue #64 * The business will likely come to L...

L&D is not always the solution

In this episode, we look at situations when L&D is not the right solution for performance or accuracy problems identified by the business. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Cathy Moore's flowchart is a good starting point to help guide L&D professionals in understanding whether knowledge or skill acquisition can solve a specific business problem - as seen in Offbeat Issue #64 * The business will likely come to L...

Psychological Safety in L&D

In this episode, we explore the concept of Psychological Safety and understand its impact on team learning and organizational performance. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Psychological Safety is the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or while making mistakes. * Amy Edmonson's research paper sits at the basis of the concept of Psychological Safety as...

Business Acumen in L&D

In this episode, we take a look at Business Acumen: what does it mean in L&D, why it's essential to have this skillset, how it helps L&D professionals and organizations. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * Business Acumen is a combination of skills and knowledge that, summed up, explains how well an L&D professional understands the business they operate in. Having Business Acumen means understanding how that busin...

Future Skills for L&D

In this episode, we take a quick dive into Future Skills: what they are, why they are relevant, who they are for and how to acquire future skills at your job. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * The accelerated adoption of technology and automation is affecting the way we work; Future Skills enable employees and companies to cope with these changes sustainably. * With the pandemic as a catalyst for change towards ...

Future Skills

In this episode, we take a quick dive into Future Skills: what they are, why they are relevant, who they are for and how to acquire future skills at your job. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * The accelerated adoption of technology and automation is affecting the way we work; Future Skills enable employees and companies to cope with these changes sustainably. * With the pandemic as a catalyst for change towards ...

How to Create a Learning Experience as an SME

In this episode, we go explain how SMEs can create practical learning experiences that support an effective internal knowledge transfer and retention. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: - The initial research done by SMEs points out precisely what knowledge gaps there are and where colleagues need the most support in an unbiased manner. - SMEs should avoid one-time events and instead create a learning experience th...

Personal Growth for L&D Professionals

In this episode, we discuss the significance of continuous professional growth for L&D Professionals and finding educational resources. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * L&D and HR roles in general need to be self-aware and keep learning and growing - both as an example of good practice and to help the organization most effectively at the necessary time. * The primary value add of L&D is understanding how adults...

Building a Business Case for L&D

In this episode, we go through the basics of building a business case for any new Learning & Development initiatives in your organization. Guest: Lavinia Mehedintu, People Experience Manager at eMAG, and co-founder and curator of Offbeat. Highlights: * In its HR blog, Spotify talks about being skilled at upskilling and the difference between a reactive and a proactive L&D - as seen in Issue 57 of Offbeat. * Amazon has a strict one-page rule for writing business cases, which constrains L&D ...