We humans are social creatures. We form organic communities wherever we go, based on shared interests, passions and needs.

But when we try to impose top-down learning communities on an employee population, things get more difficult. Is it possible for L&D to create a flourishing community?

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner and Nahdia Khan are joined by Andy Lancaster, author of Organizational Learning Communities, who offers a framework that can help.

We discuss:

· Types of workplace learning community

· The key characteristics of successful communities

· A framework that you can use to establish an effective community

Andy’s book is available now from Kogan Page.

During the discussion, Ross mentioned our podcast with JD Dillon and his book The Modern Learning Ecosystem.

Ross also referenced our podcast on Working Out Loud Circles, from way back in 2017.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Nahdia recommended the ‘Women in Learning’ community.

Ross discussed the weird way language affects our sense of space and time.

For more from Andy, visit reminaginepeopledevelopment.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Finally, it wouldn’t be appropriate to plug Ross G’s critically acclaimed debut novel Centauri’s Shadow on a regular basis but, since Andy brought it up, it’s available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. It has 4.8 stars out of 5, by the way.

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Ross Garner

· Nahdia Khan

· Andy Lancaster

In learning and development, we typically want people to do something that they are currently not doing, or to stop doing something that they shouldn't be. One obvious approach is training, but there are in fact a broad spectrum of interventions that we can deploy.

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross and Owen are joined by Wil Procter, Strategy and Innovation Director at Nazaré, and by Jessica Holt, Senior Behavioural Science Consultant at Inizio Engage XD.

We explore:

· What behavioral science is,

· What interventions can help change people’s behavior,

· How the COM-B model can help structure discovery conversations.

To find out more about the COM-B model, see behaviourchangewheel.com

The book that Owen referenced was Coaching for Improved Work Performance by Ferdinand F. Fournies.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Jess discussed a new meta-analysis of behavior change interventions: Albarracín, D., Fayaz-Farkhad, B., & Granados Samayoa, J. A. (2024). Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-16.

Ross asked and answered a dumb question about birds. New Scientist explains why there are not dead birds everywhere.

For more from Wil, see: nazarelearning.com

For more from Jess, see: xd.inizioengage.com

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Ross Garner

· Owen Ferguson

· Wil Procter

· Jessica Holt

As professionals, we want to know if our work has had the impact we originally intended and to tell others about it. This means getting comfortable with data and crafting compelling data stories.

On this episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross G is joined by Neil Cunningham, founder of Align | Learn | Do and author of Narratives and Numbers, to discuss practical and mindset shifts L&D can take.

We explore:

• why people think it’s too difficult to measure the ROI of learning
• how to get stakeholder buy-in to measuring and evaluating learning
• how to craft credible L&D data stories.

You can get a copy of Neil’s book, Narratives and Numbers, from the Align | Learn | Do website. Use the offer code mt10 at checkout for a 10% discount.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross discovers the many reasons why lorry drivers might accidentally crash into a bridge via this curiously fascinating X thread.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work. 

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

• Ross Garner
• Neil Cunningham