The best L&D resources of August 2022

This monthly version of Offbeat is a curation of the curation (a bit of inception) we send each Sunday to our subscribers. Our official newsletter has tons of additional goodies you will want to check, so feel free to subscribe right?here.

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Autumn is here! And to be honest, I'm enjoying it more than ever as temperatures have started to cool down over the past few days in Bucharest. I hope it stays that way. The same can't be said about the challenges ahead. We've started talking about and doing more and more downsizing and budget cuts in L&D. In the midst of it all two messages resonated with me that I want to share forward:

• First, is that organizations shouldn't forget that at some point this will be all over, and they will be looking once again for talent and offering development opportunities. So for those of us who keep our jobs, it might be a good time to strategize about those better times and keep on doing our amazing job, because our efforts will be impactful long-term;
• Second, budget cuts shouldn't stop you from delivering on your promise. It's an amazing opportunity to harness internal knowledge, create stronger connections among your colleagues, and a sense of belonging. There's little budget that you need for that, so it's just about keeping our creativity at high levels and start learning about communities of practice, peer coaching, and all other forms of social sharing.

On another note, here's what we've been up to at Offbeat:

• We've better defined what we're here for, which is supporting L&D professionals in acquiring knowledge, skills, behaviors, habits around self-directed learning, technical L&D skills, and power skills;

• For the first part, which is self-directed learning, we're working with 4 of our Offbeat Fellows to create a program in which we can support each other in acquiring more of the traits of self-directed learners. The first step was to clarify which those traits are, and below you can find our conclusion (and by our I mean myself, Ana Cristina Silva , Inês Cunha , Anahi Lavado Camacho , and our new team member Orsolya Imre );

• Another project we're working on is creating nudges that support reflection as a habit. We've learned a lot about the complexity of creating nudges, and we're just getting started with actually building our "product" and we'll be sharing it together with our learnings once we're done;
• We have to thank Sana , Nifty Learning , HowNow , and Blinkist for sponsoring our newsletter;
• And also Jen Collins , John Hinchliffe , and Bogdan Manta for contributing to our Five to go section.

What's coming next is so, so exciting! We're launching our first Audio Learning Journey about building an L&D career aaaaand we're launching our very own podcast! ?

Enough about us! Let's see the best L&D resources of August 2022.

The Great Managers Playbook from LifeLabs Learning

LifeLabs Learning recently launched this really, really cool paybook, where they share the most essential lessons they've learned about the systems, tools, and skills your company can use to unlock the power of your managers fast. It has three parts, and the first one, Manager Role Design & Selection, is already open for download.

The Taxfix Leadership Development Program by Aki Friedrich

So, so happy when I see that amazing people I know open source their work! Aki, People Development & Learning Team Lead at Taxfix worked hard to set up their leadership development program and this article explains how the recently launched TXL provides a learning framework based on their cultural values to strengthen leadership skills throughout the company.

Your role as a manager has evolved: Here are 4 ways to hone your interpersonal skills from Humu, a Perceptyx Company

Managers have traditionally been trained and evaluated on their ability to oversee teams and ensure work is completed properly and on time. But against the backdrop of significant loss and hardship for many, the people-focused elements of the job have become more important than ever. So how can managers—who are experiencing emotional turmoil themselves and quitting at 2x the rate of individual contributors—carve out time to meet the interpersonal needs of their teams?

Stop Offering Career Ladders. Start Offering Career Portfolios. by April Rinne

I’m such a huge fan of the idea of career portfolios that I was beaming with happiness when I saw another article from April Rine on the topic. This new article explains what career portfolios are, how they can be beneficial to an organization, and how can you start implementing them.

Today, “climbing a ladder” is the career equivalent of “but this is how we’ve always done it.” In other words, it’s in dire need of a refresh. What got us here won’t get us there. We need models and narratives that are open to change, not impervious to it, and fit for a world in flux.

People who make you grow ?? by ?? Luca Rossi

What's the difference between coaches, mentors, and sponsors, and how you can nurture such relationships in your company and your life. A nice, short article that you can share with your colleagues covering the difference between the three concepts above, how to figure out what is the right approach for your situation, and how to develop such relationships inside and outside your company.

Skills: The new workforce operating system by Susan Cantrell

A few weeks ago I shared the first part of this series, and I’m glad Deloitte is writing more about the skill-based organization, because it’s still something I haven’t figured out yet. Given how we’ve all been working under jobs so far, this future envisioned by Deloitte and skills become a foundation for every organization that wants to move faster will be a big, long-term change we want to keep an eye on.

Onboarding: High Five Me Tool from Mischief Makers B.V.

The High-Five-Me Tool is for whenever someone new joins your team, or you want to connect on a deeper level. In this exercise members of a team or group describe themselves based on 5 areas (what they value, annoys them, makes them feel small, bad habits, and strengths) to get acquainted with the rest of the team’s habits and preferences.

How Much Should New Hires Focus on Building Peer Relationships?

In a recent research, the authors of this article found that focusing on helping new hires build connections with each other can help them adjust to their new workplace faster, contribute to work sooner, and stay at the company longer — but when taken too far, it can also impede their ability to grow and advance.

Pop the bubbles, create a learning ecosystem by Zsolt Berend

The learning culture is probably one of the most complex topics I’ve ever had to study. I’ve given up trying to find one resource that explains it all, but instead I’m trying to put together knowledge from different sources to make sense of it all. This article 5 anti-patterns and 5 patterns of learning organizations.

Your Ultimate Online Group Coaching Toolkit (+ Exercises) by Dr. Nicole Celestine

I went through group coaching with multiple teams. With some teams, it was amazing, with some, well, not quite. But even knowing that it might not work 100% of the time, I would still use group coaching as an exercise in improving team performance. If you’re thinking the same, here’s an article full of resources for group coaching.

70-20-10 Poker by Learngility by JooBee Yeow, PhD

An awesome, awesome Miro Board from JooBee you can use either for yourself, in career development programs, or for individual development plans. The 70-20-10 Poker aims to help you explore and incorporate different types of learning methods into your development strategy and plan.

A New Strategy For Corporate Learning: Growth In The Flow Of Work by Josh Bersin

I couldn’t have ended this roundup without mentioning the latest Josh Bersin article. Probably the visual I found most interesting was L&D Excellence: What matters most. I constantly look at the skills, behaviors, mindsets, and deliverables of L&D professionals, and this visual talks about just that.

Feed (Yourself) Back by Srishti Sehgal

A very interesting concept brought by Srishti: three pronouns in the context of feedback: Them aka Expert-led Feedback, Us aka Peer-led Feedback, and Me aka Self-led Feedback. Each of them has a purpose and is useful in different ways in the learning process.

Turning negative stress into positive change from Headspace

In this e-book, Headspace for Work Senior Behavioral Scientist Dr. Christelle Ngnoumen explains how mindfulness and meditation can help your team become more resilient in the face of trauma. Equipped with the tools to respond in a healthier way, employees can use stress to learn, grow, and better cope with what lies ahead.

A Guide to Working With Me by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy

It’s not the first time we’re covering user manuals in Offbeat. A user manual is basically a guide you can write so that people know what to expect when working with you. It’s great to share it with new colleagues, or peers you’ve never worked with before but you need to team up for a new project. Liz and Mollie put together a template with questions you can answer, to make it easier for you to write your own user manual.

Practice Made Perfect: The 10 Keys to Optimize Improvement by Scott H Young

Scott Young talks about how we can shape practice (for ourselves as learners and for others as learning designers) to optimize the rate of improvement. He covers tactics such as: (1) starting with examples, (2) retrieving vs rereading, (3) spreading out sessions, (4) matching practice to real life among others.

The more ambiguous the skill, the more critical it is to move back and forth between deliberate practice and?doing the real thing. The former is often needed to make improvements, but the latter is essential for figuring out what approach is required in the first place.

How to Cultivate Resilience: A Four Part Framework by Jason ?? Shen

Have you been recently asked to design a resilience workshop? My “favorite” requests sound like this. But now, going beyond the “workshop” solution, you might actually be wondering what resilience is exactly and how can one cultivate it. This article does a pretty good job at defining resilience and talking about very concrete behaviors that a resilient person has.

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