The best L&D resources of November 2022
Lavinia Mehedin?u
Co-Founder & Learning Architect @ Offbeat | Learning & Development ??
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Well, 2022 literally passed in a blink of an eye. I think apart from the shock of major layoffs this month, which left many L&Ds without a role, the other news is that we've started looking more toward making predictions of what next year has in store for us. Some of the resources below are reports coming from different sources that will give you some food for thought for 2023, while others dig deeper into data about where we are at the end of 2022.
Meanwhile, here's what we've been up to at Offbeat .
- To support L&Ds looking for a new role, we launched the Offbeat Talent Collective. This is where you can apply if you're an L&D. This is where you can apply if you're looking for an L&D peer for your team. We've been getting over 40 applications from L&D, but not so many from companies. So I want to stress that we have awesome profiles that you can explore at your fingertip if you join the collective as a company.
- We launched our newest Audio Learning Journey exploring what it takes Becoming a Self-Directed Learner thanks to Srishti Sehgal , Dinye Hernanda , Gabriela Constantinescu , Maya Camarasu , and Oana Dobre ;
- Together with my partner in crime, Milica Sapic , we launched two more episodes of Offbeat On Air. This time, we explored a bit of behavioral science and a bit of growth marketing thanks to our amazing guests Nurit Nobel and Miruna Dragomir ;
- Finally, we have to thank our sponsors this month, Innential , HowNow , Nifty Learning , Wynter , and You Can Now
We have some big, big plans for the next couple of months. We only need our mental health, well-being, motivation, excitement, and of course, you, to make them all happen!
Meanwhile, take a closer look at the coolest resources we've shared this month in our newsletter:
This article was music to my ears. Since the future is not looking bright for L&D budgets, one way to keep on delivering value (maybe even more than before) is to look at how we can nurture learning networks. They won’t only be fruitful for knowledge exchange, but also in creating a more collaborative culture.
Peer-to-peer learning isn’t just more effective than traditional training dropped on employees from high above. It’s a more enjoyable process that taps into people’s natural inclination to be curious, to share new information with their network, and to seek and receive knowledge in return.
There’s been a lot of chatter about internal talent marketplaces, and Echo is how Spotify put that concept into practice by focusing on Mentorship, Jobs & Projects. One year into the program, they remind us of what Echo is about and tell us a bit about their lessons learned.
Creating the best conditions for projects to blossom requires a lot of change management and that is one of our main priorities going into year two, to increase the awareness of the value propositions of projects.?
Ever heard of partial mentors? I didn’t. But the concept somehow makes sense. Scott Young highlights the difference between all-encompassing mentors & partial mentors and explains why the former can be hard to find, and how the latter can be greater.
(Extremely) out of office: Let nature boost your team’s creativity and performance by Fiona Campbell ,? Arne Gast , Kris Morton , and Fleur Smeets - Tonies
How can nature play a role in performance gain, creating creative spaces, and also mental health improvement? This very detailed article explains why we should incorporate nature into our daily lives as individuals, teams, and organizations. I would even dare to say it’s a challenge for us, as learning designers.
Creating opportunities for individuals and teams to connect in nature can be a powerful antidote to the kind of prolonged stress that is rising in the workplace.
It seems that the end of the year always comes with all kinds of reports. This month, we’ve shared reports about culture & the future of learning, and with this report, we’re taking a closer look at teams. Something to keep in mind from its content is what separates legendary teams from everyone else: (1) alignment, (2) cohesion, (3) psychological safety, and (4) potential for innovation.
As work shifts from in-person interaction to more distributed and hybrid collaboration, it becomes increasingly important to understand how to collaborate effectively. This book will help you raise the collaborative intelligence of your teams, drawing from interviews with some of the most creative, prolific, and multidisciplinary leaders, authors, and makers in the world.
It’s very helpful to have another person there to give you a bit of confidence and to bounce things off. The other thing is that you build on each other’s ideas so you get somewhere you would never have got on your own.?
I remember how years ago everyone was tasked with building a customer-centric culture. Although right now I feel there’s more chatter about employee-focused organizations, which is amazing progress if you ask me, this article might still be relevant for some of us.
This BCG article talks about the learning ecosystem of an organization as being a combination of the following, in no precise order: (1) the learning strategy, (2) the integration of learning, (3) the organization of learning, (4) the learning offering, and (5) the learning enablers. Each of these components was broken down further into more concrete areas, and the first thought I had was that we’re focusing most of our attention on the learning offering, and too little on each and every other aspect of the ecosystem. Very interesting piece!
It’s that time of year again. That time of the year when our focus is exploring the needs of our learners. This article covers how to set up a performance competence and gap analysis, how to generate ideal and gap performance data, and how to enable knowledge skills (K/Ss) categories and matrices.
I came across vertical development this week and I’m just beginning to understand the added value that it brings to L&D, and to individuals. If you’re curious as well, you can read their articles, listen to their podcast, or watch the recent webinar they hosted, all for free.
Kegan describes vertical development beautifully when he compares the mind with cup and knowledge with water being poured into the cup. Information means to put something new ‘in-form’ - in the existing form of mind. ‘Horizontal development’ means simply adding to the existing cup.
The L&D Playbook from Go1
I had quite a nice time going through this playbook. It offers 9 a series of ‘plays’ to help L&D leaders challenge the status quo by working smarter with managers. The plays names are quite quirky, so don’t expect to understand anything only from reading them, but don’t be fooled. They are quite interesting. My favorite one? Goal attack.
It’s been a while since I last saw a deep dive into what taking a skills-based approach would mean for private or public organizations. This article is a combination of theory, data, and a practical example from a McKinsey client that might add new ideas to your toolbox.
I was mentioning earlier that reports are pouring in at the end of this year. This time, another one was brought to my attention. One that offers perspectives around all kinds of people matters, from recruitment to workplace culture, DEIB, or benefits, among others. Spoiler alert, it focuses a lot on the tech sector.
Communication is crucial to employee engagement. CEOs must be clear in company direction, and leaders should ensure employees understand how their individual and team work impacts the business.
I like reading stories about self-managed organizations that highlight the exciting parts, but also the challenging ones. This article covers the principles of governance, the decision-making process, the staffing process, the payment system, the hiring & onboarding process, and ways of meeting & innovating of a self-managing consultancy.
I really liked the thesis of this article. There’s a growing trend of using AI in different business functions. And while we’ve been very focused on implementing AI to optimize processes, we haven’t looked at how that will play out for humans. The result? “Persuasive evidence of negative effects on some dimensions of well-being.â€
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We develop high potential talent | CEO @ Curious Lion - a learning studio | Speaker + Emcee
2 å¹´Peer-to-peer learning is the key to unlock all that sunk cost in content and platforms. I wish more companies would reach out so we can help them set this up! Thanks for including me Lavinia, and it was so fun to chat on Zoom yesterday
MSc HRO Candidate at LSE | Talent Strategy & Workforce Advisory @ Gartner | Change Management | Leadership Consulting | Psychometrics & Assessment Centres | Ex-Deloitte
2 å¹´So much catching my eye already!!! Especially the resource : Reach the Next Level by Learning How to Learn! I'm going to read it on my train tomorrow, and put it into action as I get into 2023. Thankyou for all that you do, Lavinia!