Have you ever wondered how your brain is processing all the information that gets thrown at it every day? How do we actually learn anything in this age of information overload? To design effective training we must understand first how the human brain processes information. This post covers 8 principles for managing cognitive load when […]
8 Principles for Managing Cognitive Load Read More »
Have you ever wanted to know who your parents really were growing up? What stories do they have? What experiences did they enjoy? What memories stuck with them? I set out to do just this. Earlier this year I saw this tweet from Paul Graham: Something I wish I’d done while my mother was still
How to Really Get to Know Your Parents Read More »
I was in Austin recently for the Degreed LENS conference. It’s now officially the only learning conference I go to every year, for two reasons: 1) It’s small (i.e. intimate). 2) It attracts outstanding learning leaders. Because of this, the quality of conversation is beyond anything you can find at any of the bigger conferences.
My Top 3 Takeaways from Degreed LENS 2019 Read More »
Reading Andy Grove’s book High Output Management (great summary here), I came across some excellent thoughts on training, and especially his point that training is one of the highest leverage activities a manager can perform. Leverage, of course, is the idea that the value of your actions can be multiplied thousands of times over. For
Training Is the Highest Leverage Thing You Can Do Read More »
I waited nervously as we went around the room to introduce ourselves. We were sitting around a large conference table. A room full of founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs. High achievers. I don’t know why I was nervous. I am the founder of two companies. I fit in here. But it got worse as my turn got
How to Channel Your Energy for Positive Outcomes Read More »
What happened next made no sense. It was Test match 3 of 5 in a series that decides the oldest rivalry in cricket, England vs Australia. England were 0-1 down. Defeat would make it 0-2, with two to play. Needing to win the series outright to win the trophy back from the Australians, they could
5 Things We Can Learn from Cricket Read More »
As the owner of a business creating learning events for individuals and companies, I’m often asked, “How do I teach my people (employees/customers) this topic?” To approach this by comparing forms of media and modes of delivery (a common folly in the learning industry) is to make the mistake Einstein warned us about when he
How Do I Teach My People This Topic? Read More »
To win the hearts and minds of your people is to mobilize your greatest asset, which can help you overcome other competitive disadvantages you may have. In a previous post, I shared a crucial step in the design phase of our learning methodology – our practice of deconstructing everything we’ve learned about a topic in
Why Embedding Corporate Culture in Training Is So Important Read More »
I wrote about the OODA Loop and how we can improve L&D by adopting a continuous cycle of Observe, Orient, Decide and Act to extract knowledge that already exists in the organization and make it constantly available to people. This is the opposite of the old way of teaching which required rote memorization of static
What Boats, Tanks and Bicycles Teach You About OODA Read More »
Our education system is broken in that we are still teaching for rote memorization. This is crazy in the age of Google and Wikipedia. Today I want to introduce a simple way to start changing this. Have you ever heard of the OODA loop? U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd is widely recognized as the
The OODA Loop: A Simple Way to Improve L&D Read More »