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What Smart Trainers Need to Know

Shannon Tipton38min

Shannon Tipton

00:00

but I completely forgot. Completely forgot to do is to turn on the recording. Ah, but that's okay so while I've got the recording on, I'm going to pause that thought before I answer to Amanda and introduce this topic again for the gentleman who does the who chose this into the podcast for me, so he doesn't have my head on a platter when we're all through with this. Oh, welcome, learning rebels coffee chat today we are talking about the skills needed for the future of l&d. So this is our conversation today. Now to carry over into Amanda's comment. You're absolutely right. Things are changing so quickly, that it's, it's crazy. And one of the things, Amanda, that you brought up that I really appreciate, and Eric, I see your hand there. One of the things that I appreciate is the understanding of the compliance, and the regulation, and everything that is changing for everything. So it's not just AI related. It is, you know, accessibility, its finance regulations are changing real estate, you saw, you might have seen some of the news coming down from the real estate agency come in through the last couple of days, about the way that they're handling commissions and such like that. So those things are also changing. And it's hard on us to kind of keep up with all of that, and then have our teams keep up with all of that. And if you own a business, you have to keep up with all of that. So there's a lot going on there. So that's so a really, really thoughtful add, Amanda. I'm Erica. Hello,

Erica

01:59

I was

Erica

02:01

a comment that I had made in the chat. And I felt that it married nicely to the comment that Justine had made about why she had placed Critical Thinking under tech capabilities is this idea of and I don't, I didn't know how to put it any way other than like, being an LMDS. Me. And what I mean by that is to to the term that you use to Shannon about like a generalist, so we may have to become more, more breadth instead of depth and our knowledge, comprehension and skills as far as like even if you're an instructional designer, you know, you've even been pressing on us and talking about it, you know, like how much do we need to know about marketing? How much do we need to know about quality management, because the things that we're being asked to do, or, as you just mentioned, you know, keeping your pulse on what's going on inside of the market, places that impact whatever business you work at, comes very vital to us than being I think the best partner that we can be. And so like what I'm noticing, especially because of the advent of more SAA s tools, and now even AI, even if you're not in a federated environment like I am there, there are possibly going to be more individuals that somebody goes ahead and deems, hello, you're an instructional designer, here are all these tools that you can use. So you can clearly make a course. But I think like what my team is trying to do is position ourselves then more as the center of excellence so that if another group goes out, and they try and get something created by Ernst and Young, our team would be able to vet it, which we did, we had to look the coding behind it to see whether or not it was truly accessible. Being able to read V, Pat's, being able to you know, look at someone's pores. And if you're partnering internally with them in a kind way, but giving them quality management standards and saying, This is why this course doesn't necessarily meet quality standards quite yet to be able to be placed on the LMS or whatever your learning platforms are that you're using. So kind of so then it's less that were actually maybe doing the designing and developing but now we're doing more of how do we help to control the learning environment? Or what are we doing to allow the learning environment within the company or organization to be as worthwhile as possible?

Shannon Tipton

04:50

Right, and I agree with that. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Justin

04:55

Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt but just to Eric because points it. So I absolutely agree. But what I'm, what I'm seeing, though is that, like, I think it very much varies from company to company, and maybe industry to industry. So there have been some companies that I've worked for were having an edit the breadth of experience, was what they wanted. And we did. And then other companies, they are just needing a whole nother compliance training to be, you know, developed and delivered by the time, you know, that the date that it needs to be implemented by So, and, and I feel like Krishna, and I've spoken to you about this, whereby suddenly, you know, I'm seeing a laundry list of all the skills that, you know, recruiters are putting for, for, for jobs, listing every possible elearning software that there is out there, and, you know, in reality, that they're not using all of them. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So I feel like, so yes, I can see the benefit of the of having breadth of experience, but then some companies, they're wanting absolute specialization. So it's, I just find it differs by organization and by industry, which makes it very hard for us. And that's why we have a whole mirror board that we could probably fill up. And maybe feel even more overwhelmed by all the things.

Shannon Tipton

06:39

Well, you know, I, I appreciate your comment. And you're right, I wait, you know, or will need to know, is certainly driven by organizational need, and what industry that you're in as well. That said, I believe that if we could take an effort to learn more things outside of what we normally do, and not to be the unicorn, because you're right, I've seen some of those job, job ads coming through on LinkedIn, I saw one not too long ago, and it had 30 bullets 30. I'm like, Who is doing all of this, it's actually three jobs in one, you know, so that tells me that the hiring manager doesn't know what they want, they just want everything. So in lieu of saying, I don't know what I want, just go ahead and apply just just gonna put down 30 bullets, you know, and that becomes scary to think that we have to be able to do all of these things. But I think in this case, if we have at least a working knowledge of some of these areas, then we can determine when I get hired into the real estate industry, if I get hired into the restaurant industry, and I can pick and choose which ones do I need to go deeper on? You know, and so I think this is how our own personal knowledge grows, is that when we think, how is it going to apply? And so now, which areas do I need to dig deeper with, but at least I have some sort of surface knowledge about the things that are important. And then I can talk to my business about those things. So, yeah, yeah, but I think that's a really good point. It's so easy to become overwhelmed with, you know, as we start thinking about this, let's start thinking about things like, you know, business acumen. When you're thinking about, well, do I know how to read financials? I don't know, no, you know, financial statements, which I misspelled, that's okay. I know what I'm talking about. You know, and all of the other things that go along with that. But I believe that those five points being agile, data analytics, curation skills, technical acumen and business acumen will take us where we need to go. Everything else, not everything else. But some of the other things that we're talking about such as, you know, building a learning environment, or understanding learning technologies. I think those are they almost go without saying, we need to know those things in order to be good at what we do. If we don't, then we kind of need to backtrack a little bit and spend some time upskilling ourselves that in my in my eye, those five are the ones that really need are the ones we really need to focus on. Erica

Erica

09:54

because it's something that we're going through and I think it's being talked about so I'm I'm just maybe saying it in a different way. I think we also need to better learn

Erica

10:11

how to affect change, where we can affect change, right, as my

Erica

10:17

team is becoming more, more experienced with one another because there was a massive reorganization in my, in my university before I started, it's considered, you know, quote, unquote, a young department, so quote, unquote, a young team. So even my manager, in talking with us, we're learning that, unfortunately. And I know some of us might say, Well, gosh, it feels like you're giving up. But we're learning that the window of what we can really influence, even in the business of what we do, is narrow, and as possibly getting a little bit even narrower, so that at the end of the day, all the things that might be lofty and good goals, or even us knowing like what is good learning science, the we're still being met with the the limitations of the business, and the business is not something that we can control. So what can we can control to help align us to the business as best as possible and to make us as relevant and appearing as a necessity, right, or as a benefit and a value add to the business? And so I think it behooves us to really understand what is our lane of effective change, so that we can really maximize us being perceived as good partners, and value add to the overall business?

Shannon Tipton

11:54

I think that's a great point. I know that l&d. It's almost as though we're in the middle of an existential crisis. Where are we? Who are we? Where are we, you, we all want to climb up to the mountain and find the lnd guru. So we can all just listen to wise words, to help us figure out where we are in the world today. And I think the point that you're making there, Erica is very valid in that just know what we can do. And don't get caught up and what we can't do, right, what, what can we influence? What can we impact? And what do we need to leave by the wayside. So I think that that's very wise. And I think we each need to figure that out, right, based on the industries that we're in, or the companies that we work for, or if you work by yourself. Also, I would say that if you have that sort of anxiety, that's what groups like this is for, you know, to come to come and share your your anxiety moments, and to talk them out. And to have this platform in which to have these shared experiences with others. So maybe one of the other things that we need to add to this is community. How, how are we building community within our organizations? How, how good are we at finding communities for ourselves, you know, where we can learn from each other, even in an informal type of way. Now, I saw Joyce here. So Joyce, I see your comment up above about being able to leverage the LMS to use the data to be able to fine tune learning plans. However, people are only interested in completions. Yeah. You know, LMS is are only really good for those butts and seats reports. But I'm curious Joyce, what other sorts of reporting? And Jean I'll answer that question in a second. What sort of reporting Do you think when it comes to data LMS reporting, etc. What do you think would be beneficial for us as we move into the future of learning and development? If you can answer that if you can come off, Mike and answer that. And that question was for Joyce. So for me, okay, Priscilla, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay.

Joyce

14:40

So for me, I feel that I would like to know what's happening more with the user while they're in the course where I work because we have a lot of people who have English as a second language. So I'd like to see like how many times that they are going through and having to review something or They have to go back or they have to do something, because maybe that's not the course is not properly written for them or needs to be adjusted. And I feel like some of that data would be helpful to know if it's available. So that's it.

Shannon Tipton

15:17

You think that that's a skill that we should already be having? Or do you really see that as something that is going to drive this, you know, driving the future forward? Is that a current skill that we should already be using? Or is this Is it a measurement that you see happening for the future?

Joyce

15:36

Well, that's a that's a really great question. Um, I don't I don't know. My answer is I don't know. Okay.

Shannon Tipton

15:44

Yeah. And I, the reason I asked that question is that, again, it depends on where you sit, right? You know, if you have the ability to find that information out, then we should, but in some cases, you don't. So now you have to plan for the future. How can I? You know, and I, I believe that that's something that really goes under data, you know, to be able to say, not only read data, but find data. So maybe it's not unlike Kevin's learn something new here not so long ago, where he was talking about being the l&d Detective, you know, how can we be good on our Sherlock Holmes hat and find the data that we need to have in order to support what it is we're doing? Right. I'm going to add that here, we're going to find, and I don't think we need to have fancy terms. I'm sure there's a fancy term for finding data, but I ain't fancy. So that's what we're doing. All right. Now, Gene, your comment here? Can you give an example of using community? Yeah, right here right now. The learning rubbles itself is a community. We're a community of people we meet every other week, right. And some of you are very regulars, I see you every other week, no fail, some of you are new, that's great, too. And I encourage you guys to come and go as you need support, not support from me, but support from your peers. And that's what this chat is all about. That's why it's not the webinar. It's a chat that goes back and forth, between all of us. Now, learning rebels does have a formal community. So there is a community for people to join and connect and get research and to learn new things, etc. So we do have a formal Community of Practice, if you will. So there's a couple of ways there that you can do that. And you can do that within your organizations to now in this great question is kind of leading me to the spiel, I suppose is that next week, I'm having a workshop on how to strengthen learning within communities. So I would encourage you to attend that. You know, because I believe that communities really are community based learning is the future of where we're going. You know, learn it together. So it goes along with curation, the importance of curation, not just putting people in courses, but giving them the information they need in order to be successful. And that's why I believe that curation is something that is going to be critical to what we do in the future alongside building those important communities.

Justin

18:39

Okay, with the community, Shannon, I mean, there was a big push, but you know, like, for example, when I was working Colorama tool, we set up communities, and that was around 2016 2017. And it was definitely like, you know, everything was about communities of practice, and social learning and all that. And then, I don't know, but I sort of feel like a lot of that's fallen away, like a lot of the contracts that I've been on recently, like people are like, oh, yeah, we got Yammer, but no one ever goes on to Yammer. So, I mean, maybe that's just my way that I've seen. And so I'm just curious to see that, you know, you've you've raised it and, and obviously, you see the benefits, and we see the benefits of being part of a community, maybe not the community within the workplace, I don't know, maybe, you know, outside because you're choosing to be part of that community. So yeah, just wanted to sort of put it out there that, you know, it's not a future thing. It's a thing that has been done in the past is currently been done. And whether we need to look at what worked well in the past and what didn't work well, so we don't make the same mistakes. Yeah, just wanted to raise points about that.

Shannon Tipton

20:03

No, thank you. Thank you. You're absolutely right. Harold jerky has been talking about communities for a decade. And communities have have been out there, where I think it takes a twist when we start thinking about the future is how we are using them. You know, and again, you know, Harold has been talking about this very same concept. And he has been with his is knowledge management program, he has been talking about how people can come together should come together and when they should leave each other. Right. And I believe that when we first started thinking about social learning, and building communities of practices within our workplace, we, we sort of put it out there as a if we build it, they will come. And so we built these communities for let's say, a sales team, and then no one participated. Like you said, we've got Yammer, but no one participates because nobody knows what to do, what they're supposed to achieve from it, what the expectations are. So I think it's not necessarily community, which is the future, but how we operate them. And what we're expecting to get out of them is changing. Right? Right. And then it does it all becomes noise. You're right, Jason. So then you have stuff coming from you from all different, all different ways. And so how do you manage that? So I think how we look at communities and how we use them, is what is changing? But you're absolutely right, Justine's. It's it's not new. And social learning is not new cavemen have been social learning since the dawn of time. That's why you see all the paintings on the walls. That was their way of social learning. Okay, let's see. Continuation of breaking down more barriers in our organization. And I think that's because not because wrong, has headed down the wrong path there. I agree with you, Erica, what I what I believe here, when it comes to breaking down barriers, our role is to help do that. Right, so then we become more advocates. So we're advocates of learning, we're advocates of skill building and helping breaking down those barriers. And so now, let me pose a question to you all, when it comes to helping to break down those barriers for skill building, and also going along with being agile, right, so in order to break down the barriers, we have to be agile enough to see those barriers come through. So what are some of the skills that we need to take in order to have that more agile approach to what we do? What are some skills around that

Justin

23:13

but from my experience with agile, I love it when a project is agile, because it enables me to get into rooms that I wouldn't normally be in. Like for example, when they have the stand ups, the daily stand ups, and I'm you know, everybody's in the room, all levels of stakeholders, and you can actually know what is going on on the project. You know, firsthand, hot off the press sort of thing. And I just find working agile, it just feels less political as well. It just feels like it's all the job done and everybody just trying to support each other. Everybody knows what if there's more awareness of what areas of the project there's a lot of stress or strain, whatever behind sheduled or whatever so that you can have a bit more you have more empathy for them that you know, you're like, Okay, well, maybe I won't ask them for to review that today. I'll ask them for tomorrow. So I just love agile I just really see the benefits of working that

Shannon Tipton

24:19

way. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. What other what other agile what other skills go into being agile? You put that into the chatter you can come off mic and talk to me about it

Shannon Tipton

24:44

being able to pivot suddenly, yes gene. thing in touch with each other on a regular cadence. So then we're talking about communication skills, right? So once, yeah. Okay, and then to be able to work iteratively. So what's what? Oh, so working iteratively when we think about what skill does it take to do that? Being able to figure out what worked and what didn't. Okay? Influencing, right? Yes. Okay. The ability to, to influence, I'll take that. And being iterative. That's always a word, I have trouble spelling, I T, E R, there you go.

Andrea

25:55

And constantly reminding yourself or measuring yourself against those original outcomes. And why those outcomes so that you're always making sure that you're going to meet those.

Shannon Tipton

26:11

So what skill is that? Staying on? No.

Andrea

26:18

What skill is it where you go back and you make sure you reorient yourself to make sure the outcome is the path doesn't have to be the same. You can change the path, but you just need to make sure that you end up where you want to go. I don't know what that is. The big picture.

Shannon Tipton

26:35

Yeah, Andrea. Thank you, Andrea. Yeah.

Shannon Tipton

26:49

Yeah. I mean, those are all they're, they're soft, right? It's like, oh, where's the where's the class for being able to see the big picture? Where are where is that? I don't know. But there's lots of reading and research that we can do to build that skill inside ourselves where we can share that information. Let's see what we got here.

Justin

27:19

On a list that I've got today from a recruiter where you take all your skills that you have, and then I'd said the scrum master. And these were l&d skills. And I'm like, I couldn't take that I have a lot of experience on Agile projects. And I have done some agile training, but I'm not a scrum master.

Shannon Tipton

27:43

And there's, you're not going to find a whole lot of people who are I mean, it's not. Not every person has that. Right?

Justin

27:49

Yeah. So I'm just saying, because you're saying, Well, what skills what hard skills? Well, then, do we need to be Scrum Masters? And I agree, I don't think we do.

Shannon Tipton

28:01

Yeah, I don't I think some people, it would benefit some people in some organizations in some industries. Yeah. You know, so once again, it's what do we pull from this list? Or these lists? Thurl? What do we pull from here, that is going to be beneficial to what we do. But we know we need to do something. That's, that's the bit, that's the tricky bit. You know, we need to do something. And I think putting together a list like this, and I'll, I'll go through the, I'll go through my thoughts and the chat and everything else and continue to fill this out for you. And I'll send it out with the resources to continue to go through this list and go, you know, what, I can do this, or I can learn this or I can, or I want to learn this and continue to move forward. Right? And it does go with upskilling. So we can put that somewhere because upskilling does or the ability to realize when we need upskilling not only that, we can all sit here and think yes, upskilling thumbs up. We all agree, that's important. But we don't do it. Okay, for a variety of reasons. So then it becomes not just upskilling ourselves, but the desire to do it. Right. It's like, it's like learning how to play an instrument, you have to have the instrument, you have to have the instructions on how to play the instrument. But most importantly, you have to have the desire in order to do so. So as that three legged stool, right? And with our own personal growth and our own personal upskilling capability if we have to have the desire to invest the time to upskill ourselves to address some of these skills that we're going to need in order to address the future.

Shannon Tipton

30:11

Let's see what have we got here? When you keep upskilling? I do not I do not think that word means what you think it means jargon. Oh, jargon. What's that? There's a whole other conversation. I'm having that conversation on LinkedIn right now, when we talk about jargon, but I think first goes to business acumen. So when we talk about jargon, business acumen is the excuse me being able to speak the language of business

Shannon Tipton

30:46

and not the language of learning. We know the language of learning.

Jason

30:54

Go ahead. Yeah, I think it's also been able to translate the language of learning into the language of business, because some people have that little bit of training, knowledge that they go, they went to some course at some conference 10 years ago, and they think that they're, you know, an l&d expert. They throw around words that we use, but it's like, yeah, that's not what that really means. That's not how that work.

Shannon Tipton

31:26

I love that. That is the point. Good point. Jason.

Erica

31:32

I think also this this is Amanda, I think that it's not just translating the language, it's finding the common language. You know, the the word mentoring, what does that mean here?

Joyce

31:42

Or where we work?

Erica

31:44

What does what's the difference between team building and team development, there's, I find myself doing a lot of explaining about what I mean, when I say certain things, because it's not bringing the same mental image to the people that I'm working with. It does in my own mind. And so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to define things, so that the language is common.

Shannon Tipton

32:09

Mm hmm. Yes, yes. And I think those are great points to leave on. You know, and maybe it's the most important point to leave on, which is how the future of our position, the future of learning and development is going to depend on how well we can display our relevance to the business, because the business isn't going to continue to pay for a department that they feel is not relevant to them. Now, your argument could be made, yes, we're doing great work. This also goes towards marketing, we're doing great work, but nobody realizes that we're doing great work. And we don't know how to talk about the great work that we're doing. We don't know how to really share the great work that we're doing. So that all goes under that marketing box. But I think it's also about how are we communicating our value? How are we communicating the importance of learning and development to the organization? Right. And I think that where we go from here, is building to that skill, of being able to be good partners. So when we say good partners to the business, most people have that I have partnering with someone in leadership. Right? So I'm being a partner to the business. So that means I'm being a partner to somebody in leadership. But I believe in Shannon's belief here, is being a partner to the business is being a partner to the whole business. How are we partnering with the the French fry fryer, guy or gal? How are we partnering with the produce department? How are we partnering with the admin assistants? How are we partnering with middle managers? How are we partnering with the business as a whole? And so then that means how are we communicating with everyone within that business? That it probably starts there, if we're going to have a future within this business, how we're communicating with everybody and communicating how we're relevant and how we're helpful is critical. Just saying, hashtag, just saying. All right. That leads us to the top of the hour. So those went by quickly. And I'll go ahead and fill in some of these blanks. But just so you know, you all still have access to this when I close the call. I'm not taking away your access. So I encourage you to take a moment after we hang up today to think about What are some of the other skills that could be plugged into some of these boxes here, and then I'm going to use that and send it out to, you know, send it out to everybody, so everybody can see it and make use of it themselves. So I would appreciate all of your contributions, as you continue on today. So leave this open, leave this open on a tab, you know, in your window, think about it, come back and fill out some information. And I look forward to seeing what you all come up with. And speaking of let's see, did we get the let me get the one, let's get our next coffee chats coming up. Practical applications to bridging the learning doing gap. Hopefully, you guys can all see this on the events page in the learning rebels event page. And then also for our workshop next week for the communities workshop. I sent that out in a newsletter yesterday. And I think that we have that here. There it is, think strong communities. And I hope to see you guys there, I'm going to put this link into the chat for everybody. So we've got our next round up of coffee chats, bridging the learning doing gap. And then in December, we got our fun things happening. We've got our gifts for the trainer in your life, as well as our holiday party, which is going to be a lot of fun. And let me stop sharing and get back to the main screen here, though. So that's going to be a lot of fun. So I look forward to seeing you all there. And then the community itself the learning rebels community. We let me put a link for that in the chat, dropped it in the chat. Drop it. Okay, so there it is. You guys had the you have the community link there in the chat. So take a look at that. Maybe that's a community for you. And I hope to see you all there. In the meantime, I will see you those of you who are new these coffee chats are not every week. They are every other week. So I look forward to seeing you guys in two weeks. When we were we are bridging the learning doing gap. So thank you, everybody. Anyone plans this weekend? No. I have got to protect some plants from some of the cold that's coming along. I'm not looking forward to doing that. But you got to do what you got to do. I hope Oh stops there in Chicago. Oh, what is that all about? You know? But yes, thank you. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you, Kristen, and Jean. Thank you everyone for joining me today. This was very interesting. Yes. And it was it. I felt like it was an authentic discussion. So not really, you know, pie in the sky. This is what we have to do in order to be successful people. Yep. And I wish everybody a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you all in two weeks. Thank you so much. Yay. Bye ready

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