Podcast summary:

Created by ChatGPT

Recorded live at TJ’s 60th Anniversary Conference, this special episode sees Andrew Jacobs take over the Training Journal podcast to host a reflective debate with Laura Overton and Kirsty Lewis. They trace L&D’s technology journey to today’s digital, data-rich world, asking what’s been gained and what’s quietly been lost.

The conversation keeps circling back to learning as a social, human act: the power of mentoring, managers as teachers, residentials and real conversations that build confidence and capability. Laura and Kirsty challenge the industry’s reliance on programmes, platforms and one-hit workshops, arguing instead for joined-up experiences, leader involvement and continuous learning for practitioners themselves.

Above all, they call on L&D to stay close to the work, champion relevance and impact, and act as thoughtful partners who create the conditions for people to learn together, perform now and stay ready for whatever comes next.

Key takeaways:

Created by ChatGPT

• L&D has moved from OHPs, laserdiscs and green-screen CBT to digital, data-rich ecosystems – but not all the change has been progress
  
  
• In the shift to platforms, personalisation and “anytime” learning, we risk losing mentoring, apprenticeship-style development and on-the-job community
  
  
• Learning is still fundamentally social: people learn best by talking, trying things, sharing and solving problems together over time
  
  
• Managers and leaders are critical teachers and shapers of culture; when they’re absent from learning, capability and change both suffer
  
  
• One-hit workshops and disconnected programmes rarely deliver sustained behaviour change; learning needs spaced experiences and follow-through
  
  
• L&D’s real work is to equip individuals, teams and organisations to perform today and stay ready for the future, not just to deliver content
  
  
• Practitioners must model continuous learning themselves or risk being inauthentic when asking others to develop
  
  
• Relevance and impact are non-negotiable: if learning doesn’t feel connected to real work, people won’t invest their time

Links from the podcast:

Podcast learning festival

Speakers:

1. Andrew Jacobs
2. Kirsty Lewis
3. Laura Overton

Transcript:

Created by TechSmith Audiate

Welcome to the Training Journal podcast. I’m editor of Training Journal and your host, Jo Cook…

Woah. Hold your horses there, Joe. This is a TJ takeover. I’m Andrew Jacobs, and I’ve been chairing a debate panel at the Training Journal’s sixtieth anniversary conference, a special one day event at the Royal Society of Chemistry in London. This session was looking at what we used to do in l and d and what we do now.

Have we changed, and if so, how? Joining me were Laura Overton and Kirsty Lewis. Laura is a learning change maker and experienced international speaker, author, and facilitator…

Kirsty is founder of the School of Facilitation, where she leads on workshop design and fantastic facilitation…

We got into what L and D should leave behind and where it needs to lean in to make a real difference. In this special episode, expect candid stories, a practical invite, and a few challenges to how we think about learning and impact. And if you’re into conversations like this, and want to know how to start creating podcasts from them, come and join us at the Podcast Learning Festival twenty twenty six, a new event I’ll be hosting in London on the twenty sixth of February next year. It’s all about how voice and conversation change how people learn at work. You’ll find details at podcast learning fest dot live.

But for now, let’s get into the debate. I love this. Anyone who knows me knows I love a microphone, but to have two is incredible. Uh, Kirsty Lewis, founder of School of Facilitation. I will talk all things design and delivery of amazing learning and workshops.

I can geek out over marker pens, Neuland are the best, and we love a good Sharpie. Um, I look forward to this conversation with Laura. Right. And I’m Laura, Laura Overton. Um, I’ve never really worked with a Sharpie or a marker pen or even a post it note in my life. I’m I’m from working in learning and development for the last thirty five years, but mainly…using digital and research and data.

So I always felt a little bit of a fraud when I’m with amazing people like yourselves who, um, are just able to be able to articulate so well from the front, all different new ideas. So, um, yeah. But I do research, I do analysts, and I’m really passionate about the future of learning and how we shape it. What tools or technology defined learning and development when you began…

Our HPs and, um, drawing on acetates…was definitely a thing. And remember being taught how to…

like, not have a shaky hand as you put your hand over the acetate light so it didn’t do that. And then to breathe in at the right time to then just move your acetate smoothly up…or downly up or down. That’s what I remember. I found an OHP hidden. I was working in Vienna.

That this is pre COVID. And you know how sometimes when you’re in breakout rooms and meeting rooms, I can’t I don’t know about you. I have a good nosey around. And there was a cupboard that I was putting my stuff on, so I opened it to see what was inside the cupboard. And it was like discovering a fossil.

And there was this OHP just sat there forlornly on its own. And I was just like, oh, a forgotten relic of our era of our times. You’re looking at me as though I know what you’re talking about. I know what I know HP is. I I do actually because I was a learning technologies conference only less than ten years ago.

And Edward de Bono came to the learning technologies conference and was presenting the keynote sitting next to an OHP, and it was adorable. It was the most memorable event ever. But but for me, my technologies were…

none of those, because I joined a training depository as a brand new graduate, and I was a graduate in psychology…

Um, and I was fascinated by the learning center in the cupboard underneath the stairs. And in the cupboard underneath the stairs, and this was in the mid late eighties, was the most incredible technology. It was the most massive laser disc you could ever imagine. It was ginormous and it branched all over the place and you could go in to this course called the versatile organization and it gave you all this feedback. And if you weren’t into that, you could do mainframe computer based training because it was mainly for, uh, the, you know, the IT and the data people.

So…my early technologies were floppy disk, laser laser disk, green screen, um, mainframe computer based training. When I, um, first trained like, my first teaching qualification, it was a distance learning one. And so they gave so they gave you this massive manual, and it’s just, like, hundreds of pages to read. And I was so disappointed. I thought I was gonna get something.

I thought, this is learning. This is really exciting. And yet something really lovely, and and then I just got this manual…

What have we lost on the way to learning and development in twenty twenty five? So sixty years on for Training Journal, what have we lost on the way to l and d in twenty twenty five…

I think when I think back to, uh, it’s really depressing going into twenty twenty six. So it would be forty years ago when I started work in that training department. And, yes, they had some cool things, some interesting technologies for professions that were moving fast like IT. But what was really happening there was it was, uh, I was working with Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, and they had a lot of graduates coming in, a surveyor of shipping. And they had a lot of graduates coming in, uh, surveyor graduates coming in, and they had to basically keep our waters safe around the globe.

And it’s this incredible opportunity that they had. It was a long period of time, but it was through mentoring. It was through working with others. It was through connection. And I think what we may have lost now through the influx of learning management systems, lots and lots of content, a desire to personalize learning, is the fact that actually to learn to do a great job in a great organization, you are part of that organization, and that organization is part of your journey.

And I think that’s one of the things I really recognize in hindsight when I look back is that way that it, you know, it takes a village to build a skill. It takes off it takes experience. It takes a good line manager. It it takes pathways. It takes goals.

It takes, um

, opportunities to actually be the best they can. And so for me, that kind of sense that by by wanting to be more inclusive, and trust me, I’ve been on that journey with, you know, for the last forty years, we want to be more inclusive. We want learning to be more accessible, that we can do it at home in in the time that works for us. We want it to be more personalized. I think what we’ve lost is that we’ve thrown away the sense that actually we we’re we’re there to learn to work and therefore we have to learn to work in work.

And that means that other people also need to be on that journey with us… I think my, um, greatest worry is we lose the humanity of learning. And, um, whilst I don’t have children, I’ve got lots of friends who’ve got kids. I’m a good aunt. And just the number of people not wanting to interact with one another. And I’m like, how are you going to…deal in the world of work going forward?

It’s like people don’t wanna go into the office. And I just think world of work going forward is that people don’t wanna go into the office. And I just think back to my time when I was I was at Diageo, and they were a very people first attitude to learning. So So all our managers were our teachers, and this was from the year two thousand. And, um, I think my my concern is that…organizations…like, we we put all the learning into the elearning or we put it into sort of smaller groups, but we don’t invite our leaders or our managers to be part of that development because they’re just too busy.

But yet, if we think back, and the research is also evident of this, that learners and leaders make or break how we act and behave and how we learn and how we develop. And therefore, if they’re not included in that process, um, that that’s my concern that people don’t evolve and grow, and then businesses get all upset and stroppy. And they’re like, well, there’s no change happening here. But then they’re…pushing out the change to other people. I have a residential. So It’s residential.

Only because even if it’s just one night, it just means people could sit and talk to each other. And how many of us have ever gone to a residential and not had a good conversation with another human being and gone, oh, I didn’t know that about you. Or…I know where to go to now when I’ve got a problem. So I do love a good residential. I’ll admit that.

For me, the one that sit stands out is about time to learn, so we might have lost that. I I’d question that. I’d if that was my offer debate, I think I’d debate that one because I don’t think we’ve lost time to learn because we’ve never had time to learn. Is it the, um, businesses are putting emphasis in other areas? So therefore, the leaders and the managers who would maybe be telling people and it is often mandatory that you are going on this workshop or you are gonna go and do this one day.

Now it’s more a case of, yeah, actually, now you do need to go and do x, y, and zed. But because there’s no consequence to not showing up to the learning, it doesn’t happen…

I don’t know. Maybe we’re offering more programs that seem irrelevant. And if it’s irrelevant to my job, then why would I go? Why would I allocate the time to do that? So maybe maybe we’ve lost relevance in our work.

What are we now? So the question on the screen is what’s the real work of Evan Lee today? I think it’s as I go back to I still think it’s about people because and how are we creating learning that enables the humanity aspect. So, yes, we know e learning is beneficial, and, yes, we know that some solo reflection, but I wanna know how we’re gonna keep bringing us all together. And I think listening to some of my clients in the last six months, they wanna bring people back in and do, um, in person conversations, in person workshops.

Um, I’m always curious whether that’s a truth and whether anyone else is experiencing or noticing that on the rise again. Um, and I think that’s a bit for me is about just just the humanity element. If a client’s not prepared to bring people together, whether that’s virtually or in person, I think it’s our job as their, um

, partner to explain to them that there was gonna be some missings in the capability of their people and that the learning might be subpar. And, yes, of course, we can create what they’d like us to create, but I always caveat it to my clients and go, you’re not gonna get a shift in the change you’re seeking. And and I often say to clients, I go, oh, can you do a workshop in this? Like, um, when I do a lot of upscaling for facilitators and trainers, they go, oh, can you just come in for the day? And I’m like, listen.

A one hit wonder workshop. Trust me. We’ll have a fantastic time because I’ll ensure that your team do something, but I can’t guarantee the learning because we know the learning happens over this these intervals. Now we even know that from a brain science perspective. And so I think it’s, um, our job as, um, their thought partners to just share back with them that this is not a good idea…

The real work of L and D today, Andrew, as you were asking that question, it just reminded me of, you know, Simon Sinek and, you know, his why and the how and the what. And I think a lot of us talk about the what of our real world of learning at the moment. So, um, really important what really important stuff like community, about new skills, you know, about e learning, about, you know, what what’s good, what’s bad, you know. But it’s all the what that we talk about. And I think, actually, the real world of it of l and work of l and d, we need to kind of pull out a bit.

And I’m seeing this, so it is real. It’s not just a dream of the future. I’m seeing organizations or learning teams that can pull out and actually say, my why. What is my why for being here? For me, the that real work is to ensure others are equipped already.

Individuals, teams, organizations equipped to perform today, but also read for whatever… might be happening in the future. If you take a new starter from school, school leave into your organization, they are younger than the iPhone. And I think you said something there about, um…

why do we the the continuous learning piece, and I think that’s really important for us. It’s not just about the people in organisations doing their learning. We need to do our learning…because I think if we’re inviting our participants, our clients to go on a development journey, if we’re not doing it ourselves, I think that’s bloody inauthentic. Like…And I’d invite everybody just to to check-in. What do I do every year for me to learn?

Um, and I think we all have to keep doing it and be humble to that… I think there’s some answers up here on the board as well in terms of that what’s the compelling reason, um, that I’m gonna go and do this learning. Um, but I think this one up here, you know, that people can collaborate together. Up here, you know, that people can collaborate together…to solve the problems and do the learning in the process of that collaboration and that working through. And then having it valued and recognized. If I was to join up lots of sentences, that’s where my brain would go.

Because I think sometimes as well, organizations, we’ve talked about this earlier, often just give l and d or learning a bit of a nod and they pay lip service to it. And there are other industries that start to recognize that if…people don’t do some learning and some development and growth, they can’t be successful and get the business strategy through. How do we go from knowledge to excel? How do we build our expertise when the robots have got the first rung of the ladder? You know, what is our role?

And what you’ve described is so brilliant. It’s such a good a good description of potentially what could happen. My perspective is is that we may have a view, but so do others. And I think we will get a good view when we come in the room together with those from universities who are working with people who are just apprenticeships, with managers, to say, actually, how do we make this work in our organization…

Thank you for joining us. What you heard today was the edited cut from the longer live conversation at the Training Journal’s sixtieth birthday. The session ran for an hour, and there were questions, side comments, microphone moments, and the natural rhythm of a room full of people who care about learning. We kept the parts that carried the strongest insight, and the rest, that stays in the room…

The message that surfaced again and again was simple enough though. Learning is still a social act. It happens when and because people talk, try things, share what they know, and work things out together. The tools will change, the pressure might change, and the expectations definitely change. The human part though, that tends to be the same…

tends to be the same. If you were in the room, then thank you for the energy that you brought to the conversation. And if you’re hearing this for the first time, I really hope it gives you something to take back into your own practice. Thank you to Kirsty Lewis and Laura Overton for being open, sharp, and honest. And thank you to Joe Cook and Training Journal for making space for conversation that could quite easily have drifted into nostalgia, but actually held a mirror up to the work that we do and will need to do in the future…

If the episode helped, please do share it with one person who shapes learning where you work. It all helps. See you

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