Tag: learning and development

Categories
Learning Strategy

These 3 Frameworks Make Me a Better L&D Pro (and Human)

God damn AI, am I right?

It’s everything, everywhere, all at once, and kinda feels like a chokehold at times, or maybe that’s just me.

Yes, I have contributed to this myself in my domain of learning. I love to endlessly explore how modern technology can enhance and amplify human learning, but these AI bros on social media are making it hard for me to keep enjoying that.

Nonetheless, while AI is cool, sexy and is an integral part of the infrastructure of how work and learning are done, we have more to life than those two little letters.

So, I thought what better way to bring some balance to AI everything than by sharing some good old-fashioned analogue tools that any human can plug and play.

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1/ How to find your purpose in the noise of life

A diagram illustrating the Japanese concept of Ikigai, depicting four overlapping circles labeled 'What you love,' 'What you are good at,' 'What the world needs,' and 'What you can be paid for,' with 'Ikigai' at the center, representing a reason for being.

There’s a lot of noise in the world.

We compare ourselves to others we shouldn’t, fear the tech takeover and continue to be glued to sensationalist headlines curated by outlets that position themselves as ‘news’.

It’s tough, and I feel it too.

Before the tidal wave of AI, ‘purpose at work’ used to be one of the top drivers in both L&D and employee engagement strategies. It’s fallen to the side in the rush to jump on the AI bandwagon, yet, it feels like a crisis of purpose could be on the rise.

If AI is threatening to do everything that we do, where does that leave me and you?

It’s for that reason that purpose both at work and in real life is having more of a moment.

A 2025 Deloitte survey across 44 countries with 24,000 participants uncovered that 89% of Gen Z and 92% of Millennial respondents class purpose as paramount to job satisfaction. We see this backed up in research from Gallup, where they discovered that employees with a strong sense of purpose are 5.6x more engaged with work than those with low purpose.

So, bottom line…purpose, meaning, or whatever you label it, is incredibly important in work and life.

The natural question becomes: ‘How do I define my purpose?’, a big question, but one only you can answer. I shared a few strategies that have worked for me in this pursuit in a recent edition of my newsletter. I’m not saying they’re ‘the way’, but they’re ‘a way’.

2/ Would you pay to use your own L&D product?

Graphic outlining five key questions for evaluating a learning and development (L&D) product as a subscription service, including topics like market fit, customer discovery, retention, human-centered design, and a reality check.

DRAMA…

But I feel like it has to be said, as it is the ultimate test in my opinion.

If you’re not prepared to cough up, let’s say, $100 a year to use your L&D product, then don’t expect your workforce to do it.

This is the same question I ask when crafting my products and services. We each vote with our time, attention and money. It’s the ultimate compliment for someone to say ‘yes’ to all three.

I can sleep at night knowing I say YES to these.

I encourage you to reflect on the same at the start of every year when everyone talks about ‘Learning Strategy’.

Don’t just focus on strategy, understand the value.

Ask your whole team, if this was a paid product, would we all pay to use it?

The answer to this is everything you need to know.

Dropbox, the cloud storage provider, was created in this way. Drew Houston, the CEO, was so frustrated with existing solutions that he built his own. He pays for it, and it turns out millions would pay for it too.

If you wouldn’t buy your own product, why should anyone else?

P.S. Get more on this and my 8 counter-intuitive questions to ask at your next L&D team strategy meeting in the members-only edition of my newsletter.

3/ The simple skill-building strategy to stay relevant

Graphic with the title 'A No-BS Approach to Skills' and three questions about skill relevance, including 'What skills are expiring?', 'What skills do I need to evolve?', and 'What are the emerging skills I can get ahead of?'

Ahh skills…why do we insist on making it so hard?

Our industry is built to support best in class skills, yet we find so many ways to make it complicated with complex terminology like oncologies, taxonomies and the latest ‘skill-based systems’, whatever that means.

I feel exhausted just reading that last sentence.

It can be simpler, it should be simpler.

Part of my rituals at the beginning of the year involves analysing my skillset, but with none of the complex tools our industry chucks at us. Instead, I use something much simpler to ensure I have the most cutting-edge skills to do what I do, and keep ahead of the pack.

This is what I do.

I grab a notebook or open a doc and do the following:

  • List my current high-level skills
  • The emerging technology, trends and challenges in my industry

Then, I ask these questions:

  1. What skills are expiring and no longer serve me and/or the world today?
  2. What skills do I need to evolve to meet the demands of today?
  3. What are the emerging skills I can get ahead of?

Yes, it’s that simple.

You can call me crazy, but I believe you could graft this onto a much larger population of a workforce, too. We’re often convinced that it all needs to be complex to be valuable, but that’s not right.

Sometimes the simple things can have the biggest impact.

Final thoughts

Ok, that’s it for this one, friend.

Expect more analogue and digital tools to keep coming your way. At the end of the day, we all know that any tool is only good in the hands of a competent human.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Skills

When did we lose the love of doing the work?

I have a confession…I like to work.

Yet, I find myself in rare company these days as so many seek to use AI to ‘do the work’ instead of collaborating to do ‘your best work’.

I think that’s gonna be a big problem and I have some thoughts on that.

Before GPT

The first time I used a generative AI tool was back in early 2023 when a colleague introduced me to a platform called GPT 2.5 from, at the time, a little known company called OpenAI.

ChatGPT didn’t exist yet.

This was it’s basic form before we experienced life through a prompt bar. The only people who were playing around at this point were nerds like me. After I got around the not so friendly interface, I saw the impact of this tech’s early potential.

At that time, I kept thinking this would be a great way to collaborate with technology to do better work.

What I couldn’t see at that point, or perhaps didn’t want to recognise, is humanities desire for instant gratification and the obsession to outsource/delegate every piece of work. The current AI marketing from all corners of the industry leans on this sense of ‘work is bad, so let AI do it for you’. I know that sounds like some weird slogan from a commercial in the 60’s.

The purpose of work

I get a great deal of value from my AI tool stack.

Perhaps I’m the weird one but my focus with AI is to help me to my best work, not outsource it.

The work, very much like learning, is where the hard stuff happens.

The ‘aha’ moments you would never have conceived without the focused effort, the seemingly unrelated events that craft a connective bridge of ideas which lead to something incredible.

My industry of workplace learning has/had a saying “Learning is the work and the work is learning” – its something like that.

It seems like too many of us have fallen out of love with doing the work.

Again, the problem isn’t AI, it’s us.

Our intentions have become skewed in the promise of an era where an artificial intelligence will do anything and everything for you. Yet, we rarely sit back to ask “Just because we can, does it mean we should?”, and even if we can, do we really want to?

Doing ‘the work’ is a big part of purpose for many.

Purpose, meaning and fulfilment is a dumpster on fire that is quickly rolling across society as we race to delegate, automate and outsource everything in the pursuit of “reclaiming time” or “Being efficient”.

We may not see it now, but its coming.

A bit of effort, struggle and focus is not bad for you, so don’t discount “Doing the work”.

“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems and that’s a big mistake.” – Frank Wilczek

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Artificial intelligence

3 Ways L&D Actually Adds Value In AI Adoption

L&D teams trying to and/or being responsible for total company AI adoption is a fools errand.

We both know this is stupid, yet I see too many instances of companies trying to “train” their way into successful AI adoption.

Of course, L&D teams alone aren’t going to make any organisation achieve meaningful AI adoption (however you measure that). Yet, we do have a part to play, and recognising where we can best support is critical.

So, lets explore Where L&D Can Support Meaningful AI Adoption.

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There’s a ton of talk about AI adoption.

It’s odd because the validation of “adoption” has many definitions, dependent on the context and environment. The common pitfall is to measure adoption as ‘use of AI tools’ alone.

As we know, with previous technology, usage alone doesn’t mean meaningful adoption.

Setting what adoption looks like in your organisation is not a task for the L&D team.

Yet, we have an opportunity to contribute to long-term and meaningful adoption of AI across workforces as part of a wider collaboration in a community.

Let’s talk about that…

It takes more than access

Let’s go beyond the veil of bullshit we see online.

Access to an AI tool alone means nothing, and putting on one hour lunch and learns to “make people learn AI” is a comical up-skilling strategy.

If you’re a long-time reader, you’ve heard me become a broken record when I talk about what it takes to nurture meaningful and long-term change. We have much to consider with context, culture and constraints in each environment. No two workplaces are the same, that’s why the cookie-cutter “adoption frameworks” make me laugh.

They’re a good point of inspiration, but you shouldn’t follow them like a strict set of instructions.

Saying that, what is it we need to consider beyond tools?

People, Systems and Tools

As you’ve probably guessed, launching new technology and tools alone rarely leads to meaningful adoption.

There’s a bigger ecosystem at play.

We have to consider:

1/ People

Where are people at today, and how do we meet them?

Everyone will have a different understanding, maturity and receptiveness to something new and unknown. In AI’s case, we have a mix of emotions from “will this take my job” to “I want it to do all this stuff I hate doing”.

The most difficult part of a change process is people, because we’re all so unpredictable.

2/ Systems

Quite simply, how we work today.

What are the tried, tested and trusted conscious and unconscious systems we have in place? This covers both how we execute tasks and how we think about executing those tasks (deep, I know).

We each follow different types of systems in our day to day.

Understanding what these are and how AI will impact those is key to this change.

3/ Tools

The part you’re most likely more familiar with.

Here, we should consider the tools in use today alongside new ones being deployed, and how to bridge the gap in both understanding and knowing when and where to deploy them.

Too many forget the ‘when and where’ part at their own peril.

Where you can add value

A diagram illustrating the Two Dimensions of the AI Talent Horizon Framework, showing the stages of AI adoption (Tool-based adoption, Workflow transformation, Agent-led orchestration) and their impacts on tasks, talent, and teams.
Source: BCG

For us to recognise where we can provide support and drive value, we must recognise what’s changing.

I think this framework from BCG can help recognise the moments where performance support is most needed with AI transformation.

They propose it for navigating AI transformation at scale, and through an L&D lens, I see this as a conversation point of what to map against when focusing on how best to support workforces.

It’s built on two key dimensions:

1️⃣ AI Maturity

It progresses from tool-based adoption by individuals to workflow transformation, to full, agent-led orchestration. Most organisations, and even teams within them, operate across multiple stages at once, not in a linear path.

2️⃣ Workforce Impact

This spans how tasks are executed, to what skills are needed, to how teams are structured, to how organisational culture must evolve to support new ways of working.

While this covers the wider transformation AI brings across businesses, it acts as a roadmap for L&D.

A roadmap is often what we need because it’s not uncommon for senior leaders to treat “training” (as they call it) as a boomerang that’s thrown at will when they decide people need to know stuff.

The framework above provides a view of where the friction/pain points/ problems exist in the cycle of change. That’s where we should focus.

Map it out

I mentioned before not to blindly follow frameworks, and that advice is the same here.

This view from BCG is a useful foundation for each of us to think about “where can we add value”, but it will look different for each environment.

So, I’d recommend you map out what your organisational journey looks like today.

Explore the 3 pillars of tasks, talent and teams across your business and how/where AI is starting to and might impact these. It’s here that you will uncover the friction and pain points where we can be of most service.

Some of that will be through tooling, no doubt. Yet, I feel pretty safe in saying you’ll be spending a good deal of your time navigating changes within people and systems.

Final thoughts

I’m going to leave it here for now, folks.

There’s much to say, of course, but only so much attention span I can ask you to give.

I’m thinking of expanding some of this thought into a long-form video. If that sounds like something you’d like to see, let me know.

In the meantime, some additional resources to explore on this include:

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Learning Technology

My 7 Best Thoughts on Learning, Life and Technology From 2025

I wrote 156,000 words across 52 editions to 5,000 people in my newsletter across 2025.

These thoughts might not be the most popular according to my stats, but they’re the ones I believe are the most meaningful and that I enjoyed writing.

Ready?

Here we go…

1/ The Anatomy of A Modern L&D Team

Now, I update this article every year.

I call it an article but its more like a playbook for the modern L&D leader. I’ve been publishing a new edition of this every year to help leaders craft a team, skills and tech stack to navigate today’s world.

In 2025, it had its biggest update.

And yes, AI had a lot to do with that, yet it goes beyond technology.

In the almost unstoppable AI takeover this year one thing became clear to me, the human element is more crucial than ever.

Read more

2/ Everything L&D Teams Need To Know About AI Agents

2025 was supposed to be the year of AI agents – but was it?

I’m not so sure.

This time last year, every tech and AI CEO preached that 2025 would be the year AI agents hit the big time. While I’m not convinced the hype delivered, I do believe these will become important parts of the work ecosystem in the years ahead.

Yet, something that grinds my gears is when a lot of social media gurus try to confuse and deceive the every day human on what exactly AI agents are.

So, that led to me creating this mini-guide for L&D to understand AI agents with out the BS, and explore how they can impact and amplify work as we know it.

Read more

3/ The Dangers Of Accepting What You See Online

This isn’t exclusively an L&D thing, yet I really wanted to say something about the state of what I see (and I’m sure you do) online.

The tipping point for me came when I saw one too many so called ‘L&D influencers’ continually spread misinformation through clickbaity headlines about research they didn’t actually read.

There’s a reason you should read beyond the headline.

And with the 2025 word of the year being claimed by “Rage bait”, I believe we need to look deeper into what we see, hear and read in online spaces.

If you want to discover why being a Skeptical hippo could improve your mind, ability to learn and your emotions, then this one is for you, dear reader.

Read more

4/ How AI Is Redefining the Way We Assess Learning

Ok, I’m big on the future of learning not focusing on recall with stupid end of course tests and quizzes, but shifting to human reasoning.

The catalyst for this? Yes, you guessed it…AI.

In this one, I propose that now is the time to ditch the memory games in place of true activities that nurture human intelligence through the use of modern tech solutions.

If you fancy shaking things up in 2026, the come join me in this one.

Read more

5/ Why Skill Erosion is a Real Problem That No one Can Ignore

I kinda think of this post as a sequel to my analysis on “The Hidden Impact of AI on Your Skills”.

Somehow, it’s been a year since I hit publish on that one.

The message of that piece was to think deeply about the over-reliance we will easily slip into with AI, and how easy it will be to convince ourselves we’re learning how to do something, when in reality, AI is doing it for us.

A year later, I only see more activity, which has amplified both.

That’s not to say there are not those who are rejecting total delegation to AI and those finding the balance between artificial and human intelligence.

As society obsesses over what it gains from AI, perhaps we should be asking what we lose, too.

Read more

6/ How To Stop AI From Hijacking Your Thinking

Let’s be honest, we’re all using AI in our day to day in someway, and that’s a good thing.

It’s an incredible piece of technology in the right hands, of course.

But as more of the online world becomes AI-ified, you must ask: Are you thinking with AI, or is AI shaping your thinking?

In this kinda mind-bending article, we explore what happens to human thinking when so many outsource it to an artificial construct.

Read more

7/ Where L&D Adds Real Value In The AI Noise

Let’s end it on a positive one, shall we?

I love learning, and I’ve loved my L&D career. We add so much value in many situations and that’s what keeps me writing more words every week.

While AI is changing the world, I don’t see it replacing human learning and those who work in organisations working to amplify that. It will look different but it won’t die (fyi, human learning will never die).

There’s been a ton of talk about AI adoption the last two years

It’s odd because the validation of “adoption” has many definitions dependent on the context and environment. The common pitfall is to measure adoption as ‘use of AI tools’ alone.

As we know with previous technology, usage alone doesn’t mean meaningful adoption.

Setting what adoption looks like in your organisation is not a task for the L&D team.

Yet, we have an opportunity to contribute to long term and meaningful adoption of AI across workforces as part of a wide collaboration in a community.

Lets talk about that.

Read more

Final thoughts

Choosing your best work is always hard, and I’m sure if you asked me to pick again a week from now, I might have a different combination

But for now, this is it.

Hopefully, I can keep talking about these topics in more detail with you across the next year, both here and in the weekly Steal These Thoughts newsletter.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.

Categories
Career Development

How You Can Build a ‘100 Million Dollar’ Skillset

Let me throw a big question your way.

Are you working on building your 100-million-dollar skills?

I’m not saying these skills will magically deposit a cool $100 million in your bank account tomorrow (but wouldn’t that be something?).

The term “100-million dollar skills” isn’t about actual dollar value (sorry).

It’s a metaphor borrowed from Alex Hormozi to describe the ultra-valuable skills that can elevate your career opportunities and overall wealth. It’s about focusing on the quality of skills, not just quantity.

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Why High-Value Skills Matter

Historically, everyone used to craft better opportunities with fancy job titles.

Thankfully, the world has changed.

Niche skills make you stand out, consider these your career currency.

They’re the skills that separate you from the pack. I’m talking about the way you communicate, your ability to think critically, make sound judgments, and how you work intelligently with AI.

Why focus on high-value skills?

I’d hope the answer to this is obvious but I’ll play ball anyway.

Like money, you can compound these skills to unlock better opportunities further down the road. We’re playing an infinite game in a finite space after all. Think of it as investing in a high-yield stock that keeps giving back yearly. Building skills in high demand ensures that you are a key player in your field with an advantage very few possess.

As Tim Ferriss said: “Don’t try to be one of, be the only”.

The 100 million dollar skills principle in action

Speaking of Tim Ferriss, he’s a good example to explore on this.

For those who don’t know, Tim is the popular author and I suppose ‘productivity/self-help consultant’ of the 4-hr books, and his podcast.

Tim’s career began in technology startups in Silicon Valley, a highly competitive environment where efficiency and rapid learning are crucial.

Although he found early success, Ferriss was overwhelmed by overwork and stress, pushing him to seek more efficient ways to manage his time and productivity.

Recognising the need for a change, Ferriss started focusing on what he terms “meta-learning”, a skill of learning how to learn efficiently and effectively.

He explored various techniques for time management, productivity, and personal optimisation, aiming to work smarter, not harder. This exploration led to the development of the “4-Hour” concept, which he first applied to his personal health and fitness routines.

I’ve always struggled to clearly define what Tim actually does.

His skill has always felt like ‘Tim Ferris’ because he’s the only one doing the many things he does in the way he does them. Meta-learning sounds much better, though.

How Tim unlocked unique opportunities with niche skills

Ferriss’s breakthrough came with the publication of “The 4-Hour Workweek”.

A book that encapsulated his principles of lifestyle design and productivity. The book, which details how to outsource life tasks, automate business processes, and design an ideal lifestyle, struck a chord with a global audience tired of the traditional 9-to-5 grind.

Including me, back in 2015.

The success of “The 4-Hour Workweek” transformed Tim from a stressed entrepreneur into a leading voice in life hacking (do people still use this word?) and personal productivity.

His ability to distill complex subjects into actionable advice proved to be a high-value skill, setting him apart from other self-help authors.

Especially at the time because many self-help authors acted like gurus, where as Tim adopted a professor approach of showing, not just telling.

Building on his success, Tim continued to expand his niche skills into other areas, including cooking (“The 4-Hour Chef”) and fitness (“The 4-Hour Body”). Each project leveraged his meta-learning skills, showing others how to master complex skills quickly and efficiently.

He also launched a popular podcast, “The Tim Ferriss Show” where he interviews world-class performers from diverse areas to share their experience.

This podcast has run for over a decade with millions of listeners.

Today, Tim Ferriss is recognised not just for his books and podcast but for his unique approach to learning and productivity.

Like I said, he’s kinda known for doing Tim Ferris stuff which no one else is even attempting.

His mastery of meta-learning, combined with his skill in communicating these concepts to a broad audience, has not only built his career but showcases the power of niche skills in creating a successful and influential career.

The 9-5 example

You might read the above example and think “That’s cool but I’m not going to be able to do that”.

I totally get that. Tim is in the 1% of that category.

So, what could this look like for us in the 9-5 game? 

Let me tell you the story of my pal, Dave. He’s a great guy and works a 9-5 (probably a few more hours here and there) like most of us.

On the surface, you might not think Dave is killing it in the Career Game.

But in reality, he’s crafted a set of skills which has turned him into a in-demand consultant able to command an annual salary of up to $150k. How is he doing this you ask? AI, quantum physics, world class heart surgeon??

No – his skills are niche in Excel and data visualisation.

Were you expecting something sexier? Most people do. Dave is not doing anything revolutionary. He discovered early in his career that people are terrified of excel.

They love the data output and beautiful visualisations, yet seeing rows induced a sense of doom.

Dave didn’t see doom here, he saw opportunity.

He told me “I saw an opportunity to scale something I could do well and tolerate what others couldn’t”. He quickly found his skills in-demand in his first organisation because no one else wanted to tame the beast of excel.

Dave became the Excel and data king 👑.

It turns out, that people will pay kings very well. You could do this too, as could I. Everyone has access to and uses Excel. We all produce data in many apps, yet most of us suck at it. Dave understood that and built his 100-million dollar skillset around that.

You can do this in any job and industry with the millions of apps we each use.

Let’s unpack the blueprint to do that together ↓

How to identify your High-Value Skills

Identifying which skills can catapult your career into that $100-million valuation starts with a good look at your current job and industry.

Ask yourself:

  • What skills are most admired and rewarded in my field?
  • Which abilities do top performers in my sector possess that I can develop?
  • How do my unique insights and capabilities stand out?

The idea is to zero in on skills that add significant value to your work and enhance your unique selling proposition.

Whether it’s exceptional project management, innovative problem-solving, or cutting-edge tech proficiency, these are the skills that can define a high-value career.

4 ways to compound these High-Value Skills

  1. Focused Learning: Pick one skill at a time to develop. Trying to master multiple skills simultaneously often leads to mediocrity. If critical thinking is your target, dedicate time to courses, books, and activities that enhance that skill specifically.
  2. Practical Application: Apply what you learn in real-world scenarios. If you’re improving your tech skills, work on projects that allow you to use new tools. Real-world application cements learning far more effectively than theory alone.
  3. Feedback and Iteration: Seek feedback from peers and mentors. Understand how your skills are perceived and where you can improve further.
  4. Network and Collaborate: Engage with others who excel in areas you aspire to master. Networking isn’t about swapping business cards anymore. It’s about exchanging ideas and strategies that can help refine your own skills.

Final Thoughts

Building your 100-million dollar skills isn’t about adding more to your plate.

Be brutally specific on the 3 – 5 skills that can make the difference in your industry or even cross-industry. Start today, focus deeply, and create your own opportunities.

Oh, and be like Dave.

Before you go… 👋

If you like my writing and think “Hey, I’d like to hear more of what this guy has to say” then you’re in luck.

You can join me every Tuesday morning for more tools, templates and insights for the modern L&D pro in my weekly newsletter.