Imagine a world where L&D is a driving force behind business transformation, not just a provider of training. In this episode, David James, former Disney L&D leader and current CLO of 360Learning shares why realizing this vision requires L&D to mature beyond reactive and even proactive operational models. He introduces a new L&D maturity model that lays out a clear roadmap for that shift and explains why this evolution is more urgent than ever. This conversation offers both inspiration and a practical starting point for what’s next.

Jess and David discuss

• The need for L&D to mature beyond providing learning.
• How most of the L&D profession is operating at a low level of maturity, stuck in reactive and proactive models.
• Why shifting stakeholder expectations and organizational mindsets is essential for maturing the L&D function.
• An overview of the 5 levels of a new L&D maturity model: Reactive, Proactive, Impacting, Strategic, and Transformative.
• Using this maturity model as both a vision and roadmap for the future.
• The potential a maturedL&D function has to close a $6.5 trillion skills gap.

About David James

David James is the Chief Learning Officer at 360Learning and a highly respected voice in the Learning & Development industry. With a focus on harnessing technology to drive impactful learning strategies, David is recognised as one of the top 10 global influencers in the L&D space. His expertise lies in helping organisations modernise their approach to workplace learning, ensuring measurable results and business alignment.

David is also the host of The Learning & Development Podcast, which has amassed over 500,000 downloads and ranks in the top 1% of podcasts globally. With nearly 30,000 LinkedIn followers, he continues to shape the conversation around L&D innovation and best practices, drawing on his deep experience, including his time as Director of Learning, Talent & Organisational Development at The Walt Disney Company.

Find and connect with David James

• Podcast: The Learning & Development Podcast
• LinkedIn
• Website
• Take the L&D Maturity Model Assessment

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: www.jessalmlie.com
• L&D Must Change Newsletter Sign-Up

Coming soon!

Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press later on September 2. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the virtual launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

Good feedback fuels performance and behavior change. Poor feedback does the opposite. It’s one of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolkit, yet one of the hardest to get right. In this episode, Dr. Ken Nowack and Dr. Sandra Mashihi unpack why feedback often fails, and how L&D can help leaders build the skills to deliver it in ways that actually drive results. From the neuroscience of feedback to practical models like the 3E framework and 4-quadrant approach, Ken and Sandra offer L&D professionals a clear path to elevating feedback across the organization.

What You'll hear:

• How to move beyond feedback systems to personal connections.
• Addressing the gap between leader and employee perspectives on feedback.
• A 4-quadrant model that provides guidelines for personalized performance feedback.
• The neuroscience behind both successful and painful feedback.
• The 3Es of effective performance feedback: Enlighten, Encourage, Enable.
• Cultural considerations for feedback.

About Dr. Sandra Mashihi

Dr. Sandra Mashihi is a distinguished Organizational Psychologist, keynote speaker, and author with over 20 years of experience. She is dedicated to transforming leadership behavior, building high-performing teams, and enhancing workplace relationships. As the founder of Spectra Coaching, Sandra leads with a blend of psychology and practical strategies that have successfully impacted Fortune 500 companies and leaders across industries.

About Dr. Kenneth M. Nowack

Kenneth M. Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and Senior Research Officer of Envisia Learning, Inc. Dr. Nowack received his doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Nowack is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association’s Division 13: Society of Consulting Psychology and was the former Editor-in-Chief of the Consulting Psychology Journal. He is also a member of Daniel Goleman’s Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.

Find and Connect with Sandra and Ken

• LinkedIn: Sandra Mashihi, Ken Nowack
• Websites: Sandra - www.spectracoaching.com, Ken - www.envisialearning.com
• Book: Performance Feedback Strategies: Driving Successful Behavior Change

Find and Connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: www.jessalmlie.com
• Subscribe to the L&D Must Change Newsletter

Coming Soon! Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press on September 2, 2025. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the virtual launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

Everyone’s talking about AI—but are we thinking about it the right way? In this special one-year anniversary episode, I finally dive into the AI conversation with Josh Penzell, who challenges us to see AI not as a tool, but as a teammate. This conversation isn’t about learning prompts—it’s about shifting mindsets and imagining what’s possible when we stop trying to make faster horses and start building something entirely new.

Josh and Jess Discuss

• Using AI as a collaborative team member and not a tool.
• Working with AI as a brainstorming partner to reduce cognitive load and improve creativity.
• Developing our skills working with AI, instead of spending time figuring out how to use AI.
• Thinking about AI as a student and our L&D participants as teachers.
• How AI provides an entirely new infinity point of what's possible, busting through current scarcity models and resource restrictions.
• Shifting from the traditional L&D approach focused on creating optimized, one-size-fits-all learning experiences to one that enables individualized learning.

About Josh Penzell

Josh Penzell is the VP of AI-Driven Transformation at ELB Learning and Founder and Chief Transformation Officer at Imagination Applied. He helps organizations rethink how they integrate AI—not as a tool, but as a collaborative force that enhances learning, leadership, and innovation.

With a career spanning Amazon Alexa, Zillow Rentals, and Skillsoft, Josh brings a unique perspective that blends corporate strategy with his background as a musical theater director. This fusion of disciplines led to the creation of TheaterThink®, a methodology that applies storytelling, improvisation, and systems thinking to help businesses navigate change, drive transformation, and make AI work for humans, not against them.

A sought-after speaker at industry events like ATD, Learning Technologies, and Training Industry conferences, Josh is also one of the 14% of qualified autistic professionals in corporate leadership. He is a strong advocate for neurodiversity, AI ethics, and adaptive leadership, helping organizations shift their mindset from AI as a disruptor to AI as an enabler.

Find and connect with Josh Penzell

• LinkedIn
• ELB Learning
• Email: josh@joshpenzell.com
• AI Assistant: JoshPGPT.AI

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: jessalmlie.com
• L&D Must Change Newsletter

Coming Soon! Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press on September 2, 2025. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

When does the L&D function form in an organization? What's the first order of business when it does? Today's guest, Tom Bowen, is known as the L&D pro who can get an L&D function up and running in the startup world and he's done that job over and over again. He even calls himself a "serial startup guy" for L&D. In this episode, Tom will share what it's like to be the first L&D pro hired into a small start-up business including when he's usually brought in, what he does first, and what makes working in L&D in the startup world unique.

Jess and Tom discuss

• The main focus areas for L&D in a startup.
• Key skills needed for those working in the fast-paced startup environment.
• The need to identify and prioritize all the "fires" according to which will mitigate future issues.
• How a startup's rapid growth requires the ability to scale processes and systems quickly.
• Pairing risk and volatility against the potential for large impact.
• Behaviors L&D can learn from the startup world.

About Tom Bowen

Tom Bowen has been in the talent development world since 2008 and has predominantly focused on the education and tech sectors. He is a "serial startup guy" and really thrives in creating order in the chaos that often comes with a rapidly growing organization. He is most recently at Alchemy, a blockchain infrastructure startup valued at over $10B, where he leads all things people impact and change management. Often described as a divergent thinker, Tom enjoys challenging the status quo and finds the highest ROI activities are the ones where people are finding new ways to gain leverage with their time and energy and unlock their potential.

Find and connect with Tom Bowen

• LinkedIn

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: jessalmlie.com
• L&D Must Change Newsletter

Coming Soon! Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press later this year. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

There's nothing I love more than when someone takes on an L&D role from another industry and becomes immediately confused as to why our profession functions the way it does. It provides an immediate opportunity for new ideas and conversation. This was the case for today's guest, Rashi Kakkar, when she moved from a career consulting in product management into an L&D leadership role. The result was a marriage of the two professions. One where the best pieces from each were elevated and the confusing bits eliminated. It turns out L&D can learn a lot from product management.

Rashi and Jess discuss:

• Shifting L&D from a project-based to a product-based mindset
• Organizing L&D teams around stages in the employee journey rather than siloed functions
• Embracing iterative development, frequent user testing, and ongoing refinement
• Conducting regular user discovery sessions to understand needs and challenges instead of waiting for training requests to arrive on our desks
• Tracking impact longitudinally, across the employee journey, not just from individual interventions

About Rashi Kakkar

Rashi Kakkar has two clear professional drivers: Creating human-centered products, experiences, and services and achieving organizational success and growth by unlocking human potential As a global lead within McKinsey’s Leadership Center of Excellence, Rashi is dedicated to building large-scale institutional capability through a skills-first approach. At McKinsey, she has advised Fortune 100 clients on complex strategic, operational, and organizational challenges. Rashi has successfully driven digital transformations, enhanced organizational effectiveness, and redesigned operating models, all grounded in a foundation of human-centered qualitative and quantitative research. She has also led multiple enterprise-wide agility and innovation programs to deliver impactful results.

Before joining McKinsey, Rashi worked at a boutique design thinking firm, where she developed expertise in human-centered design, experience and service design, and innovation. Earlier in her career, she gained valuable experience as a professional sports agent, specializing in talent management, sponsorship sales, and licensing and merchandising. Outside of her professional endeavors, Rashi is passionate about writing as a way to refine her thinking. She authors a bi-weekly newsletter with over 1,300 subscribers and has published more than 80 opinion pieces in leading global publications. An avid golfer, former varsity tennis player, and newly minted pickleball enthusiast, Rashi balances her professional pursuits with an active lifestyle and a love for sports.

Find and connect with Rashi Kakkar

• Newsletter: https://decksanddiapers.substack.com/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rashikakkar
• BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/rashikakkar.bsky.social
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@rashi_kakkar8
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/rashi_kakkar

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: jessalmlie.com
• L&D Must Change Newsletter

Coming Soon! Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press later this year. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

How do you feel about your LMS? If you're like most you may have a love + hate relationship with the platform. Today's guest, Sarah Mercier, found herself working with client after client trying to solve clunky LMS issues, so she threw out the LMS playbook and created an alternate tool. What does that mean for you? Well, you just might not need your LMS any longer.

Sarah and Jess discuss:

• The evolution of learning platforms
• Ongoing issues with traditional LMS systems like complexities in user access, content delivery, and data fragmentation
• The creation of the new, XCL tool, designed to solve persistent LMS problems
• XCL's ability to eliminate user logins while still tracking detailed analytics, provide flexible content types, centralize data, improve user experience, and offer cost savings
• How XCL solves challenges related to accessibility

About Sarah Mercier

Sarah Mercier, MBA, CPACC, specializes in innovative learning technology and strategic implementation of learning solutions. She is an advocate for learner-centered design and is known for her ability to translate highly technical concepts and research to real-world practice. As CEO of Build Capable, she leads a team of learning technology experts. Sarah is an author and the editor of Design for All Learners: Create Accessible and Inclusive Learning Experiences. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and business events on topics such as learning experience design, accessibility, xAPI, and learning ecosystems.

Find and connect with Sarah Mercier

• LinkedIn
• Website: Build Capable
• Email: contact@buildcapable.com
• Book: Design for All Learners: Create Accessible and Inclusive Learning Experiences

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: jessalmlie.com
• L&D Must Change Newsletter

Additional links from the episode

• XCL Tool: https://www.buildcapable.com/xcl/
• 7 Taps Microlearning: https://www.7taps.com/
• Article: LXP vs. LMS: What Are The Differences? https://www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/tip/LXP-vs-LMS-What-are-the-differences

Coming Soon! Jess's book, L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner will be published by ATD Press later this year. To be the first to get behind-the-scenes updates, early sneak peeks, and join the launch party, join Jess's email list! You'll get the L&D Must Change newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly as well as special updates on the book when available. Click here to join!

It's time to clarify the purpose of our learning programs with our stakeholders, and I mean really clarify. Not just write the learning outcomes and create an evaluation form, but zero in our stakeholders' real needs and expectations. According to today's guest, Chris Taylor, CEO of Actionable.co, taking the reins to clearly define the purpose behind the request should drive everything else we do from design through measurement. Armed with a few practical questions, a strategy for continuous alignment, and clear measures to define our next steps, we can uplevel the effectiveness and impact of our programs.

In this episode you'll hear:

• Ideas to sustain motivation after training interventions are complete
• How to shine a light on the immediate behavior change impact of learning programs, instead of only looking at lagging, longer-term data
• One key question to define what is really needed and keep stakeholders aligned and on track
• How to avoid over-complicating measurement by mapping out logic paths and measuring at multiple points
• The value of measurement for real time iteration
• Delivery practices proven to illicit behavior change rather than transfer information

About Chris Taylor

Actionable.co CEO, Chris Taylor, works at the leading edge of
learning sustainment and impact measurement for progressive
organizations.

Described once by a client as “a curious blend of Boomer and Gen-
Y”, Chris is often called upon to act as a bridge and translator between generations at work, our new state of constant change, and the impact technology has on team dynamics.

Through Actionable.co, Chris brings empirical evidence and stories to illustrate how, exactly, we measure ROI on corporate learning initiatives, and the systems to ensure every program creates lasting impact. He’s personally consulted to over 400 organizations across 6 countries, in almost any sector you can name.

In addition to being a regular speaker for both public and private events, Chris has penned over 150 articles for dozens of publications, been quoted in The National Post, Toronto Star and Globe & Mail and hosted 90+ thought leader interviews for the iTunes #2 ranked business podcast, The 21st Century Workplace.

Find and connect with Chris Taylor

• LinkedIn
• Website: Actionable.co
• Twitter (X)

Find and connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: jessalmlie.com
• Newsletter: L&D Must Change

Additional links from this episode

• Actionable Annual Insights Report
• Actionable Behavior Change Toolkit

It's time for L&D to both amp up our toolbox and become a tad more critical of our own work. Instead of adding content, we need to think about subtracting it or better yet, make changes that enable performance. Too often we prioritize activities over goals. Lavinia Mehedintu is known for this type of progressive thinking about the work of L&D, but she also believes in the necessity and power of supporting each other through changes in our profession that may feel risky.

Join us in this conversation where we discuss some of the challenges L&D must address to have a greater impact as well as how to support and empower our L&D community colleagues while we change.

In this episode:

• Shifting L&D's approach from adding to subtracting content.
• The need for L&D to take a systems thinking approach.
• L&D skills that can be applied beyond workshops.
• Reframing L&D's identity around goals vs. activities.
• Why understanding the business builds credibility and enables strategic conversation.
• Making cross-functional "friends" as a strategy for business success.
• The importance of support systems and community when building new skills, overcoming organizational resistance, and navigating change.

About Lavinia Mehedintu:

Lavinia Mehedintu has over 11 years of experience designing learning experiences across higher education, start-ups, and large enterprises. After leading an L&D team, she noticed a gap in resources tailored to L&D professionals' growth and found traditional approaches lacking the impact she was seeking. This inspired her to create Offbeat, a community where L&Ds explore their evolving roles amidst a rapidly changing world. Five years later, Lavinia combines experience design, behavior change, and technology at Offbeat to help L&Ds grow and consults with companies of all sizes on learning and behavior change initiatives.

Find and connect with Lavinia Mehedintu here:

• LinkedIn
• Offbeat (L&D Community)

Find and connect with Jess Almlie here:

• LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the L&D Must Change Newsletter
• Almlie Consulting Website