Episode notes
At Learning Technologies this year, Nigel Paine said AI is turning us into idiots. It was a glib line, and he admits it. But if we hand our thinking over to a chatbot and accept whatever comes back, is he wrong? In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross G is joined by Dr Nigel Paine, researcher, author, podcaster, broadcaster and consultant (he's a busy guy), to explore when AI makes us sharper, when it makes us duller, and what organizations should do about it. We discuss: Why 'cognitive offloading' becomes a problem when we offload the thinking that matters Arguing with…
Podcast
The Mindtools L&D Podcast
Mind Tools Ltd · Business · English
The Mindtools L&D Podcast is a must-listen for anyone involved in Learning and Development or Human Resources. The weekly show features regular appearances from the Mind Tools team plus special guests to get right to the heart of issues affecting the L&D and HR communities. From learning needs analy
More from The Mindtools L&D Podcast All episodes →
-
E515 · 29 Sep 2026 · 42 min
515 — Is performance the real cause of burnout?
Most advice on burnout focuses on workload, stress and work-life balance. But what if the real cause is the act we put on at work? And if it is, what does that mean for an industry built on improving performance? In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Gemma are joined by Rabih El Khodr, keynote speaker and author of The Way Out of Burnout , to explore where burnout really comes from and what L&D can realistically do about it. We discuss: why 'performance' in the theatrical sense, not overwork, drives burnout how 'survival scripts' shape the beliefs that sit upstream…
-
E514 · 22 Sep 2026 · 39 min
514 — Learning design was never about building courses
AI can build a course in minutes. That should be the best news our industry has had in years. Instead, a lot of teams are skipping what really matters: working out what the problem is, and checking whether anything changed. In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Cammy Bean are joined by Tim Slade, founder of The eLearning Designer's Academy, to explore how learning design is changing and what is left for the humans doing it. We discuss: Why AI shifts the work from 'building' to 'diagnosing and evaluating' Why order takers are exposed and performance consultants are…
-
E513 · 15 Sep 2026 · 33 min
513 — Articulate goes all in on AI: our reaction
Articulate's latest product release puts AI at the heart of it's strategy. What does this mean for learning designers? In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross G flies solo to react to Articulate's Articuland announcement, unpacking what Frontline, Nova, and the platform's pivot toward operational teams means for learning design. He discusses: What Articulate's new 'Frontline' and 'Nova' tools actually do, and why the launch has 'annoyed basically everyone' Whether the shift from 'training creator' to 'capability architect' holds up The seven things humans can still offer…
-
E512 · 8 Sep 2026 · 44 min
512 — Learner enthusiasm, AI tutors, and a neuromyth that won't die
What research papers did you read while lounging by the pool this summer? In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross D is joined by Claire and Dr Anna to review three studies that have caught our attention over the last few months. Anna's pick was Vestner and colleagues' 'A dyadic training to promote technology-related learning and development among age-diverse employees: the power of co-workers' enthusiasm' , published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology . Claire brought Kestin and colleagues' 'AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning: an RCT…
-
E511 · 1 Sep 2026 · 40 min
511 — L&D at scale: How do you support 750,000 people?
Training one person is hard. Training 750,000 people, in more than 80 countries, spread across frontline shifts, event security and executive teams, is a different problem entirely. In this week's episode of The Mindtools L&D Podcast , Ross G and Claire Gibson are joined by Brent O'Bryan, Senior Vice President of Global Training and Talent Development at Allied Universal, to explore what L&D looks like at genuinely massive scale. We discuss: Why 750,000 employees are never one audience How to choose between the LMS, the classroom and virtual training The role of AI and automation in training…
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
