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Wonderfully irrational people
You may have read about the passing of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel Prize winning economist. His work—and the larger field expanding what we know about behavior change— is deeply relevant to how we design and deliver learning programs in the social sector space. Our goal is to influence how people do things over…
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Life and death and everything in between
I aim to write once a month, sharing tips, tools, and insights at the intersection of adult learning and nonprofits. I apologize that I missed February. I’ll explain in a moment, but mostly I’ve been busy teaching and working on instructional design projects on such interesting topics: philanthropy, drug and alcohol recovery, fiscal sponsorship, and…
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Take time to define the words that matter
In 2021, Anne Wallestad wrote “The Four Principles of Purpose-Driven Board Leadership.” In 2022, Hubert Joly wrote the HBR article “5 Principles of Purposeful Leadership.” An internet search for “purposeful leadership” yields a long list of more articles, programs, and organizations with this kind of leadership at their core. Purposeful leadership seems important. What…
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The One Degree Difference
At 99°C, water is very hot, but it’s not boiling. When the temperature increases by just one degree to 100°C, water begins to boil, transitioning from a liquid to a gas (steam). This one-degree change marks a significant state change with different properties and uses. A plane that sets out from New York to San Francisco…
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Learning in the flow of work
When people need to know something, we tend to land on the idea that they need a training. (Board members aren’t doing their job, so let’s send them to a training.) When we have something to teach, we imagine the workshop or webinar that we might create. (I am an expert on leadership, so I’m going…
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How will I know? An evaluation mindset
To the tune of “How will I know” by Whitney Houston There’s a course I know, it’s the one I dreamed upWorkbooks and slides, bullet points I really love, mmm-hmmTime—I lose control, can’t seem to get enough, uh-huhWhen I reach the end, tell me, did they really learn? Ooh, how will I know? (don’t trust…
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What is the recipe to help people learn, remember, and take action?
“Learning new things for learning’s sake, without actually doing something new or different or better, is simply another form of entertainment.” – Endurance Learning’s Training Activity Cookbook by Brian Washburn & Lauren Wescott Our fall series kicks off on September 26 with training expert Brian Washburn leading “A Recipe for More Effective, Engaging Training Design.”…
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Thinking out loud about learning across time
How do we apply lessons from the past to make progress in the future when things in the present keep evolving? I’ve been thinking about this in the context of designing trainings, but it is applicable to fundraising, event planning, conference organizing, and nearly everything else we are doing in the social sector. It arose in…
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Show and tell: Projects designed to solve challenges
Summer is a great time to slow down and take stock of what we’ve been working on. Partners come to us with design challenges centered on how to help people take action on something. I want to share some of these challenges and solutions in case they might help you think about a challenge in…
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A conversation about the Nonprofit Learning Ecosystem
Truth be told, I have never worked in the corporate learning and development (L&D, as insiders call it) sector to know for sure how nonprofit learning differs. I have, however, spent hundreds of hours participating in L&D conferences, attending workshops, and listening to podcasts, and the reality of L&D programs in corporate settings feels very…
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People who manage people: Let’s set supervisors up for success
A free webinar on June 1 from 10am-11pm Pacific on how we can set people who manage people up for greater success The staff turnover that has happened over the past few years—and it still happening in many workplaces—is taking its toll on our nonprofit leaders. Executive Director’s are tired restaffing and then training new…
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Just don’t say the “S” word
Strategy. I said it. In one project, we danced around the word avoiding it valiantly because we didn’t want to scare anyone off. In two other projects, it became clear that the gerbil wheel of programming may need some “deeper thought and alignment” (did I avoid the word?). But no, we didn’t have time for…
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