People First, Tools Second With James Gilchrist

Most training fails not because the storyboard is weak, but because the learning lands in an environment full of competing priorities and fuzzy signals. That’s the tough-love truth James Gilchrist brings to our mic as we unpack how people-first design—and authentic leadership—turns content into real performance. James’s winding path from actor and musician to L&D leader sharpened skills we often overlook: presence, narrative, and connection. Those talents power the “lightbulb moments” when knowledge becomes action, and they shape the way he builds programs that remove roadblocks and align teams.

If the phrase people first, tools second resonates with you, this conversation will give you the language, tactics, and confidence to design for impact and lead with clarity. Enjoy the episode, and if it sparks ideas, share it with a colleague—and leave a review so others can find us. Want more? Connect with James on LinkedIn and tell us your biggest blocker to removing obstacles for your team.

📢 Call-to-Action: I’d love to continue this conversation with you. You can connect with me directly on my personal LinkedIn profile here: James’ LinkedIn Page, where I share ideas on leadership, learning, and authenticity in the workplace. You can also follow my Lighthouse L&D Consulting LinkedIn page for updates, resources, and insights from my consulting work. 

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Transcript

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Welcome & Guest Introduction

Speaker 00 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the Designing with Love Podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 84 of the Designing with Love Podcast. Today's guest is James Gilchrist, founder and director of Lighthouse LD Consulting. James came to learning and leadership after careers in the arts, first as an actor and then a musician, where he learned the craft of presence and connection. About 25 years ago, he landed a role as a training manager and found another calling, helping others grow. Since then, he has partnered across industries to build programs that remove roadblocks, align teams, and put people first. James also collaborates with LD organizations like iSpring Solutions and the Learning Guild to support instructional designers and leaders worldwide. Welcome to the show, James.

Speaker 01 0:58

Thank you very much, Jackie. It's a delight to be here.

Speaker 00 1:01

Yes, thank you. I'm so glad that we connected through iSpring Learning Exchange. It's been a wonderful community and I've really enjoyed every part of it. So this is great.

Speaker 01 1:12

Well, that's music to my ears.

unknown 1:14

Yes.

Speaker 00 1:14

And I'm sure everybody that listens that's on iSpring or Learning Guild will appreciate that. So I love that. Great.

Origin Story: Arts to L&D

Speaker 00 1:22

So to start, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what inspired you to focus on designing compassionate, human-centric learning programs and performance-based learning solutions?

Speaker 01 1:33

Sure, Jackie. So I've told my origin story a few times and uh had conversations with people about uh whether or not my path into LD was deliberate or by accident. I think you hear people talk about that. Yes. Um and I and I definitely will say my path into L and D was not a straight line. Um I actually started out as an actor, as you said. Um, and I've been a musician most of my life. I continue to to perform. Um and I think that it surprised me early on to discover how much uh of the skills and experiences that I uh had in both of those roles um were transferable uh into L and D. Um the importance of presence in business, for example, um the importance of connection and the understanding of and the ability to create a compelling narrative, storytelling. Those were all skills that ended up being very transferable both to learning and development and later to leadership development. Uh it was about 25 years ago that I stepped into a training manager role, and uh I remember discovering almost immediately uh well, first I was surprised to find myself in it, uh, and then shortly thereafter, I discovered how much I loved it. Um and since that time, what has kept me engaged because uh I'm a I'm a creative person before the show we were talking about being creatives, and I know for me a lot of what that entails is uh I'm always looking to what's next. I'm always looking for what's new and different and how to keep things fresh. Um, and it wasn't the tools or even the content um that kept me engaged, it was people, uh, those light bulb moments. Um and I know you have a global audience, so I'll just say, you know, the phrase you saw the light bulb go on. Well, it refers to that moment when you're talking to someone or you're teaching someone or just experiencing something with someone, and you can suddenly see on their face, oh, I get it. It goes from being information to something that they've internalized, and they can immediately start thinking how that will apply to all different areas of their work or their life and that sort of thing. So it's those light bulb moments, like a light bulb has gone on over their head that uh have kept me going, and realizing that when leaders showed up with compassion and authenticity, their teams thrived. And that insight shifted the way I approach my work. I'm not thinking in terms of just designing programs anymore. Uh, I'm trying always to create conditions where people can

Lightbulb Moments and Purpose

Speaker 01 4:44

bring their best selves to the table.

Speaker 00 4:47

That's amazing. I love that. And I love that light bulb moment that you brought up because it made me think of a light bulb moment I had. It wasn't necessarily when I was an instructional designer, but it was before I became one. And I think you and I might have talked about this in the moment that I realized that this was the field I wanted to get into. And it was when I was working in higher education in an institution and they introduced their instructional design program. And when I looked at the email in my inbox and started looking at all the courses, and I just one after the other, as I as I went down the list, I was like, wow, this is amazing. I love it. So that was my lip bow moment. And I was just like, this is this is great. This is what I want to do. And then halfway into the master's program when I got my certificate, that's when they had an opening in the L and D department. I was like, wow, but they had a trainer position open too. And I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting. But I went back to the the ID one and that's the one I ended up getting. So yeah, when you have those light bulb moments, it's it's amazing. It transforms everything in your life, right? So that's great. Yeah. Those are I hope everybody has those at some point or another because they're great when you do have them. Yeah, that's wonderful. And so you talked a little bit about this. So over your career, you've worked on a wide range of learning programs and leadership initiatives as well. What's been some of the biggest challenges you faced in designing these programs and how have you overcome

People First, Tools Second

Speaker 00 6:14

them?

Speaker 01 6:14

So my LinkedIn profile right now says up at the top, uh, people first, tools second. Uh, and I bring that up because that was kind of a transformative realization for me, because I had spent a lot of time in my career as an instructional designer, and then a learning experience architect, and then a team leader, focused on the solutions, creating solutions, and thereby and the tools used to create them. Um, so for me, tools were really the big, you know, that was what mattered. And I was excited about tools and learning new technologies and educating my teams about those technologies and uh encouraging people to lean into those technologies. You're getting a sense of the theme here.

Speaker 00 7:07

Right.

Speaker 01 7:08

Yeah. But over time, um, and even though I I have had several initiatives in my past that I was really proud of, you know, how we solved them using tools, uh, I came to realize that the hardest challenges aren't about building the learning itself. They're about the environment that the learning lives in. I've seen programs falter not because the design was wrong, but because of conflicting priorities and siloed communication or leadership training treating that training like it was a quick fix. So, an example. Um, I once built a program that on paper checked every instructional design box, but the organization hadn't aligned their priorities, so participants were constantly being pulled in different directions. It wasn't until we paused and said, okay, what are the competing initiatives here and how do we reconcile them that the program started to work? And that taught me that sometimes the most important part of our job is helping stakeholders surface and solve organizational challenges before we ever launch a course.

Speaker 00 8:32

Absolutely, right. And that brings to mind the importance of needs assessment, right? That we we should not skip that

Environment Over Content: Real Barriers

Speaker 00 8:40

needs assessment because that tells you right away, is it an organizational issue or is it a training issue? Uh, and I teach this to my students all the time. Please do not skip that process in your projects. Please do not do that, because then you get all the way to if you're using Addy, you know, as your as your basic framework, and then you get all the way to implementation, and then you go, oops, that's a that's a big oops. You don't you can do yeah, if yeah, yeah.

Speaker 01 9:07

Wouldn't wouldn't you say also that a great lesson for anyone in instructional design is learning that having those frameworks, having those processes, having those mechanisms with which you engage other humans, your stakeholders, your business owners, your team members, um, are extre that they're extremely valuable, and without them, many times you're not quite sure where you would start. But they by themselves are not the solution. You can follow them to the letter and still discover that they did not accomplish what they were intended to accomplish. And sometimes that happens because what you weren't aware of came up to bite you, and it wasn't something you thought was relevant, it wasn't even something you thought to look at. So what I like to say is use those tools, follow a process, be consistent, but never forget that everything is happening in a human environment. And nine times out of ten, there's more than one group of people or more than one business or more than one competing priority that is simultaneously going on behind the scenes. And you cannot simply bury your head in the sand and think that if you just focus laser sharp on this problem or this project, that you'll be safe, for lack of a better word. Right. Oh, I f I find myself asking in the in the past and in the present, depending on what I'm doing, but I have found myself asking many questions during those processes that you just named that people were surprised by. And it's because they didn't have anything to do with the project parameters, they didn't have anything to do with the learner needs, but they had more to do with what is the environment that all this is supposed to happen in, and what do you project the company will look like at the time that this gets launched? And what else is going on in your life, Joe? You've come to us, you've told us there's this problem to solve, and all our conversations have been focused on this, but just give me a heads up. What else is going on for you? Because how many times have you been engaged full steam ahead in a project that literally just ends in the middle before it's ever seen the light of day?

Speaker 00 11:54

Right.

Speaker 01 11:54

Because resources got reallocated or the need that was identified just went away because

Needs Analysis and Stakeholder Alignment

Speaker 01 12:03

this other thing developed much faster than anyone anticipated. These are the things that as a team manager and as a director of learning, you need to make yourself and your team aware of. Because, like I said, most roadblocks aren't technical, they're human. The good news is that human problems are always solvable. It's just the mistake to forget that everything we're doing is happening in a human environment.

Speaker 00 13:09

That's so true, right? Yeah, and it that makes me think of what I do every day with working on higher education curriculum. And we work with a variety of people. Like you mentioned, you have the stakeholders, we have people at the college, then we have the subject matter experts, which are usually the faculty that have that subject area expertise, right? And then we have all the people in my department, and we don't work at the same company. Um, they work at the institution, and then curriculum design development, we work at the we work for the educational partner part of it. So a little bit different, but we have that partnership together. So we work in conjunction with that. So we meet the needs of the university. And sometimes new subject matter experts uh or even people that are new to the college, they don't understand the process and you have to explain it to them and say, here's what we're trying to do. And it's not us uh as a department trying to stifle your creativity. No, we're trying to make sure that things are the best for the learner, for the students, because we don't want it to be a hodgepodge of different things and then they don't know where to go or what to do. So we're doing it in their best interest to make sure that in the program and each course that they take in that program is a progression, right? And just like with training, we want to make sure if they're doing a training program that it's the best, uh, that it's that training program has that progression and that sequence. So we always give them, you know, ultimately it's up to them. If they want to put something in the course that we know is not gonna work, I'm gonna let them know here's my take on it and here's how you can improve it from an instructional design perspective. But if they say no to what I'm saying, I'm okay. Yeah, that will test it out and see how it goes. You know, if it goes well, great. But if I was wrong, I'll I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. But if they come back later and say, the failure rate was horrible and all this stuff, then I'm like, well, maybe we should revisit that, right? And see, you know, how they do. But yeah, it's it's interesting because you would think faculty would understand that, right, James, that they would understand that process, or even those that do the training, that they would understand that, but they don't they don't always understand what it takes to make good training in good curriculum. So it's very interesting. Like I saw an assignment yesterday that I reviewed, and the sub one of the subject matter experts, you'll appreciate this, um, had made changes to the assignment. And the curriculum developer had me look at the changes and said, How does this look? And three out of the five prompts had um multiple things within the prompt, all muddled together in a sentence. So it said, well, first of all, it said in one prompt, it said, identify and apply this this thing. And I was like, wait a minute, if they can identify, they can apply because identifies lower order thinking skills and applies higher order thinking skills. So you're asking them to do two things in one. So yeah, and then one had three different things in one uh one prompt. So I was like, break it up into three. You're asking them to do two three different things. So yeah, we we tend to want to dump, they want to dump everything. Have you noticed that? That they want to just dump it all on the learner at once.

Speaker 01 16:31

Oh, that question is one of my top five all-time questions that I find myself having with subject matter experts. Uh, the question goes something like So, of all of this information, what would you say is the most important? And of course, the first answer is always everything. There's no

Asking Better Questions of SMEs

Speaker 01 16:54

prioritization, there's no awareness that even like lower and higher levels of thinking, that some of the information implies, or some of the training implies previous knowledge or previous ability to apply the knowledge. Um, so you spend a lot of time refining the answer um in the question why is a question that every instructional designer should get very comfortable asking, and asking more than once, and often asking more than once about the same question. In other words, ask someone the for the answer to a question, and then ask them again and get them to further refine and explain and expound on what they are telling you, because only then do you fully understand their the origin of their objection. Most of the time it's an objection, right? If it wasn't an objection or an obstacle, you wouldn't be focused on it because you wouldn't need to work around it, right? But someone says no or someone says yes to everything, anything that doesn't allow you to further refine um your solution for the actual needs of the end user or learner begs further investigation.

Speaker 00 18:19

That's so true. Absolutely. Yeah, and that that brings up kind of the next question about that authenticity, right? How we need to be authentic in the work we do. So kind of this was one of the questions that that you wanted me to bring up, and I think it was so good. So I added this. So kind of that turning point. So, how did authenticity become a strategy for you, not just a value in what you do every day in your your position?

Speaker 01 18:45

Well, I think that um authenticity as you would describe it in a leader, um

Authentic Leadership as a Strategy

Speaker 01 18:56

comes can be identified a lot of different ways. Um but they all tie in one way or to another um to performance. They all tie to performance. Um so for example, if you are a leader and you are new or nervous about how to be more authentic um and what that even means, and what kind of effect you can expect it to have on your team. Um I recommend thinking of three C's. You're creating opportunities, you're clearing obstacles, and you're communicating transparently. And then maybe the fourth C is with compassion, right? Um I discovered that giving a simple framework to leaders um was helpful. And what do we mean by create opportunities? Well, you look for ways to define desired outcomes for your team or for an employee and then you give room to own them, meaning less prescriptive, less performative, and more conceptual. Where are we going with this? And allow someone to bring themselves into the room, if you will. Um so creating opportunities is one way to immediately get on the same page with a team or someone a direct report. And second, the act of clearing obstacles. We hear a lot in leadership about how leading isn't something you do when it a plot relates to people, so much as it is being out in front of the people that are working, kind coming along behind you, and it's your job to look out like a scout in a military operation. Whoever's whoever's way out in front has a chance to see where the enemy may lie, where the hidden chasms may be revealed, or where an or a large opposing force may be uh approaching from, what direction are they approaching from?

Speaker 00 21:29

Right.

Speaker 01 21:29

So and if you want to bring it back to you know a team environment and a business environment, you simply if you're not sure what the obstacles are, meaning you sometimes it's very difficult for leaders to look ahead because they are so focused on managing those that they lead. They're so focused on the tasks that everyone is being asked to perform that they're kind of looking backwards.

The Three C’s: Create, Clear, Communicate

Speaker 01 21:54

It's like a marching band conductor, like everyone else is going forward, but the leader is actually looking backwards and waving the baton and you know, not so clear on where they're about to go, but very keen on making sure everyone stays in time, you know. Um so if you're not sure, meaning if you don't feel like you have all the right uh easy to spot opportunities for looking ahead, the simplest thing to do is ask your team. The people who are doing the work, you go to them and you say, What's in your way? Find out what obstacles are they already counting, or what that the what obstacles are are they already encountering? And if it's something you can control, well then get it out of the way. Figure out how you can remove that obstacle. Um and as soon as you say it that way, the implication is clear and the impact is clear. I mean, if you've got a team of five people and they all have one obstacle or another, and you are actively pushing them aside, everyone speeds up. So how much faster is your organization able to perform and your team able to produce? And and how much quicker will you understand what obstacles are likely to show up tomorrow? Right? Because it's our understanding of the obstacles we've cleared today that are sort of the the tip of the hat, you know, they're the they're the the the clue, if you will, as to what you should probably keep looking out for. And third, you want to communicate transparently. Uh, I was actually on a webinar with Matt Gertson um about leadership today, and the con the question came up from someone in the audience about how to communicate transparently, because there are so many times in a business environment where you feel like you are being given prescriptive instructions of what you can say and what you can't say, what you can share, what you can't share, that sort of thing. But providing context, outlining constraints, and talking about the decisions in process with your team in plain plain language can go miles towards uh eliminating the kind of stuckness I like that stuckness that the team is feeling because they don't have a clear sense of what is going on. Like that's the big the that's the the question you hear when things start to feel stuck is what is going on? That's yeah. So you need to figure out how to answer that. Right. Absolutely. So communicating with transparency and eliminating obstacles and creating opportunities. Um every leader will have a slightly different approach. They will all be in a slightly different place in their management journey. Um one leader I coached was micromanaging from a good place. Quality was important, the reputation, net promoters,

From Micromanage to Agency and Trust

Speaker 01 25:24

all of that mattered. Um, but micromanaging wasn't actually getting the results she wanted. So we replaced task-by-task check-ins with a weekly blockers-only conversation and a shared definition of what done was. Like what is what could what when is something done. Um and simply shifting to that sort of leadership style and that uh sort of like opportunity creating, right? You're where you are you're removing blocks, but you're also encouraging the employee to sort of step into the I'm going to solve the problem mode, right? You're giving them some agency. Right.

unknown 26:12

Right.

Speaker 01 26:13

Agency is implied when micromanaging goes away. There's this lovely sort of sort of self-empowerment that comes into the picture. Because frankly, it's a mistake to think of people as leaders and followers. It's a mistake to think of anyone in an organization as anything other than a member of the largest team. Because at every level, individually, we are all emboldened and have passion about success at that which has been laid out for us or we have decided is what success looks like. Everyone is in fact motivated to move in the right direction. The problem is when we worry too much about whether or not people will move, right? It's that needing to crack the whip, if you will. Yeah. But when you allow, and when in this case, they changed this mode of interaction to one where a short conversation where basically it became clear that it was for the leader. It wasn't so that the employee could report and satisfy the leader, the manager. It was so the manager understood what they needed to be getting out of the employee's way. There were so many little problems that would otherwise have become long conversations in this micromanagement situation that just disappeared. They were dealt with or they never materialized. They, you know, just things started moving more quickly. Within two months, the team was delivering solutions faster and they were reporting

Culture Beats Tools: Three Patterns

Speaker 01 27:56

higher levels of trust. The work didn't change, but the leadership did.

Speaker 00 28:03

Right. And so it should be.

Speaker 01 28:38

Figure out what the biggest obstacle is within a week and then tell them how you are working on eliminating it or how you have already eliminated it, but sort of divide and conquer, but focusing on those obstacles. So those are those are some of the things that I think of when I think about how you take the idea of authentic leadership and you apply it practically. Um another example is something I mentioned earlier when because you brought up the process by which a project develops, I said that most performance gaps aren't technical, they're human. Right. Um there are three repeatable patterns that I have seen uh over and over again, uh conflicting initiatives that are fighting for attention, siloed communication that hides dependencies, and top-down mindsets that remove agency. It's easy to blame tools or staff or other resource limits because they're visible. But most of the time culture is more at the heart of the constraints. But if leaders align priorities, if they open the flow of information and they return decisions to the right level, performance can improve without adding a single new platform or element or tool.

Speaker 00 30:15

That's amazing. That's some I agree with you on that because I think the if the culture of the team or the department, or even at the higher level, right, organization as a whole, if their culture is strong and and like you said, there's that transparency and trust there, and employees are getting what they need at the time they need it, and they're not, like you said, they're not getting ambiguous. ambiguous information or directions right, but it's clear as to what they need, they're going to be successful. And the and then it it goes all the way up to the organization and they're successful. So yeah, it's it's it's a it's a ripple effect. Like they say that ripple in the pond, right? It just yeah

Consistency, Trust, and Measuring What Matters

Speaker 00 30:54

that that's amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 01 30:56

It there's a ripple effect and another idea to bear in mind if you are trying to bring this to work, bringing this to your environment is steady. Okay. You're talking about a pattern of small, reliable behaviors over time. When people experience a leader as consistent and responsive, that's when trust can grow. And with it your influence. Because I am at no point saying that there aren't times when because of a pivot some change in direction some new order coming down from the top of the organization that the leader has been brought in to understand and now it's their task to rally the troops if you will that you aren't going to find yourself speaking to a room of people whose arms are crossed, whose ankles are crossed, whose faces are closed, and who are that they are like tell me why tell me why I should go along with this idea where you know I wasn't consulted, you know? Yeah. So you can't think of any of these things as a magic bullet. Like they're not something you can just drop into an environment and expect the the the resolution to happen immediately. So just like when we talk about someone I I was giving a talk in New York last month um on this topic of authenticity and someone said um when is uh how do you know what you should be measuring? They were we were talking about ROI. We were talking about how L and D demonstrates ROI within an organization and and so of course the idea of measurements and and uh how they tie back to the business came up and the question was how do I how do we know what to measure? And my answer was very similar to this answer in which I'm saying um start by in the case of measuring measuring everything. Just start measuring now because until you have collected enough data to support a sense of what direction you're going in you can't I clearly identify how a learning solution or a program change is moving you in a different direction right if you have no place of origin, you have no data to say where you started from right and and that's always the problem is like when you talk about adding in measurements, you're like, well we can't really show or demonstrate that this is making a difference because we weren't measuring stuff before we took this approach. Well the same kind of logic applies to this approach uh of adding authenticity it's that it's it's not a quick fix. It's not something you can just start doing and expect that human beings are going to go along with for the ride right away. You have to start it yesterday and you have to start it in all these small repeatable ways so that you can change the culture. You can modify your team's attitudes you can get everyone going in the same direction. That's the only chance you'll have

Tech Change, Buy‑In, and Team Metrics

Speaker 01 34:19

when you find yourself at an influx or an impasse where there's some critical leadership situation happening that you can expect people to fall in and lean in and help go in the direction you want to go, right? Sometimes I think a measure of a business success is literally the speed with which they can pivot and start moving in the new direction at full speed. Like it almost doesn't matter what direction you're headed in as long as when it becomes necessary everyone can immediately about face and start going off in the other direction as if nothing happened right that's how you stay ahead of your competition that's how you stay ahead from a thought leadership standpoint. Anyway, long answer to that question.

Speaker 00 35:08

That's okay. No that's great. You know that makes me think of like you know like we talked about technology earlier and that's at least in my department that's one of the things that is harder for individual in my department and even some people on my team that it it's just harder for us to to get that technology change over. So if there's a new system that comes into place or there's an upgrade it's really hard. And then if they don't have like you're right if they don't have the support if you don't have that buy-in early on it's they're gonna struggle with it and they're they're gonna be resistant to that switch over and that change when it does go live or when they say oh we're gonna transition to from the old to the new software but you'll have time so you can still use the old well people will use the old software as long as they have the as long as they're able to until they're forced to the line.

Speaker 01 36:00

Relative exactly yeah I said so I mentioned Matt Jertson's uh webinar today um something else that came up in that conversation um was the idea my idea that teams should be shown that what is being measured is the team's outcome the mindset for the team should be a focus on the team. In other words how is the team operating how effectively is the team operating rather than a focus on a project and its current state or the state it needs to get to or a vision right because those two things those latter two things are subject to change and it's because you've given everyone the idea that what's really important is the project or the look of the software or the stage two, stage three stage four or that it's aligned with the vision. Like if everyone is focused on those things, those attitudes breed attachment. It's a natural human condition. You've told people that that's what's important. So when you suddenly suggest that it needs to change there's going to be resistance there's going to be resistance because people

Focus on Team Operating System

Speaker 01 37:29

don't just let go. They can't go from being fully invested in an idea to letting go of it and acting like it doesn't matter right but the reality is that's what's happening in our in our current environment change I mean change was always the constant but now rapid change and rapid changes of direction and rapid changes in development is the constant like that the only thing you can count on from this point forward is that things will continue to change faster. The landscape will look different faster. So if you can get a team or a company focused on themselves and how they are working together then it doesn't matter what they're working on. It doesn't matter what changes it doesn't matter if something in the environment changes because they're still together they're still the team they're the ones who are going to get it done. You see what I'm saying? There's an aspect to that that is so um I don't know it's I I say it and people seem surprised to that that that would be a a a direction I would recommend or an approach I would recommend but I it it I've seen it work extremely well and I think I think it it's also one of the reasons why that people are surprised by it is because we so we have for so long been measuring performance human performance on a productivity on an efficiency on a uh output level like a machine the numbers are easy humans are hard so we just overlay humans with the numbers and hope it works and the reality is there's nothing more efficient there is nothing more productive there's nothing more forward thinking than a team that is uh allied with itself right right right absolutely right and that that kind of makes me think of that the importance of teams being agile right that agility is so important being adaptable the brand you know just kind of makes me think of that sam model one of the models that we we use quite often the uh you know that iterative process and being agile so I think agility is so important these days because like you said it's all we're we're in the fence lane when it comes to different things so you know especially with technology right and keeping up with that so my students remind me of that every day they're like yeah did you see this tool and I'm like no I haven't seen this tool before oh yeah it does all and I'm like wow okay I'll check this out this is great I love it wow yeah that's exciting definitely so as we wrap up uh what are your top tips or advice for listeners who are looking to transition into instructional design or maybe uh are new to the field we even talked a lot about leadership so maybe if you want to touch on the leadership aspect maybe they're already in the field and they're they have a leadership opportunity right at their doorstep. Well for our instructional designers um whether they're uh new to the field or they're transitioning into the field um my advice is to build three muscles early um your understanding and use of the needs analysis as you mentioned the importance of stakeholder alignment and that touches very much on what I was saying earlier about understanding the the context the business environment in which the solution is being developed

Tips for New and Transitioning IDs

Speaker 01 41:19

and iteration which goes back to what we were saying just now about being able to pivot and make changes and and go in a different direction. Don't feel like you have to be perfect out of the gate. Be curious ask good questions meaning questions that you don't know the answers to and questions that you're not even sure where they might lead okay but questions that sort of unpack more than um anyone expects um another thing um just sort of an adjunct to that is if you're if you're put in charge of a project and someone tells you um a manager or business director someone of import tells you who's gonna be in the meeting where everything that's going to happen from that point forward is will be decided. Don't be afraid to speak up and suggest people that are not invited to the meeting especially if they are people who have some actual touch point to the end process or the development of a a tool that you know is going to be used. I like to think of it as I like I like to have more people in the room that are closer to the ground than I have than than I have leadership. And that's because leadership has been talking about what is going to be happening in this meeting for weeks. They know they think what everything that needs to be said and what there is to learn and they're thinking of it as an opportunity to just dump the information on you. They expect you to have a giant bucket that you can capture it all and go away with it and synthesize it and know what to do. Like that's always going to be the approach. And it's up to you to realize that just because they've been talking about it for weeks and thinking that this is going to be a one-way dissemination of information, your job is to push in the other direction to ask the questions as I said and invite comments from those people who are closest to the what will eventually be the end solution right because they are the ones who know about some of those hidden obstacles. They are the ones that know about things that no one is going to bother to tell you because they didn't think it was important. So that's sort of a long tangent but I just want to say give yourself agency give yourself permission to invite other people to meetings. I mean this might be the only time you ever get all these people in a room so you and you're the one whose butt is on the line more than anyone else because if you're in charge of this initiative this learning solution and it goes sideways or costs more money no one else is going to be looking back at that meeting and saying well I I neglected to give them the information they obviously needed no they're gonna say what didn't you do what didn't you ask why didn't you assume this why didn't you predict this right so the only way you can be in a position to be a defensible position in that instance is if you give yourself the authority that no one else is going to just volunteer. So and then finally let your designs evolve with feedback it's really important to be creative. It's really important to be someone who always has some idea of what something could look like but don't get married to any of your ideas too soon. Best to never get married to them at all. Just get married to the outcome get married to what it is that you want to have happen, what behavior you want to see changed and stay married to that. And don't worry you know the your your grand your your grandchild of a learning solution that you're so proud of using all the latest technology and tools etc etc and oh by the way it happens to be blue like you can't get attached to that you can't be feel compelled to hold on to that if the need arises for that to be green for example right if it has to completely change its look and feel that has to be something you're okay with you have to pivot fast. But remember

Give Yourself Agency and Iterate

Speaker 01 45:45

you are not an order taker think of yourself as a partner in performance. If someone comes to you and says I need a course your job isn't just to deliver it it's to ask what will people be able to do differently when this works that one question shifts you from being a content provider to being a trusted partner. And that shift I think is where the real joy and impact of this field comes from I mean you might like the tools you might like building stuff but trust me that will not that alone will not sustain you in pertu in perpetuity you need to find joy and satisfaction from the process it's like they the you know it's like enjoy the journey right it's like no in no other field is the importance of understanding how to enjoy the journey important to survival and also to gaining respect. I mean we are taught early on that the goal of the what defines success in business is sort of moving up the ladder that is true in every field. If you want to move up your learning and development ladder you will need to establish more than an effective track record at creating solutions. You will need to establish positive rapport and have earned respect from those around you in the business especially those who are not in learning and development the day a business director that has nothing directly to do with learning and development but with whom you've worked in the past says to you we think of you as part of our team that's when you know you've reached that level of parity that will allow you the freedom that will ultimately take you to whatever your version of success looks like so always be looking for ways to strengthen that establish that we're architects of possibility.

Speaker 00 48:03

Oh think of yourself that I love that phrase architects of possibility that's great. I love that because you want to be able to expand your reach right and yeah and enact that positive change in more people so yeah I love that. That's wonderful. Thanks for all that advice James and I appreciate that you shared your insights today especially around instructional design and leadership because those all go hand in hand right in what what we do in the LD profession. Absolutely so I know your experiences your tips and expertise are going to inspire my listeners for years to come. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 01 48:42

It was my absolute pleasure.

Partner in Performance, Not Order Taker

Speaker 00 48:45

Great. I would love to have you back on the show anytime I know once somebody comes on once we're like let's do this again. So I've I've done series before so if you ever want to come back you're you're more than welcome to be on the show again.

Speaker 01 48:59

I would look forward to that and we can talk about uh whatever feedback you get on this episode maybe you can give us some ideas about uh where to move what direction to go in and what things your learners might be interested in. And if folks outside of this episode want to get in touch with me the best place to do that is on LinkedIn. I am almost exclusively using LinkedIn uh to connect with and communicate with the L and D industry at large and uh to talk about ideas like leadership, creating engaged online LD communities, um, and you know coaching in any and all respects. So find me on LinkedIn and I know uh Jackie you're gonna have the links to find me there in the podcast notes but uh I hope I will get a chance to connect with some of your listeners that would be that'd be great yes that'd be great yes I would say since I've joined the iSpring Learning Exchange I've had so many people connect with me in that that space and so my network has grown tremendously so I agree with you.

Speaker 00 50:15

LinkedIn is is it's the premier hub for that for for us as LD professionals and instructional designers. So it's it's a great place. It definitely beats all the other platforms hands down when it comes to that so you know it's a trusted place for professionals. So it's great. Yeah wonderful yeah well make sure to drop that in the show notes and then that way everybody can connect with you as well. Great. All right I hope that you can come back on again soon.

Speaker 01 50:44

Thank you again Jackie and I hope all your listeners wherever they are are having a great day when they when they listen to this and if they're like me they'll re-listen to the podcast a couple of times.

Speaker 00 50:57

Yes exactly and they'll be able to get the blog like we talked about beforehand and all those other different elements that will help enrich that experience. So it's exciting. Great all right well we'll connect again soon on the other side of the mic great thank

Closing, Next Steps, and Connect on LinkedIn

Speaker 00 51:14

you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going you can share it with a friend or colleague leave a heartfelt review or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support big or small makes a difference and I'm truly thankful for you