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My guest this week is Dr. Keith Keating, CLO at BDO Canada and an influential author whose latest book, Hidden Value, reveals how learning can drive tangible business outcomes that traditional metrics often miss—turning capability building into a true competitive advantage. (Sidenote: for anyone attending Devlearn in the coming weeks, Keith will be the keynote speaker there, which is super exciting.) In this conversation we dig into three big themes: • Learning how to learn: practical ways to build meta-skills like reflection, inquiry, and transfer so people get better at getting better. • Owning the hard parts: reframing career challenges as chapters in a longer growth journey—how authenticity turns setbacks into capability • Storytelling for impact: crafting narratives that connect learning to outcomes leaders care about—productivity, agility, and client value—so L&D earns attention and investment. It’s a thoughtful, actionable playbook for anyone leading learning in the real world. Enjoy! To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

What does it take to build a learning culture for 180,000 people? My guest today is Brian Murphy, Global Head of Learning & Development at NTT DATA. Before this role, Brian led transformational learning at Citi, AstraZeneca, and Microsoft, and he’s known for turning big ideas into practical programs that drive performance. We get into the real questions L&D teams are wrestling with right now: how do you integrate AI without losing the human, how to develop meta-skills and why do they matter so much right now, and how to keep people engaged while the skills landscape continues to shift under our feet. If you’re trying to deliver learning that actually changes performance— I think this one’s for you. To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

Learn to Grow Shorts – Learnership and the Power of Interdisciplinarity Welcome to another Learn to Grow Shorts, where I reflect on a topic of particular interest from my most recent conversation—and today I’m looking back on my discussion with Ed Monk, CEO of the Learning and Performance Institute. Ed shared a concept he’s been thinking deeply about: learnership. It’s not just a skillset—it’s a mindset. A way of leading through learning, rooted in humility, authenticity, and curiosity. I liked this for a couple of reasons. First, it reframes leadership not as having all the answers, but as being willing to learn alongside your team. It’s about being in the trenches—not removed or above, but shoulder to shoulder. That kind of hands-on, learning-first leadership builds trust and sets the tone for a learning culture. Second, I see learnership as a form of interdisciplinarity—the ability to take ideas from one domain and apply them creatively to another. And in a world where so much is being automated, that ability is one of the great, uniquely human skills that can't be replaced. Let me give you a few examples. Take Velcro. It exists because a Swiss engineer noticed how burrs clung to his dog’s fur on a hike. That spark of curiosity led to a design principle inspired by nature—what we now call biomimicry: the practice of studying and imitating nature’s strategies to solve human problems. Or think about platforms like Khan Academy or Duolingo. They combine game design with education—levels, challenges, feedback loops—to make learning feel like progress. Gamification has revolutionized learning by making it more active, rewarding, and sticky. And the most intuitive apps we use today—Spotify, for example—aren’t just built with tech in mind. They’re infused with behavioral science and psychology, designed to feel frictionless and familiar. These are all examples of how learning across disciplines gives us an edge. And when leaders embrace that mindset—when they see themselves not just as experts but as learners—it unlocks creativity, resilience, and adaptability. Because the future doesn’t belong to those who know everything. It belongs to those who are willing to keep learning.

On the latest episode of the Learn to Grow Podcast, I welcome back Ed Monk, one of my favorite past guests on the show. Ed is the CEO of the Learning and Performance Institute—a leader who doesn’t just talk about change, he lives it. Ed is known for pushing the boundaries of how we learn, how we lead, and how we make learning truly accessible in a world that’s evolving fast. He’s outspoken, insightful, and I love how he approaches things from a very practical perspective – no jargon, just actionable advice. We talk about Why this is the most exciting time for learning and development The concept of “learnership” and why it’s the most important skill for leaders What drives Ed’s personal learning practicesWhy we need ‘learn it all’ not ‘know it all’ cultureHow technological changes are impacting young people To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to another episode of Learn to Grow shorts, where I reflect on a topic of particular interest from our most recent episode. Last time, I chatted with Ruth Gotian, who’s hard at work on her latest book after the wonderful “Success Factor” made such a splash a couple of years back. In our conversation we discussed Ruth’s article on Olympian Inbar Lanir who, after being cut from the National Judo team decided to “take herself on as a project”. I found this idea really powerful and inspiring – a pragmatic approach to growth that struck me as an effective response to a setback – I found it admirable that Inbar took the steps to evaluate, to plan, and to commit to getting better, to growing, as an athlete and as a person. Especially at a time when success would have felt like anything but guaranteed. Most of us are really good at managing projects at work. We make plans, set milestones, get feedback, iterate. But how often do we apply that same level of attention, structure, and curiosity… to ourselves? This matters—a lot—because the world of work is changing faster than ever. New roles are popping up, old ones are shifting or disappearing, and job descriptions you saw last year might already feel outdated today. If we’re not intentionally reflecting, growing, and repositioning ourselves, we risk getting left behind—or worse, stuck in someone else’s idea of who we’re supposed to be. So what does it mean to take yourself on as a project? I think, most importantly, it starts with reflection. An honest appraisal. Where are you right now—professionally, creatively, personally? What’s working? What’s not? And believe me, there’s bravery in this kind of honest appraisal – but it’s where real change and growth begins. Once you’ve taken stock of where you are - then ask: where do you want to be? What gets you fired up? What excites you—or scares you in the right way just enough to make you curious? This isn’t about having a 10-year plan. Imagine you had a five year plan at the start of 2020, prior to the pandemic. It’s about identifying a direction that feels meaningful. Figuring out something you want to move towards. A future version of you that feels more aligned, more awake, more you. And finally: what steps can you take to bridge that gap? Maybe it’s learning a new skill, or discarding old habits that no longer serve you. Maybe it’s networking differently, or blocking time each week to build a new creative practice. Whatever it is, you don’t have to overhaul your life in a weekend. You just have to start. Here’s the thing – and I think this is important – no one is going to do this for you. You’re the project manager and the project. Which means you get to make the rules. But there is a responsibility involved in that. You have to lead the charge. So if you’ve been feeling stuck or uncertain—or even just a little restless—consider this your invitation. Take yourself on as a project and start building the next version of you with intention.

Welcome to the SureSkills Learn to Grow Podcast where we discuss the learning landscape with leaders in learning. My guest today is Dr. Ruth Gotian. Dr. Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer at Weill Cornell Medicine and a highly sought after executive coach and mentor – in fact she’s been named one the Thinkers50 top 50 executive coaches in the world. Dr. Gotian studies and works with elite high achievers, from Nobel Laureates to Astronauts to Olympic athletes, using that knowledge to establish principles anyone can apply to achieve success in their careers and in their daily lives. We discussed how averages can actually be limitations for individuals, the power of “taking yourself on as a project”, and the importance of an environment audit when it comes to setting and achieving your goals. This conversation is filled with some great advice and actionable info – enjoy! Here are links to some of the articles and books we discussed on the episode: Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rgotian/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthgotian/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthgotian/2025/01/21/inbar-lanir-took-herself-on-as-a-projectand-won-olympic-silver/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthgotian/2025/01/06/why-those-around-you-can-make-or-break-your-success/ https://ruthgotian.com/books/ To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

On the latest episode of the podcast, Microsoft's Karen Kocher implores learners to try something new every day – she cites studies that have shown that even eleven minutes a day over period of eleven weeks was enough to have a significant impact not just on skill development but on learning how to learn more effectively. In this episode of Learn to Grow Shorts, some thoughts on how we can rediscover the joy of learning and remember to see learning not as a chore but as a kind of adventure! To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

Thrilled to kick off a new wave of episodes of the Learn to Grow Podcast with a very special guest - Karen Kocher, Microsoft’s Global General Manager for the Future of Work, Workforce of the Future, and Employee Experiences. In this episode, we explore a mindset that is becoming increasingly essential in today’s dynamic work environment—the transition from being a 'know-it-all' to a 'learn-it-all'. Karen, with her extensive experience at the helm of future work strategies, shares why nurturing a culture of continuous learning is pivotal not just for personal growth, but for organizational agility and innovation. We also dive into the practicalities of challenging ourselves daily, especially through the use of new AI tools. How do these technologies not only change the way we work but also how we learn and adapt in our careers? Karen will share insights on how integrating AI into our daily routines can catalyze learning and transformation. Moreover, Karen discusses the power of adopting a “how might we” attitude—a mindset focused on possibilities and creative problem-solving. This perspective encourages us to think beyond conventional solutions and to envision what could be, rather than what is. So, whether you're looking to inspire your team, pivot your career path, or integrate cutting-edge technology into your workday, this conversation will provide you with the insights you need to start thinking differently and embracing the future of work with a learning-oriented mindset. To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com. Thanks for listening!

My latest guest on the Learn to Grow Podcast is Dr. Ruth Gotian who is the Chief Learning Officer at Weill Cornell Medicine and Assistant professor of education anesthesiology, former assistant dean of mentoring and executive director of the mentoring academy at Weill Cornell. Ruth is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Psychology today. Ruth interviews Nobel laureates, professional athletes, and other elite high achievers, and tries to understand what they do differently that allows them to achieve at such a high level. She has taken the wisdom from that conversation and distilled it into book titled: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business Performance. Ruth shares some of that wisdom in this conversation and we dive into some practical suggestions for how to be a more efficient and effective learner here, things you can take away and apply right now as you learn and grow personally and professionally! We discuss how elite high achievers define success, practical frameworks for learning absolutely anything, and why L&D functions are becoming increasingly like mentors among many other things. In this episode we discuss: How elite high achievers define successA practical framework for how to learn anythingHow to take an incremental approach to big tasks The importance of discovering your passions as a way to growIntrinsic motivation as the driver of productivityHow to leverage your schedule to make the most of your learning styleWhy adult learning is imperative for career successWhy good L&D programs are increasingly like mentorsThe importance of mentors and how to find themHow to practice your power skills On the episode, Ruth discusses a resource for those looking for tips on how to build a mentoring team – you can find that here! And here’s where you can pre-order Ruth’s upcoming book: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business Performance To learn more about Dr. Ruth Gotian, you can check out all the latest on Ruth's website here! On the episode, Ruth discusses a resource for those looking for tips on how to build a mentoring team – you can find that here! And here’s where you can pre-order Ruth’s upcoming book: The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Business Performance To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning...

Reflecting on my conversation with Joe, there are so many things I love about his approach to labs. The first is that his story about how a training session inadvertently turned into a lab demonstrates some really cool aspects of learning – from both the mentor/educator perspective and from the student perspective. Joe explained a situation where software for training stopped working, just broke. As a mentor/teacher/ Joe opened it up to the students. Ego was taken out, and they turned instead to working on a solution. And the students we fired up about really using their skills, not just to provide a solution, but an elegant, efficient one. There was a natural curiosity there that couldn’t have happened otherwise. And that to me is the beauty of practical, hands-on training. We get to choose our own adventure rather than clicking through the one prescribed to us. And I have had conversations with clients and potential clients this week – it seems labs are such an essential element of training and learning, especially for software. You always need some sort of direct instruction/coaching, but then, go play. Go experiment. Go create. I would love to see cloud native virtual labs become more standard in learning, and Joe and his team are doing their part to bring that to some of our clients – and doing it very well I might add! Next week I will have Ruth Gotian, CLO of the Weill Cornell School of medicine on the show – looking forward to that!

My guest this week is our very own Joe Mansfield, who heads up our Virtual Labs team as the lead technical content developer here at SureSkills. Joe and his team are building virtual lab training for some of the world’s leading organizations, and I thought it would be cool to have him on to discuss what has become a highly sought-after service. Joe and his team, and virtualized labs generally, have revolutionized lab training in some ways.   Hands-on lab training was historically challenging for a number of reasons. They required extensive, costly set-up, endless machine maintenance, a rigid, in-person schedule, a lack of instructor oversight. All of this meant they were impossible to scale and frustratingly impractical and really expensive. Joe and his team, however, have created an antidote to basically all of the historical challenges of lab-based training. They build cloud-native virtual labs that are available anytime, anywhere, and are infinitely scalable, all while providing an enhanced learning experience. And of course, they cater to the increasingly remote nature of workplaces and workplace training. They have built some high profile labs for high-profile companies, these virtual labs are becoming hugely popular. I thought it would be cool to have Joe on to chat about some of the ways he and his team think about the service they provide. In our chat, we talk about the basics, and Joe gives us an overview of why these virtual labs are in such high demand. We discuss: the basics of virtual labs how virtual labs provide immersive learning experiencesthe ability to replicate real environments to enhance retention of informationhow tracking facilitates real learning all the ways virtual labs can be used as a scalable toolthe challenges of satisfying learners through technical trainingallowing people to shine and show their skills through challenge labs If you'd like to learn more about virtual labs you can head over to our website, and if you'd like to talk with one of our learning experts we offer free initial consultations to explore if virtual labs may be right for you. To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] Thanks for listening!

I have talked a lot about culture of late, so here are some reading recommendations if you'd like to dive deeper! The Culture Code, by Daniel CoyleMindset, by Carol DweckStart with Why, by Simon Sinek

My guest this week is Michael Anaya, Head of Attack Surface Analysis at Cortex by Palo Alto Networks. Michael and I connected a while back and I was fascinated by both his background as an FBI special agent and the challenge facing him in his current role as he implements a vision for his team. I proposed an idea. Michael is looking to build a successful learning culture, provide dynamic learning experiences for his team, and double the size of his team over the next six months. I said, why don’t you come on the podcast, talk about your plans, and then let’s check back in in six months and see what worked, what didn’t, and what you learned. And Michael was up for it, for which I am extremely grateful! We discuss how Michael draws on his experience using empathy in interrogations as an FBI agent in his current role, why empowering individuals is crucial to team success, and Michael’s plans to use culture to scale effectively.  Connect with Michael on LinkedIn To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning Experience.  Thanks for listening!

Atomization is the breaking down of jobs into projects and tasks, individual pieces that can be completed and tracked. This means organizations are looking to match talent to task so they can use the highest quality, lowest cost actor to complete the work. Why is atomization happening and why does it matter? 1.      Agility amidst uncertainty – easier to scale up and down 2.      Efficiency within teams – A talent-to-task approach allows you to assemble dynamic teams with various abilities custom picked to deliver what is necessary on a given project 3.      Availability of talent – gig economy 4.      It makes things trackable – in a place where data is increasingly important 5.      It means organizations are looking for learning partners to help them fulfil tasks and stay agile in the midst of uncertainty. And that is something we have absolutely seen over the past few months. Many of our clients are giving us tasks they don’t want to do in house because it’s simply too expensive. As Kingsley Aikins likes to say “There are far more talented people outside your organization than inside it!” The highest quality actor to complete tasks might not be internal employees, but part of a vast network of “gig” workers. In addition to gig workers, trusted learning service partners (like, for example, SureSkills…) are increasingly relied on to deliver an extended workforce to larger organizations with a range of projects they need to outsource while maintaining the requisite level of quality output. We work with a household name organization maintaining their learning material. They have in-house content creators building dynamic learning content, but they don’t want those people spending their time responding to feedback and assessing the success of the courses they already have. So we have partnered with them and created a course maintenance framework, whereby we reactively respond to the concerns of students taking the course, and proactively make recommendations for improvements based on our vast experience building learning content. It’s a great example of the increased need for learning partnerships and the atomization of work!

I am proud to kick off the second season of the Learn to Grow Podcast with special guest Heather McGowan, co-author (with Chris Shipley) of The Adaptation Advantage. Heather is renowned internationally as a keynote speaker, a regular Forbes contributor, and a futurist outlining how learning and adaptation are crucial to our personal and professional lives. In our conversation we discuss: Why the pace of change is faster than ever…and will never be this slow againThe three A’s: Atomization, Automation, and AugmentationThe three questions that show how invested we are in our professional identitiesWhy engagement tails off in school, and then the workplace!The education to workplace pipelineWhy we need to add capacity every time we hand off a task to automationDigital transformation as a learning-centric culture that leverages dataWhy the conditions in which we create will be more important than our products and services Why we all need to ABL - Always Be Learning To get in touch with me, Simon Behan, reach out on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] At SureSkills, we deliver learning services to the worlds leading technology companies and global organizations. To learn more, head over to www.SureSkills.com or download this eBook: Foundations of a Successful Learning Experience.  Thanks for listening!