The new year is a good time to rethink your L&D practices and to try some new approaches to transform your people and your business. Today, I’ve decided to take a look back at some of our most-read articles throughout the year

… And thanks to our readers, to our subscribers and to our authors for your loyalty and for making the blog grow! I wish you a happy and successful new year, looking forward to witnessing the great opportunities that 2019 will bring for L&D professionals!

Understanding and being open to change, in order to generate a new outlook or new ways of doing things, is the main aim of learning. Yet a 2016 study by the Harvard Business Review showed that many training sessions serve no real purpose. “Corporations are victims of the great training robbery. American companies spend enormous

Learning is all about searching for new meanings and connections. Like all explorers, learners need to accept – and indeed recognise – the risk of losing their way and coming up against a deadend. For their part, training designers should create environments that are secure and conducive to learning

Designing a training course involves giving participants the opportunity to activate a range of motivational drivers, so content must be selected and structured with the utmost care. It also means putting participants in problem-solving situations and creating experiences that are powerful enough to change established routines and knowledge.

If we think back to our time as young learners, we all remember a teacher who explained things well and helped us to understand. But what does it mean to ‘understand’? And how can understanding be made easy?

Engage, Explain, Experiment, Explore, Embed. This is the “5E” model in a nutshell – the underlying principles of our practice as trainers and the experiences we create for our learners, all based on neuroscience and other educational sciences.