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Will Ruch

Richard H. Thaler, a behavioral economist, and Cass R. Sunstein, a legal scholar, explained that despite our best intentions, we do not always make the best choices. We tend to rely on habits or biases or take the easy path. Nudges can push us in a certain direction or remind us of things we have forgotten to do.Instructional designers can apply elements of nudge theory to increase engagement in learning activities. The way that you curate the learning environment, notify and remind your audience about learning opportunities, and motivate them to stay engaged can influence what and how they learn. Getting Started First, conduct a training needs analysis. In addition to outlining the curriculum itself, consider what is necessary or timely versus what you will need to remind people about over time. Nudges can be very useful when you want to engage learners before or after a formal training session.Next, consider your target audience. Who is more likely to respond to different types of nudges, and how many nudges will it take to engage them? You can look at analytics for overall engagement trends. Find out what people are interested in, how they like to engage, and what drives their choices. Keep in mind that nudges promote, but do not guarantee, certain types of behavior, so do not expect a 100 percent response rate. Instead, set goals to motivate more people than you would have otherwise. Gamifying Your ApproachGamification, or applying game-based elements to learning activities, can improve the effectiveness of your nudges. Points, badges, leaderboards, and rewards provide additional incentives to engage. Here are some of the ways gamification can help: 1. Make it easy to participate. When you're trying to nudge people toward training, you can “cut through the noise” by lowering the barriers to entry. Present your content in a fun, user-friendly way and make it easy for players to play. For example, use a gamification platform like Arcades™ to curate and create a fun space for playing learning games. Then send notifications whenever new games are added and set up single sign-on (SSO) to make it easier for players to log in. 2. Set social norms. People often make decisions based on what they see other people doing. So, nudge learners by showing them how other people engage with your learning games. For example, leaderboards drive competition, but they also show how many other people are participating. Recurring events like weekly, monthly, or “Beat the Boss” challenges nudge people to engage regularly in your training program. 3. Remind people to learn. Whether people are busy, distracted, or procrastinating, they will forget things. Games offer rich analytics that will help you track engagement and set up well-timed nudges. For example, if you see that people are more likely to play learning games on Friday afternoon, send out a nudge on Friday at lunchtime. To make nudges more effective, keep the messages short, 70 words or less, send them at reasonable intervals, and only send them to the people who will directly benefit from the training event. 4. Support goalsetting. Gamification nudges people to set goals and incentivizes goal-related behavior. For example, you can award badges for playing a certain number of games or extra points to players who complete the training within a specific period. 5. Keep it simple. Learners are less likely to respond to nudges when their training is complex, monotonous, or difficult to navigate. But well-designed games grab attention and provide a fun and engaging learning experience. Not only are short games more likely to drive engagement, they also force you to reduce complexity and focus on what content or skills are most important. The next time you construct a learning experience, consider when and how to give people a nudge. Then use gamification to support a culture of fun and continuous learning that can improve engagement and performance. Interested in learning how to create innovative, interactive e-learning content? ATD’s Articulate Storyline Certificate will show you how to use this powerful tool.

How to Leverage Nudge Theory and Gamification to Motivate Your Learners to Train

March 2019 - TD Magazine

PowerPoint Tricks That Will Save You Time

Luke Hobson, senior instructional designer and program manager at MIT xPRO, writes about cohort learning: “This method is especially pertinent for adult learners. We, as educators, are always striving for our adult learners to become self-directed learners, and it makes sense with today’s day and age. However, it’s also true that solo efforts don’t always cut it for many adults, who might benefit from a more structured support system.” In his blog post “Why Cohort-Based Learning Is so Effective for Adults,” Hobson continues by emphasizing the structure—L&D professionals can’t simply create a group in a learning management system (LMS) with some content and expect the individuals to take it from there.And that’s where Rich Reitter and his TD at Work guide, “How to Implement Cohort Learning,” come into play. In the guide, Reitter outlines various cohort learning models, poses questions for L&D leaders to consider before moving forward with the learning mode, and offers guidance for executing a cohort learning program.Why Cohort Learning and What’s AvailableCohort learning is a mode of learning where a group of individuals begin, work through, and finish a course or program together. This type of learning provides a natural source of peer support and collaboration, a chance for participants to hear a variety of perspectives, networking, and shared learning. It allows participants the opportunity to practice their communication and collaboration skills, in addition to learning the content at hand.A cohort learning program may be arranged into synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination. It can be facilitated through peer-to-peer interaction or be mentor led. The type of program that works best for any organization or department depends on the content, circumstances, and what is possible, for example, if the team is global, a strictly synchronous model will likely present scheduling challenges.While there are many types of cohort learning, whether any of the models makes sense depends on several other factors, among them:Do you have leader buy-in?Are there adequate resources available?Will your infrastructure and technology meet cohort learning needs?Do learners want and will they thrive in this type of learning environment?Next StepsIf the answers to these questions lead you to want to move forward, you will need to develop your program’s objectives. Consider:How will cohort learning provide the skills or knowledge you want and need individuals to gain?How will you measure success?How does the program align with the organization’s larger strategic goals?What types of resources do you need for the program to operate effectively?Design the learning content that meets program goals, and sequence it appropriately. Will you incorporate videos, presentations, interactive activities, or readings?Reitter offers several other pointers for assembling a cohort based on his experience. A cohort of between 15–25 individuals generally works well so that you have diversity of voices and thought, but which still allows for people to share their views. A six-month to one-year program is often effective, though again it will depend on program content and its complexity. And regular engagement is key to sustain momentum, so consider frequency of connection—weekly for interaction with additional work outside of those gatherings can be good to begin with; adjust as needed.Executing the ProgramA pilot can help L&D teams address any snags in their cohort program, either in curriculum or delivery methods. Among the common challenges in cohort learning:Varied skill levels. While there are times when disparate skill sets can work, such as more advanced learners teaching less advanced learners, it can be a drag on learner progress. Keep that in mind as you create your cohort and consider breakout groups with comparable skill levels if needed.Scheduling issues. Recording sessions can help meet the needs of learners unable to attend a gathering. Setting a schedule at the beginning of the program so that learners’ expectations are clear can help mitigate challenges as well.Lack of engagement. In addition to regularly planned assignments and meetings, the L&D team may want to consider adding a surprise reflection prompt or posing a question on the group discussion board to keep participants engaged.Measuring and evaluating your cohort learning program provides you room to improve upon your success, as well as to share that success with stakeholders. Establish key performance indicators, such as knowledge retention and learner engagement, to help.Creating CommunityWhile we seek to improve, it’s also important to celebrate the wins of a cohort and the collective achievements. It validates learners’ efforts and reinforces the collaborative nature of cohort learning.Hobson notes, “Adults in general desire a sense of belonging and community. We want to feel like we are a part of something and to find like-minded individuals … Community and a sense of belonging are key to making a welcoming learning environment.”

Come Together

 How well do you communicate during times of complex or unpopular change? Our communication skills in explaining a change are as important as our analytical skills in planning and coordinating it. Indeed, the capability of leaders working in government to speak simply, clearly, and persuasively during complex or difficult change is important—but not easy. It is a key factor in guiding our organizations to a successful outcome. Communicating persuasively during change is my area of professional interest. It is a topic I have taught for many years, and it is at the heart of the consulting that I do. During my experience working with government leaders, I have learned that there are two major hurdles when communicating during a time of change: complexity and resistance. The #1 hurdle is simplifying the complexity of the change. However complex it might be, we must speak in language that is easy to understand. Here are a few tips to do that: Explain in the simplest terms possible the compelling business case for the change. Discuss three brief but sound reasons the change makes good business sense, and three ways our organization stands to benefit from the change. If we haven’t figured this out, trouble lies ahead. Without a clear understanding of the reasons for a change, even our early adopters may lose focus and energy.  Break the change process into small, simple steps. Change is inherently complex, but it must be made to seem simple. If we haven’t figured out the small, simple steps people are to take, more trouble lies ahead. Complex instructions lead to stupid or misguided behavior. Simple instructions lead to straightforward and sophisticated behavior. The #2 hurdle is handling resistance to the change. We must soften up the resistance and open up the resisters to become participants in the change process. Here are a few tips: React positively to any resistance; be glad to hear it and listen well. Resistance from people affected by change—even seemingly small change—is normal, natural, and even healthy. They may have vital concerns or information that we may overlook. And just letting them vent shock, anger, and resistance is often necessary before they can accept change.Recruit a few respected champions to speak up for the change. Have early adopters help communicate the need for the change. Ask them to explain the steps in the change process. Resisters are often persuaded more quickly by their peers than by management. A few negative people don’t have to be detrimental if we handle their resistance well. A lot of negative resistance may indicate a bigger problem that must be addressed—a lack of trust in the leadership for the change. Bottom line: Communication is the lifeblood of every organization, and especially so during times of change. Good communication can shape consensus and motivate action to make the change come to life and take hold.For more insight managing in turbulent times, join me for my session, “Change Management in Challenging Times**,”** at Government Workforce: Learning Innovations.  I will discuss how to manage change while preserving your agency’s ability to get the job done.

How to Communicate Effectively During Change

The Silver TsunamiHere's a sobering statistic that should keep every C-suite executive awake at night: 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day in the US alone. That's not just people walking out the door, it's decades of institutional knowledge and hard-earned expertise evaporating into thin air.This Silver Tsunami isn't a distant threat. It's here, swirling around us right now. APQC’s recent survey of 1,000 knowledge management (KM) professionals across industries revealed that 51 percent of the enterprise workforce will retire or leave within five years. That’s half the organizational brain trust. Gone.The Boiling FrogRemember the parable of the boiling frog? The creature doesn't notice the water heating up gradually until it's too late to jump out. That's exactly what's happening to businesses today. While 58 percent of C-level executives and 51 percent of board members express concern about knowledge loss from departing retirees, the response has been glacially slow.The most damning finding? A staggering 92 percent of organizations don't capture knowledge on a regular basis. They are literally watching their competitive advantage walk out the door, day after day.Quill and PapyrusThe few companies attempting knowledge capture are stuck in the Stone Age. The survey revealed that 53 percent still rely on manual capture and documentation methods—essentially digital versions of quill and papyrus. Picture this: 30 percent of organizations wait until employees are literally heading for the exit door to capture their knowledge. Another 23 percent conduct last-minute elicitation interviews, which are typically rushed and shallow. Even worse, 37 percent depend on informal people-to-people transfers.These antiquated approaches are neither scalable nor sustainable—they're business malpractice.AI: Opportunity and ProblemEnter AI—both the solution and the problem rolled into one disruptive package. The opportunity is enormous: AI can automate knowledge capture, analyze patterns in expert decision-making, and create searchable repositories of institutional wisdom at unprecedented speed and scale.But here's the rub—the survey found that nine in 10 of respondents aren't leveraging AI to automate KM. And there's a reason: trust. Organizations are terrified of AI-generated answers that could be incorrect or non-compliant. It's a classic catch-22: the technology that could solve the knowledge crisis is paralyzed by accuracy concerns. No wonder 95 percent of AI pilots are failing to deliver business ROI, according to recent MIT research.KM and AI: BFFs for Business ValueAI automates knowledge management, and knowledge management makes AI trustworthy. This symbiotic relationship works because robust content management practices ensure AI has clean, accurate, well-governed data to work with. Meanwhile, AI handles the heavy lifting of knowledge automation to speed up the entire knowledge capture, retention, publishing, and optimization process.BFFs in ActioneGain’s Fortune 500 and Global 1000 clients are already striking gold with the combined power of AI and knowledge management:A global financial services corporation enhanced first contact resolution rates by 36 percent and cut onboarding duration by 40 percent through AI-powered knowledge platforms.A leading utility eliminated knowledge silos and sped up knowledge creation 10X while improving search success 6X.A fast-growing SaaS enterprise boosted contact center representative confidence by 60 percent and self-help utilization by 30 percent.A major federal government department serving 25 million citizens saw their Forrester CX Index ranking rise by a third in a single year.A massive federal agency redirected 70 percent of inbound calls to AI-enabled virtual support while slashing case resolution time by 25 percent.These aren't incremental improvements—they're transformational results that land these organizations in the elite 5 percent of companies succeeding with AI.Beat the Clock (and the Competition)!Your experts are retiring. The clock is ticking. Every day you delay implementing AI-enabled knowledge capture is another day of irreplaceable expertise walking out your door forever.Organizations that act now to leverage the power of AI and KM will emerge as the winners. They'll turn the knowledge exodus into a knowledge edge, transforming the Silver Tsunami from an existential threat into a competitive advantage.The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in AI-enabled knowledge capture and retention. The question is whether you can afford not to. Because in today’s knowledge-centered economy, there are no participation trophies—only winners and losers.The tsunami is here. Will you surf it or be swept away by it?

Strike Gold in the Silver Tsunami With AI-Enabled Knowledge Retention

 

The Coaching Habit has helped thousands of leaders stay curious a little longer and rush to advice a little more slowly. Now, there’s a new way to bring that change to life.

 

Whether you’re looking to build a customized learning experience from start to finish through a full licensing and asset package or you want a learning journey that you can plug and play out of the box, we can help.  

 

Our team will share the thinking and design that came together to shape a new learning format built for real change, inside real work, at real scale. Then we’ll explore how it works in practice by walking you through exactly how a sample learning journey works, what it looks like in action, and how it can be implemented in your organization.

Whether you’re new to The Coaching Habit or looking to scale its impact, this is your chance to see how learning journeys turn great content into real capability.

What You’ll Learn


	How learning journeys were built to scale The Coaching Habit
	How you can customize and personalize based on your goals and learner needs
	The thinking and design behind this new learning experience


DEMO: Solving Mentoring Engagement Drop-off After the Match

DEMO: Choose Your Own Adventure With the Coaching Habit Learning Journeys

Uncertainty is no longer the exception in business; it’s the rule. Whether it’s economic shifts, technological disruption, or organizational change, managers are often tasked with keeping teams steady in the storm. Yet for many, uncertainty breeds one common response: resistance.When people feel a lack of control, their instinct is to push back, protect the status quo, or retreat into familiar patterns. While this resistance is human, it can quietly stall progress, erode morale, and make the road ahead feel even harder.The role of a great manager is to transform that resistance into resilience, helping teams adapt, refocus, and keep moving forward with confidence. In Lead In 30, we call this creating movement: the ability to identify the scripts, narratives, and barriers holding people back, and then shifting them into new patterns that drive progress.So how do you, as a manager, lead your team from resistance to resilience?Acknowledge the Uncertainty Out LoudThe worst thing a leader can do in uncertain times is ignore what everyone already feels. Silence breeds fear and speculation. Great managers instead lean into clarity, acknowledging the unknowns while providing a grounded picture of what is certain.You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to communicate consistently. Even saying, “Here’s what we know today, here’s what we don’t know yet, and here’s how we’ll keep moving forward” creates confidence. Clarity reduces noise and allows people to focus on what matters most.Reconnect the Team to PurposeWhen uncertainty rises, motivation often falls. Resistance can look like disengagement, blame, or simply slowing down. To counter this, managers must help the team reconnect to the why behind their work.This is where Team Key Results (TKRs) come in. Setting a few measurable, relevant priorities and showing how they connect to the organization’s mission gives your team something solid to rally around. Purpose is the antidote to paralysis.Shift the Script From Victim to OwnerChanging the narrative is one of the most powerful ways to build resilience. Instead of letting the team fall into "The Excuse Trap, “We can’t because…”, great managers ask, “What’s in our control, and how do we own it?”This is where alignment becomes essential. Invite the team into the process: What obstacles are we facing, and what shifts need to happen to keep moving forward? When people participate in writing the new script, they become invested in living it out. Ownership transforms resistance into resilience.Model Optimism and EnergyHuman energy is contagious. If a manager projects fear, exhaustion, or pessimism, the team will absorb it. However, when you choose optimism, even in uncertainty, you create a different kind of culture.At Lone Rock Leadership, we often say optimism is a choice. It doesn’t mean ignoring challenges, but deliberately focusing energy on solutions and what can be influenced. When leaders show up energized and optimistic, they recharge their team’s batteries, giving them the resilience to keep moving.Learn to Guide Through UncertaintyResistance is natural, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. With clarity, alignment, and movement, managers can guide their teams through uncertainty and emerge stronger, more adaptive, and more resilient.Uncertainty will always be part of leadership, but great leaders don’t just weather the storm; they help their teams grow through it.

From Resistance to Resilience: A Manager’s Guide to Navigating Uncertainty

Half of all employees will need reskilling by 2025—yet only 17 percent of organizations feel prepared to anticipate which skills they’ll need next. Every day your learning strategy stands still, the skills gap widens, and your workforce risks falling behind. While traditional training methods—classroom sessions, static e-learning, and one-size-fits-all programs—once served their purpose, they now struggle to keep pace. They can drain budgets, disengage learners, and leave skills gaps that put your organization at risk. Why Change Is Urgent High costs and travel expenses Outdated, passive content with low engagement Lack of personalization for diverse teams Exposure to compliance risks and lost productivity Sticking with the status quo means falling behind competitors and risking talent loss. Consider the case of a manufacturing company that was heavily reliant on traditional classroom training. When new machinery was urgently introduced to enhance its agility against impending market changes, their usual training approach proved inefficient. The need for hands-on learning led to complex scheduling, significant production downtimes, and the creation of backup paper manuals to mitigate costly errors. Employees struggled to retain vital information, resulting in substantial production delays that directly affected the company’s profitability. Similarly, a financial services firm found that their compliance training, delivered through static e-learning modules, failed to engage employees. Ineffective compliance training—especially when it fails to engage employees—can result in substantial financial losses, regulatory penalties, operational inefficiencies, and reputational harm. Investing in more engaging, effective learning solutions is not just a regulatory requirement; it is a strategic imperative for financial performance and long-term business success. The Future of Learning: Blended and Immersive Blended learning combines digital, in-person, and on-the-job experiences, powered by extended reality (XR), AI, and data analytics: VR/AR simulations for safe, on-demand practice Real-time guidance to speed onboarding and reduce errors Collaborative virtual environments for soft skills AI-driven roleplay for authentic, personalized coaching Scalable virtual instructor-led training (VILT) Organizations adopting these approaches report: Up to 50 percent reduction in training time Improved retention and fewer errors Lower downtime and cost For example, a major airline used AI-powered roleplay to train customer service agents in handling irate passengers. The dynamic, unscripted scenarios helped employees build confidence and empathy, leading to a measurable drop in customer complaints. In manufacturing, XR simulations have enabled technicians to practice complex assembly tasks repeatedly without risk, reducing errors on the production line and accelerating time to competence. Anytime they need a refresh, an action-oriented mobile XR experience is just a pocket away. Data-Driven Personalization AI and analytics deliver targeted training to close skills gaps efficiently, ensuring every learner gets exactly what they need. The Human Element While technology enables scalable, efficient training, human judgment remains vital for complex, ethical, and cultural learning. The most effective L&D strategies blend automation for repeatable skills with coaching and mentorship for nuanced, judgment-based scenarios. Act Now or Risk Falling Behind Early adopters see faster onboarding, higher engagement, and scalable programs. Hesitation means losing ground in a competitive market. The cost of inaction is high: slower time to competence, increased errors, compliance risks, and ultimately, lost revenue and market share. The future belongs to those who act decisively. Don’t let your organization be left behind as others leap forward with immersive, personalized, and scalable learning solutions. 

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