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Tory Hord is a former teacher with a Master's degree in Instructional Design and Technology. She has been a corporate instructional designer for the past six years and has worked in unique content areas including government, financial, fortune 100 and 500 companies, franchise, and more. She is focused on creating a modern learning experience where learners have autonomy and are motivated to enjoy the learning journey.

Tory Hord

Want a digital portfolio that speaks for you? Follow these actionable steps to showcase your expertise and make an unforgettable impression.

How to Create a Digital Portfolio That Gets You Noticed

Integrating two software programs like Articulate Storyline and Rise can be a great way to provide a better user experience, but it can also be a daunting task. Fortunately, there are some tips and tricks that you can use to make the process smoother

Seamlessly Integrating Articulate Storyline and Rise

Christine Tao is the co-founder and CEO at Sounding Board, a Silicon Valley startup redefining how organizations are developing their leaders. Her extraordinarily rapid career growth to executive management in the media, mobile, and tech sectors of Silicon Valley became her inspiration for founding Sounding Board.Christine advises several startups, is a budding angel investor and is also a Tory Burch Foundation Fellow, a foundation dedicated to investing in the success and sustainability of women entrepreneurs.Prior to co-founding Sounding Board, Christine was a Senior Vice President of Developer Relations at Tapjoy, a venture-backed, leading mobile advertising & publishing network. She led the growth of Tapjoy’s publisher advertising business from 0 to over $100 million in revenues in less than 3 years. Prior to that she led e-commerce partnerships and strategy at YouTube. Christine holds an MBA in Marketing & Operations from Wharton and a BA in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.

Christine Tao

What makes this world so complex? Is it globalization with all the information we are bombarded with daily? Or is it the sheer number of interconnected relationships across the world? In many ways, it’s both and so much more.Not only are leaders constantly pressured to make decisions with incomplete information, but they also have to face the flow of information from their teams to the global world. Nothing is secret anymore and customers and shareholders make judgements based on information, hearsay, and more.How can leaders navigate this minefield?The Both/And MindsetAs this newspaper article on how today’s complexity is different explains, we no longer have a focal point in today’s decisions. Moreover, no one can fully understand the multiple interrelations in our complex system. Naturally, this makes most leaders nervous, and a normal reaction is to try to hold onto the familiar. So, many try to break problems down into parts and solve them in isolation.In fact, as this HBR article on How Successful Leaders Think says, a wiser approach is to look at a problem holistically. That means getting as many of the parts together to see how they all fit.Wisdom then lies in the ability to step back and see connecting patterns that can drive innovative solutions.A useful way to think of this is by adopting a both/and mindset.A both/and mindset instead of an either/or approach allows for innovative solutions:Complex systems often hold conflicting demands. Linear thinking can push us to, for example, prioritize individuals over teams or cost over quality. Alternatively, analyze the bigger picture and reflect on all possible cause and effect loops.Let go of either/or thinking. Sometimes it’s tempting to choose cost over quality, but instead, shift your mindset to leverage the benefits of both sides.Practice observing multiple truths. As people, we are all different, but deep down, we are the same. So, practice finding the common ground in all viewpoints.Nurture Empathy As we explained in our blog on how to stop failing at leadership development, leadership isn’t about just building competencies in one person.Today’s leadership development needs to cover both relational and individual aspects. That means giving current and future leaders stretch experiences—new ways of making sense of them and strong diverse networks, as explained in this paper on vertical development.As leaders then mature and evolve away from black and white thinking, they understand themselves better, which leads to greater empathy. Gradually, they gain the ability to hold conflicting stakeholder views more easily.They therefore become more intuitive in leveraging the minds and abilities of those around them to transform conflict and uncertainty into beneficial solutions for all.Nurture empathy and deep understanding to create interdependent teams that drive decisions:Balance emotions and thoughts. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio demonstrated, the best decisions come from combining both logic and emotions. Leaders need to connect and listen to both.Connect with diverse networks—the more backgrounds we interact with, the more our empathy grows as we gain a wider understanding of the human condition.Explore the ego’s impact. Book clubs, the new corporate classroom, are a powerful way to explore both the ego and decision making for the greater good. Read this paper on transforming organizations through books to learn more.Final Thoughts on Supporting Leaders in Decision MakingAs the world becomes more systemic, we too must operate more systemically. Wise leaders know they don’t know everything, so they tap into the collective wisdom to gather all the parts. From there, they look for the big picture and potential solutions.Together, we can all let go of either/or thinking and move into both/and thinking, where we explore the gray of the world.As such, we need to connect with diverse people whilst deeply exploring the ego’s needs and how it affects our decisions. Let’s also remember to tune into empathy and our sense of playfulness.Or as Carl Jung would say, “the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.” And after all, decisions create something new.

How Leaders Can Better Deal With Increasing Complexity 

How do I become successful? How do I advance my career? How do I become the best possible me in the workplace? We have all asked these questions, and have tormented ourselves with trying to find the right answers. While there is no right answer, there is a place to start—figuring out who you are. Now, Discover Your Strengths, written by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, allows you to take an assessment to discover and benefit from your strengths.Many people go through their daily work accomplishing task after task, with an inkling of what they are good at or what they enjoy. However, do we take those insights and mold our career around them? Maybe, maybe not. Now, Discover Your Strengths focuses on the idea that people should capitalize on their strengths and manage around their weaknesses. This means we should take what we are good at and flourish versus spending time trying to better our faults.As a society, we are used to the notion that we need to be good at everything, but in reality, that isn’t possible. No matter how hard we try, there will always be things that we are not good at. So, why do we waste our time on things that are not our strengths? The book is not suggesting that you should never try something you don’t believe you will succeed at, instead it encourages you to get to know what you are good at and truly use it to your advantage.Now, Discover Your Strengths comes with a unique code for you to take Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment online. From the assessment you’ll discover your top five of the 34 strengths that they have developed. These strengths range from achiever to communicator to learner and so forth. Once you are aware of your top five, you can use the book to figure out what your strengths mean and how to put them to work.The book describes each strength, as well as the individuals that usually possess them. For many, reading this information is like looking into a mirror because it provides words to describe the actions and mindset that come naturally for them. For example, one of my strengths was learner, which in the book is described as, “The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning.” For me, nothing could be more true: I try to gather information constantly and learn as much as I can about everything around me. Knowing your strengths and learning how to implement them can be a personal catalyst for change at work.Now, Discover Your Strengths also dives into how to manage people regarding the 34 themes. It explains how to manage people with various strengths and suggests steps a manager can take to help that person succeed.It is vital to know who you are to advance within your career. It is even more important to ensure that you are spending your time working on items that coincide with your strengths. Now, Discover Your Strengths will help you realize your potential and drive realistic results within your career.ATD young professionals are encouraged to get involved and submit content to ATD blogs. Find more information about how you can share your content.

Discover Your Strengths

Elliott Masie has been the host and curator of many L&D seminars, labs, and conferences throughout the past 30 years. He is a provocative, engaging, and entertaining researcher, educator, analyst, and speaker who is focused on the changing world of the workplace, learning, and technology. He is acknowledged as the first analyst to use the term e-learning and has advocated for a sane deployment of learning and collaboration technology as a means of supporting the effectiveness and profitability of enterprises.He heads The MASIE Center, a Saratoga Springs, New York, think tank focused on how organizations can support learning and knowledge within the workforce. He leads the Elliott Masie Learning CONSORTIUM , a coalition of more than 150 global organizations cooperating on the evolution of learning strategies, including American Express, General Electric, McDonald’s, General Motors, and Fidelity Investments.He is the editor of Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS, an Internet newsletter read by more than 52,000 business executives worldwide, and a regular columnist in professional publications, including Chief Learning Officer magazine. He is the author of 12 books, including the ASTD /MASIE Center’s Big Learning Data. Masie’s next book, EveryDay Learning, is scheduled to publish in September 2020.His professional focus has been in the fields of corporate learning, organizational performance, and emerging technology. He has developed models for accelerating the spread of knowledge, learning, and collaboration throughout organizations.He serves as an advisor to a wide range of government, education, and nonprofit groups and has served on the board of trustees of Skidmore College as a member of FIRST Robotics board of directors and Williamstown Theatre Festival. He has served as a pro bono advisor to the Department of Defense and on the White House Advisory Council on Expanding Learning Opportunities as well as a member of the CIA University board of visitors.Masie is known as a highly approachable speaker and trainer who blends humor, applicable stories of best practices, and high levels of audience involvement. During the past 35 years, he has presented programs, courses, and speeches to more than 3,100,000 professionals around the world. He lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, owns thoroughbred horses, and is a Tony Award–nominated Broadway producer of shows including Kinky Boots, An American in Paris, The Prom, The Cher Show, Anastasia, The Play That Goes Wrong, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, and most recently, Seared.

Elliott Masie

September 2022 - TD Magazine

Try these approaches for assessing soft skills during hiring.

Gauging a Candidate’s Soft Skills Isn’t Hard

December 2015 - TD Magazine

Hard Stuff Done Right

David holds a master's degree in instructional design and technology, bachelor's degrees in education, and a professional teaching license for the state of Virginia.His experience spans corporate instructional and curriculum design, K-12 education, and asynchronous/synchronous adult learning in both virtual and face-to-face environments.As an instructional designer, he focused on creating accessible learning experiences for a nationwide network.Currently, he is a Senior Associate in Learning and Development at PwC.

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