What are the significant innovations shaping the future of learning? How is digital technology and scientific discovery changing the way we learn, train, teach and educate? Join John Helmer in conversation with the people who are visioning and actively creating that future. Published fortnightly (don't forget to subscribe!).
Ross Stevenson is founder of Steal These Thoughts! and describes his job as AI enablement architect. Before going independent he was Head of Learning at Trainline, ran digital learning at Tesco for six years, and spent seven years in HR. If enablement sounds a lot like performance consulting, he wouldn't disagree. So is AI the thing that finally makes performance consulting happen?
Also in this episode: where people really are with AI, what Ross won't hand over to a machine, and what might be left of the learning function in three year's time.
How HR taught him what the business really thinks of L&D
Adoption versus enablement
Have the people running L&D grasped how different AI is?
The one-and-done problem
What not to do with AI
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Steal These Thoughts!: https://stealthesethoughts.com/
Steal These Thoughts! newsletter: https://stealthesethoughts.beehiiv.com/ (https://stealthesethoughts.beehiiv.com/)
Ross Stevenson AI (training): https://rossstevensonai.com/
L&D Global Sentiment Survey 2026, Donald H Taylor: https://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/research_base/global-sentiment-survey-2026/
AI 2027 scenario (AI Futures Project): https://ai-2027.com/ (https://ai-2027.com/)
Filtered: https://filtered.com/ (https://filtered.com/)
iVentiv: https://iventiv.com/learninghack
CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer
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Website: learninghackpodcast.com
Subscribe to The Learning Hack: https://linktr.ee/learninghack
With thanks to our sponsor, iVentiv.
28 Sept 2026
LH132 Your People Are Fine: It's The System That's Broken with Robin Hoyle
A third of UK workers say their own organisation gets in the way of them doing good work. Four in ten managers would rather not be managers. So why does L&D keep building interventions that ignore the possible situational causes of poor performance?
Robin Hoyle is Head of Learning Innovation at Huthwaite International and has chaired the World of Learning conference for about fifteen years. In this conversation he makes the case that training doesn't stick because the system around it is broken, and that the profession measures what is easy to measure rather than what matters. His answer? Focus on transfer, not completions.
Robin chairs the World of Learning Conference at the NEC in Birmingham on 6–7 October, closing the second day with a keynote on AI, adoption and agency.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Robin Hoyle at Huthwaite International: https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/author/robin-hoyle
Robin Hoyle on TrainingZone: https://trainingzone.co.uk/author/robinhoyle/
"The performance illusion: why training doesn't stick" (23 July 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/the-performance-illusion
"Why isn't leadership training making leaders better?" (28 April 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/why-isnt-leadership-training-making-leaders-better
"2026 in L&D: Transfer and transferability" (6 January 2026): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/2026-learning-development-predictions
"AI isn't coming for your job" (29 October 2025): https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/blog/ai-isnt-coming-for-your-job
World of Learning Conference & Exhibition, NEC Birmingham, 6–7 October 2026: https://www.learnevents.com/birmingham/conference/programme/
Robin Hoyle, Complete Training: From Recruitment to Retirement (Kogan Page, 2013)
Robin Hoyle, Informal Learning in Organizations: How to Create a Continuous Learning Culture (Kogan Page, 2015)
Geary Rummler and Alan Brache, Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart (Jossey-Bass, 1990)
Ipsos Karian and Box, Work on What Matters — survey of 5,000 UK employees, May 2026: https://ipsoskarianandbox.com/report/work-on-what-matters/
Ipsos Karian and Box, "Are we working on what matters? What 5,000 UK Employees told us" (15 May 2026): https://ipsoskarianandbox.com/insights/are-we-working-on-what-matters-what-5000-uk-employees-told-us/
Fifty years of SPIN, Huthwaite International: https://www.huthwaiteinternational.com/fifty-years-of-spin
Subscribe to The Learning Hack: https://linktr.ee/learninghack
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting
14 Sept 2026
LH131 AI for People People with Erica Farmer
Two-thirds of HR professionals say AI is their top development priority. But only a third of organisations offer any AI training – and fewer than one in five think their leaders are equipped to lead in an AI-enabled environment. So where is the gap, and whose job is it to close it?
Erica Farmer is co-founder of Quantum Rise Talent Group, host of the AI for the Average Joe podcast and author of AI for People Professionals (Kogan Page, 2026). In this conversation she argues that organisations are rolling out AI the way they rolled out every HR system before it, treating people as tech users rather than as people. She also has a challenge for L&D, which she thinks is waiting for HR to tell it what to do. Along the way: writing a book with AI during a backlash against AI, why the tools push you to work their way, the CIPD skills gap, AI literacy and prompting, and what a self-driving Mustang says about human over-confidence.
Also:
Are HR and L&D in the same place on AI?
Double down on what you're great at
Co-writing with AI, and the neurodivergent workflow
Slop and the AI backlash
The CIPD gap: individual capability or organisational readiness?
Leaders as practitioner, communicator and strategist
Stress, burnout and AI 'golden time'
Why prompting still matters
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Erica Farmer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericafarmer/ [verify handle]
AI for People Professionals (Kogan Page): https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/ai-for-people-professionals-9781398625990
EricaFarmer.AI (speaking): https://ericafarmer.ai/
L&D Global Sentiment Survey 2026 (Donald H Taylor): https://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/research_base/global-sentiment-survey-2026/
CIPD, AI in the workplace: https://www.cipd.org/en/topics/artificial-intelligence-workplace/
Erica's Training Journal piece on writing the book: https://www.trainingjournal.com/2025/content-type/features/my-book-ai-for-people-professionals-was-a-human-first-experiment/
CONNECT WITH LEARNING HACK
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnhelmer
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@JohnHelmerConsulting
X: @johnhelmer
Threads: @jphelmer
Bluesky: @johnhelmer.bsky.social
Website: learninghackpodcast.com
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