Cheap, shallow and everywhere
Talking heads have gone mainstream! Don’t double down on them.
Last week, my Dispatch friend-and-co-author Ross Dickie and I attended the World of Learning Conference in London. It was a fun event and, for us, a wonderful opportunity to catch up with both clients and suppliers. In person! Like ‘twas 2019.
And of course there were only two letters on the lips of everyone we spoke to: “F” and “U”.
No, no… “AI”, of course.
The people profession, like every other, has become overcome by AI. With a particular focus on creating as much low-cost video content as possible.
Is this a good idea?
Historically, I would have chuckled at the naivety—as, it seems, would many of our readers! 'I’m still not sold on AI instructor videos’ is our highest performing newsletter to date.
To me, the idea of watching an expressionless automaton speak into a camera remains soporific. Don’t forget, I spend much of my working day watching Ross Dickie on Microsoft Teams do just this.
And yet, and yet, and yet: I learned a couple of weeks ago that the biggest destination for podcast distribution in 2026 is YouTube.
That’s right, YouTube! Apparently, it’s become staggeringly common not just to listen to people wanging on, but to watch them do so.
Per the Stat Significant newsletter:
‘According to my rigid worldview, podcasts were created by Steve Jobs as a mindless auditory experience that might complement household chores or a walk to the grocery store. I cannot consume a podcast with my eyes because then I would be unable to wash the dishes or clean my cat’s litter box. Apparently, I am old-fashioned, tied to a bygone vision of what podcasts should be.’
The rest of the world, it seems, has moved on.
Every week, centrist dads Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart present the UK’s most popular politics podcast, The Rest is Politics, live on YouTube. Typical length: 30 minutes.
NFL star-turned-Swiftie-muse Travis Kelce’s show, New Heights, offers the same broadcast format as a Teams meeting. Typical length: 1 hour 30 minutes.
The Rewatchables, hosted by Spotify’s Bill Simmons, just launched on Netflix in the US. Typical length: 2 hours.
What these shows have in common is that, by and large, they feature people speaking into a webcam.
The talking head has gone mainstream. It’s L&D’s moment to shine!
🤔 Is this the wrong lesson?
Back in 2019, Donald Clark wrote an excellent summary of the research into educational videos. And he started by bringing up the big problem with looking at consumer video platforms (in his piece, Netflix) and drawing lessons for L&D:
‘Netflix is entertainment, not learning content.’
There are, of course, some techniques from the world of entertainment that we can use to make our videos more (wait for it!) engaging:
Informal delivery is better. It’s easier to listen to, and feels more authentic.
Two voices, or more, adds variety.
Discussion, rather than scripting, creates a greater sense of spontaneity and risk.
But the core issue with looking to how consumers engage with video content, and then applying it to workplace learning, remains the same:
When we watch our favourite comedian talk for two hours with their mates, we’re not expected to learn anything, do anything, or even remember what they said.
In the world of workplace learning, that’s not good enough.
When we create learning content, we do want the person watching it to become better at their job, or learn a skill, or change their behavior in some way.
🤩 So how do we do this?
Rather than list the techniques, I’ll point again to Donald Clark’s summary. It’s excellent.
However, I’d strongly suggest short videos with a focus on demonstration, and immediate opportunities for application for the learner.
AI for video production is a useful tool. It’s cheap to produce and easy-to-update.
But when we use it, we should use apply the same outcomes-focused lens we would with any other tool. Not just produce more stuff that doesn’t work.
Need help with video production? Our custom learning team use video scenarios, expert interviews, animated explainers and visual demonstrations across many of our programs. Get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
Pressure from above, pressure from below; little appreciation from either. That’s the experience of work for many middle managers!
Last week on The Mindtools L&D Podcast, author Gary Cookson joined me and Dr Anna to discuss his new book, The Squeezed Middle, with a focus on:
why managers are so misunderstood and undervalued
the skills middle managers require to succeed
how we can all help build middle managers.
No YouTube version (yet), but you can check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website.
📖 Deep dive
You look great, your work sucks, and you have nice hair.
That’s an example of a feedback sandwich, and we’ve known for years that they don’t work. All anyone hears is the negative bit in the middle. And that’s a situation that got worse once everyone started recognizing when they were being fed one.
In his commentary on a recent review of feedback research from the Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Dr Keith O’Brien writes:
‘Here’s where I had to laugh/groan. After 30 years of research, the systematic review authors earnestly conclude that we still need to explore “how positive and negative feedback can be sequenced or balanced to affect their impact” (p.40).
In other words: prepare yourselves for the feedback panini. The feedback baguette. The deconstructed feedback tartine. Researchers will be serving up sandwich variations for another generation whilst your managers continue to wonder if they should lead with the good news, or bury it after the criticism.’
So what should you do if you want feedback to make a meaningful difference to performance?
According to the review, the key is a high quality relationship between the supervisor and subordinate.
When the person receiving the feedback trusts their supervisor and believes they have their best interests at heart, they’re more open to listening. And, of course, the supervisor is more open to giving it!
Per O’Brien again:
‘Your managers aren't avoiding hard conversations because they lack courage. They're avoiding them because they lack relational capital.’
Want to start building better teams? Start by asking them how their day is going.
Sources:
OBrien, K (2026). ‘The Feedback Paradox: Why The Latest Round Up of 30 Years of Research Says Your Managers Need Better Relationships, Not Better Techniques’, LinkedIn.
Heine, E. C., Stouten, J., & Liden, R. C. (2025). ‘Performance Feedback: A Critical Systematic Review’. Journal of Organizational Behavior.
👹 Missing links
🤖 Want to make the most of an AI? You need a manager
When Seattle-based manufacturing firm Glowforge launched a sales-coaching tool that would email AI summaries of client calls to their reps, those reps responded unanimously. They binned the summaries. How to get them to take the summaries seriously? According to an article in The Economist, the firm built another version and embedded the output into weekly discussions between reps and their managers.
🍕 Finally an AI that can actually do stuff! Don’t let it
If you haven’t been following the Clawdbot / Moltbot / OpenClaw discussions, it’s worth checking out. The promise is that by giving your AI access to everything, it becomes far more useful. No more asking for recipes. Instead, you send a message via WhatsApp, Slack, etc, and the bot will go order food for you. The problem with giving it access to everything is… well, implied. On the one hand, it’s amazing. But according to the good folks at SOC Radar, you should avoid it until credentials are managed like secret vaults and conversation history is formally classified as “sensitive”.
💸 From learning to commercial impact
Last week, my colleague Darren Bezani and I discussed the relationship between workplace learning and commercial impact. And we don’t just mean sales. When learning is effective, it improves employee retention, reduces time-to-competency, increases efficiency and results in higher performing teams. We share examples from academia, as well as our own case studies working with real-world organizations.
👋 And finally…
Speaking of sh*t sandwiches… I had to fact check that this clip was real!
👍 Thanks!
Thanks for reading The L&D Dispatch from Mindtools Kineo! If you’d like to speak to us, work with us, or make a suggestion, you can email custom@mindtools.com.
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