TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey friend 👋,

I turned 39 yesterday (today being Tuesday when I send this to you).

It feels weird writing that number.

Despite what some might class as my vampiric features, I can tell you that my body feels all of those 39 years when negotiating with my back to rise from my bed (cough…coffin) every morning.

Ageing is inevitable but that doesn’t mean it’s not weird.

Now if this was a social media feed (and thank f**k it is not), this could turn into one of those cringey “39 lessons from 39 years”, but fret not, you know this is not my style, and to be frank with you, I hardly have my own life in order/figured out so I’m in no position to spout nonsense dressed as wisdom.

These milestones always give rise to some sort of reflection on life and what I’m doing in it.

One of those reflective sessions, or perhaps incoming mid-life crisis episodes, landed on how I think about solving problems and building products like this newsletter.

I’ve always detested the word “Entrepreneur”, yet I can’t get away from the fact that for whatever reason, people (maybe you too) want to know how my brain works on all these things.

So, today, I’m sharing a behind the scenes look at the thinking frameworks I use for problem solving, business building and just navigating life in general.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

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IN THIS DROP 📔

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THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

Some of what I’ll share you might know already, and some you might not.

I’m not going to over-engineer these frameworks or how to use them. I’m not a consulting firm with a 100-page report designed to blow you away with fake brilliance in the hope of buying something from me.

These don’t need to be complex to be useful, hence my overview of each being light and to the point. My hope is you continue to do your own research into the ones that sound most helpful.

Note: How and when you use these frameworks is up to you. Of course, they’re not suitable for every situation and you certainly shouldn’t use all of them together…deploy your common sense, friend.

This isn’t an official title for this framework.

It doesn’t have one because it’s just something I came to on my own through real world work experience rather than discovering in a book or something.

Most people approach AI, and learning tech in general, backwards. They buy a tool, or get excited about a feature, and then go looking for a use case to justify it. That's a guaranteed way to get poor results and waste time.

Here’s an example of the framework framed around using AI:

What problem are you actually trying to solve?

This can be at a macro level (I want to become more confident using AI across my work) or a micro level (I need to reduce the time I spend writing stakeholder communications).

This is the bit that's easy to skip but is the critical element to this framework.

The time you get back from AI needs to go somewhere valuable, ideally into the areas AI can't reach, like stakeholder relationships, strategic thinking, and influencing.

What are the specific tasks that need to happen to solve this problem?

Be specific here, so not "use AI for research" but "find case studies from the last five years on remote onboarding programmes from companies with 500+ employees."

Only now do you think about the tool.

And if you're constrained to a specific platform at work, adapt the tasks to what that tool can do.

If you want to re-establish the current order of how ‘x’ works, this is the one for you.

Lots of people bang on about “rewiring”, “reshaping” and “transforming” L&D, but ultimately end up doing none of that because they are constrained by the conditioned thinking they already have on the subject.

First principles is just asking: why do we do it this way? Is it because it's the best way or just because it's always been done this way?

A great L&D example is end of course quizzes and tests. I f**king hate them. Yet, we do them because it’s been part of the fabric for L&D assessment for soooo long, but does that tell us if behaviour changed?

Easy answer - No.

So why are we doing it?

This is what first principles challenge you to think about.

Inversion is the practice of flipping a problem on its head.

Instead of asking "how do I achieve X?", you ask, "what would guarantee I fail at X?" and then you avoid those things. I learnt this from famed investor, and Warren Buffets best bud, Charlie Munger, who popularised this in modern thinking (although he was not the creator).

I’m a bit of a weirdo who likes to be counter-intuitive in my approach to most of life. So, spending time calculating what actions would guarantee a disaster so I can avoid them, is right up my street.

Imagine your L&D team is designing an AI upskilling programme for the organisation.

You ask: how do we make this experience effective? You brainstorm content, formats, delivery methods etc, all the standard stuff.

↳ Inversion asks: what would guarantee this experience is completely ignored and changes nothing?

Think, debate and turn that into your advantage.

Systems thinking is all about how everything is interconnected.

We could call this the ability to connect the dots in the work that you do across the wider organisation.

You’ll find lots of definitions on systems thinking online but I view it as simply not focusing on problems in isolation and following your curiosity while using your critical thinking skills to ask how, why and what effect your decisions or outputs will make on the larger system around you.

I find this especially important in L&D functions because we’re often siloed from the main business.

And not recognising how your decisions can impact the wider business for good or bad can be fatal (sorry for the dramatics).

This is a good video that explains systems thinking with examples and below is a helpful framing from the CPTO at Netflix.

There you have it, folks.

A peek into the frameworks that occupy my brain. Of course, I’m not using all of these at the same time. Knowing which one works best is purely based on your context and what you’re trying to solve.

If you found this useful, I shared the tools and strategies I’ve used to build my 20-year career so far earlier this year, and you might also enjoy how I use fear as a tool to achieve goals.

I’m now firmly looking down the barrel of turning 40…let’s see what that brings.

See you next time, human.

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👀 ICYMI (In case you missed it!)

A MESSAGE FROM THE AI-NATIVE L&D PRO

The doors are open for my next half-day workshop.

Join me and ten L&D pros on 20th August to connect, learn, and get a complete operating system for working with AI in your L&D role.

I don't believe you need to spend days or weeks getting to grips with the fundamentals of AI today. You should also know that this isn't a tool demo or a prompting workshop.

​It's a structured, hands-on session designed to give you a complete operating system for working, thinking, and building with AI in your L&D role.

VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

For years I believed my worth as an L&D operator lived entirely in the quality of what I built.

I was wrong.

It was only one part of a much larger puzzle. One that became even more visible as I moved up into senior and head of team roles. You can have the prettiest learning solution but it will never land if you don’t understand the audience you build for.

In this video, I share what I’ve learnt about delivering impact as an L&D operator in all types of organisations, and why most of the time, success has nothing to do with what you build alone.

Enjoy 😊.

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