The ”Myths, Misconceptions, and Superstitions” Episode

The LDA Podcast: An Exploration of Evidence-Informed Approaches to Learning and Development

A special episode. Only two segments this time. Our guest, Clark Quinn, was too interesting to boot off, so we kept him going longer- for a double length discussion on a myriad of different topics. For our first segment, we dig into awards in the Learning Industry. Will shares how the different industry organizations, in general, approach running awards programs. We then discuss the merits of these awards and what they mean- in other words, can they be trusted? Are they beneficial? Are they even useful? Are they fair? Are they accurate representations of merit. We also discuss the responses we got when Will posted this question on LinkedIn.

Note that the referenced poem Matt wrote in college, HANK, is too humiliating to share. No one will ever see it! 🤔 You’ll have to listen to see what we are talking about here.

Then, we are joined by our long-time friend and colleague, Clark Quinn. Clark is one of the eminent leaders in learning technology strategy. He has written several books, including Revolutionize Learning & Development: Performance and Innovation Strategy for the Information Age and most recently, the great Millennials, Goldfish & Other Training Misconceptions: Debunking Learning Myths and Superstitions. During this segment, we start with an exploration for why it is important to be aware of the myths, misconceptions, and superstitions (MMS) that are pervasive in the industry. We discuss what the differences are between each of those classifications and why using tools and resources more accurately is a better business case. Clark shares why it is so appealing to accept MMS. In other words, why do we diss science and throw money away? We then dive deep, exploring a few examples within each of those categories, including:

MYTHS:

• The Generations Effect‎
• Multitasking‎ ‎
• Dale’s Cone‎
• ‎Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP)‎

MISCONCEPTIONS:

• No Knowledge versus Focusing on just Skills‎ ‎
• 70-20-10 ‎

SUPERSTITIONS:

• ‎Interaction Yielding Engagement

Other MMS’ we raise include: DiSC, MBTI, Strengths, Neuro-everything that isn’t actually neuroscience, and Mehrabian’s 55-38-7.

Clark also references Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his work on FLOW. You can find the seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, here.

Matt references Human Development and exploring the human lifecycle as a more reliable way to look at the impact age may have rather than the Generations Effect. Without naming them directly, the information he references comes from the work of noted psychologist, Richard M. Lerner and his book, Concepts and Theories of Human Development and the work of Dale Dannefer, the Selah Chamberlain Professor of Sociology and Chair Department of Sociology, at Case Western.

And, we learn that Will is a suspicious guy who loves leading questions🤣🤣. And, finally, Clark joins us for the Best and the Worst.