I am here.

Mark Gilroy March 11, 2019

A little while ago I appeared on a podcast with Garry Turner. As part of our discussion, he asked me a question :

What does vulnerability mean to you?

Truth be told, my answer wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped. I talked about the antithesis of pretending to be bulletproof, the importance of relying on a team, and about how leadership is as much asking for help/advice as it is helping to support others.

And then I read this bit of Twitter poetry from Phil Willcox.

Phil reminded me that I really should revisit my answer to Garry’s question because, to me, vulnerability is much easier to explain.

Behavioural economics : what's it got to do with L&D?

Mark Gilroy December 14, 2018

In recent years the study of behavioural economics has become a popular lens to view human behaviour, with best-selling books on the topic now a mainstay of most retailers. Behavioural science has journeyed from the academic world into the wider arena. As a consultant and coach, I’ve become intrigued by how behavioural economics might be applied to the arena of learning and development.

Podcast : Play, games and wellbeing

Mark Gilroy November 27, 2018

After appearing as a guest on The 3 Good Podcast, hosted by Sukh Pabial earlier this year, we thought we’d go for the hat trick with our third episode together. Sukh’s podcast covers the themes of positive psychology, wellbeing, resilience, mental health and emotional intelligence.

In this episode, we pick up a theme from our previous episode, and talk about

How the past year of podcasting has been for Sukh
Our favourite games, and what they make us good at
How play impacts our wellbeing
The concept of ‘supernormal stimuli’ and how this taps into our evolutionary wiring for distraction
Surprising research about the benefits of playing games, including weight loss, avoiding PTSD, resilience, empathy, and connectedness

Podcast : Value through vulnerability

Mark Gilroy November 5, 2018

Value Through Vulnerability is a podcast dedicated to putting the human back into humanity. How? By sharing ideas, opinion & challenges to improving the level of self awareness, vulnerability & inclusivity, at home, at work and in the world.

In this episode of Garry Turner’s podcast, we cover a range of topics including:

My unusual career journey and some of the lessons I’ve taken from it so far
Defining what vulnerability is and isn’t
Exploring identity work with individuals and teams
The way we present different aspects of the ‘self’ through different forms of social media
The immune system analogy when working with diversity in teams
A model to describe varying levels of maturity when it comes to diversity in organisations

Podcast : The impact of social technology on wellbeing and resilience

Mark Gilroy July 6, 2018

In this episode of The Three Good Podcast, Sukh Pabial and I talk about the impact of modern social technology such as email, social media, and apps on our well being and resilience. We explore some of the latest research into this area, and discuss some top tips to help us regain control of our devices.

Be the grit you wish to see in the world

Mark Gilroy July 3, 2018

Have you ever heard about how natural pearls are formed?

Me neither. If you’d asked me this up until recently, I probably would have mumbled something about oysters. It turns out that the specifics are pretty interesting. I was thinking about this amazing process recently, which had me wondering about the profession of people development, and whether any helpful analogies might be drawn.

Podcast : Emotion at Work - anniversary special

Mark Gilroy May 31, 2018

In this special episode of Phil Willcox's Emotion at Work podcast, we celebrate his 1st anniversary by turning the spotlight on Phil for the first time, reviewing the past 12 months and 23 episodes of his show.

The topics we covered included:

Whether we would rather be able to hit 'copy and paste' or 'undo' in real life
Knowing the distinction between contentment and happines
How and why Phil came to specialise in emotion, credibility and deception
Looking at what happens "within" vs what happens "between", and the interplay between the two
Personal stories in which both of us have lost face and credibility at work
Tactics for repairing face when it has been lost
The merits of using methaphors of masks/houses when discussing the many faces that we wear
The challenges involved in finding men to talk about stories of emotion at work
Potential themes and guests for future episodes of the Emotion at Work podcast

Podcast : Talking about optimism

Mark Gilroy March 6, 2018

I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to The 3 Good Podcast, hosted by Sukh Pabial. Sukh's podcast covers the themes of positive psychology, wellbeing, resilience, mental health and emotional intelligence.

In this episode, Sukh and I talked about optimism.

How is virtual learning like running an airline?

Mark Gilroy February 26, 2018

The practice of facilitating in a virtual environment is unique in so many ways. When planning a piece of virtual learning, one of the key challenges is that it can appear incredibly abstract. If you’ve never designed a piece of e-learning, webinar content or other virtual learning solutions, it can be helpful to pick a meaningful analogy to make things more concrete.

In this post we’ll be using the analogy of an airline when considering the planning, design and delivery of virtual learning.

So, if you’d like to take your seats and place your luggage into the overhead compartment, we’ll get started…

Emotional literacy - how important are emojis?

Mark Gilroy December 20, 2017

What's your favourite emoji, and what does that say about you? Stastically, it's likely to be the 'tear's of laughter' emoji, but perhaps yours tells a different story...

Talent : time for a rebrand? (#DISRUPTHRMCR session)

Mark Gilroy November 19, 2017

Last month I was invited to speak at the inaugural #DISRUPTHR Manchester event. DISRUPT is an information exchange designed to energise, inform and empower executives, business leaders and people in the HR field. DisruptHR is built on the belief that how we’ve approached people and talent in the past won’t be the best way to approach it in the future.

The evening was full of short, focussed talks from professionals who shared their ideas on how we can move our talent thinking forward. Borrowing from the genius of Ignite, each speaker had to follow the rules: 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide, 5 minutes.

My presentation took the theme of talent, and posed the question: is it time for us to examine how we talk about, measure, and develop talent for the workplace of the future?

Oh, and it rhymed.

Book review: Coaching for Innovation: Tools and Techniques for Encouraging New Ideas in the Workplace

Mark Gilroy November 7, 2017

Coaching for Innovation demonstrates the integral role that coaching can play in providing a competitive edge, by fostering the bigger thinking that leads to idea generation and innovation.

As I picked up this book, I found myself wondering whether there is a need to differentiate coaching focussed on innovation from any other kind of coaching. After all, isn’t any coaching initiative designed to foster new thinking, shift perspectives, and consider alternative approaches? Do coaches ever brand themselves as ‘creativity coaches’ in the same way some do as career or life coaches?

One hundred percent solitude

Mark Gilroy October 6, 2017

How would you feel about being enclosed inside a pod filled with water for 90 minutes, entirely alone, with nearly all your senses switched-off?

I have a noisy mind. I practice mindfulness when I can, I try and cut down on caffeine, and attempt to externalise excess 'load' using journalling. Nonetheless, there's a lot of mental chatter up there, and I'm always keen to experiment with ways of becoming more comfortable with solitude. Letting the mind 'be', without feeding it with more input.

12 recommended podcasts for learning & development practitioners and coaches

Mark Gilroy September 2, 2017

For years I discounted podcasts, considering myself a non-auditory learner, until I gave it a try. To my surprise, I discovered that there are rich rewards to be found in the world of podcasting.

Yet with over 250,000 unique podcasts to choose from, with more than 8 million episodes available, getting started in building your subscriptions can be overwhelming!

Here are 12 of my favourite podcasts that cover the learning & development arena.

Creating virtual learning environments - four classic mistakes and how to avoid them

Mark Gilroy August 3, 2017

In volatile and uncertain economic climates, it’s essential for businesses to leverage the latest technologies to adapt to client demands. For our business, key component in staying VUCA-proof has been the introduction of webinars and virtual classrooms to cater for train-the-trainer accreditation sessions. Although our traditional “on the ground” workshops have remained popular, in recent years we have found a strong demand for learning in a virtual classroom. Whether it’s for dispersed teams, clients who have limited travel budgets, or the time-poor learner, webinars have helped our business stay agile.

That’s not to say that we haven’t made any mistakes. Here are some that we’ve encountered, and some ideas for how to avoid them:

Robots, emotions and kung fu

Mark Gilroy June 14, 2017

Last week I attended the CIPD Northern Area Partnership (NAP) conference. A strong theme throughout the event was how we, as professional developers, can adjust to a world that is becoming increasingly led by technology. How can we put the ‘human' back into human resources, when the focus is on using machine learning to automate so much of our work?

How to read 10 books in a day

Mark Gilroy May 9, 2017

No, seriously. To be accurate, this is a post about how I managed to read 10 books in about 3 hours.

Here's the thing- I love reading. I also love TV box sets. And movies. And podcasts. And magazines. All this before we even get to the worlds of twitter, blogging and other social media feeds. I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling a sense of 'content anxiety' in a world of near-abundant input. There is so much fantastic content out there…but making the time to consume it all can feel like a real challenge.

Enter Blinkist: an app-based service, which offers access to professionally curated insights from over 2000 best selling books, chunking them down into a 15-min read, known as a 'blink'.

The Healthy Learning Platter

Mark Gilroy April 6, 2017

I recently encountered Dan Siegel and David Rock's concept of the Healthy Mind Platter : a set of daily mental activities which make up the full set of psychological minerals that your brain needs to function at its best. A balanced diet of ingredients that help build wellness.

It left me wondering whether there could be a similar concept for learning - a Healthy Learning Platter. A set of universal learning activities which, if fulfilled to a level appropriate for the individual, allow for unstoppable learning to flourish, every day.

Creating alternate realities

Mark Gilroy March 31, 2017

Disclaimer: this is not a post about science fiction and infinite universes with overlapping timelines.

Although on second thought, maybe it is. I'll leave you to make up your mind.