What if the real reason learning fails has nothing to do with content and everything to do with attention?

In this episode of Voices of the Learning Network, host Bill Banham sits down with Ashley Hinchcliffe, Founder of MAAS Marketing, and one of the strongest voices challenging how learning and development shows up inside organisations.

Ashley has spent the past decade working at the intersection of L&D, behaviour change, and internal communications. Her work centres on an uncomfortable truth: even great learning fails when people don’t engage with it — and engagement doesn’t happen by accident.

Together, Bill and Ashley unpack why traditional L&D campaigns struggle to cut through in the attention economy, what learning teams can borrow from marketing without becoming salesy, and how to shift from assumption-driven programmes to behaviour-led design grounded in real user discovery.

The conversation explores learning as a product: clear value propositions, intentional curation over content overload, and messaging that helps employees choose learning because it helps them do better work today — and build the career they want tomorrow.

They also go deep on impact. Beyond attendance and completion rates, Ashley outlines the outcomes leaders actually care about: time to proficiency, error reduction, tool adoption, first-contact resolution, and attrition in critical roles — and how L&D teams can tell a credible ROI story in language CFOs understand.

This is a practical, challenging episode for anyone ready to declutter their catalogue, sharpen their message, and make learning genuinely business-critical.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why engagement fails before learning even launches
• Behaviour-led design vs intention-led programmes
• Treating learning as a product with a value proposition
• Borrowing from marketing without getting salesy
• Curation over accumulation in noisy learning libraries
• Measuring impact beyond completions and smile sheets
• Proving ROI in operational and financial terms
• The future skill stack for influential L&D leaders

Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns a major programme, and tell us: which outcome will you measure first?

Voices of the Learning Network is the Learning Network podcast connecting the learning and development community. https://thelearning-network.org/

Big ideas don’t fail because they’re wrong - they fail because they’re buried in jargon.

In this episode of Voices of the Learning Network, host Bill Banham is joined by Hari Patience-Davies, a storytelling coach and facilitator who helps organisations turn complex ideas into clear, compelling communication people actually trust.

Hari’s career spans screenwriting, journalism, marketing, digital delivery, product management, and consultancy. She is co-founder of 13 Times, the learning arm of Patience Davies Consulting — a small, agile East London consultancy known for its deep expertise in storytelling, facilitation, transformation, and innovation.

Working across sectors including law, finance, media, FMCG, utilities, healthcare, engineering, and tech, Hari has seen a consistent pattern: the smartest work often fails at the final mile — explaining it.

In this conversation, we explore how storytelling and facilitation help organisations navigate complexity and change. Hari shares practical tools she uses with teams, from tight loglines that force clarity to tactile methods that surface hidden assumptions. We dig into what it really means to be an “E-shaped” practitioner, how to adapt communication across vastly different cultures, and why launches are easy — but aftercare is the real work.

This episode is a practical guide for L&D and change leaders who want to cut through noise, build trust, and make learning and transformation stick.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why big ideas die in jargon
• Storytelling as a leadership and learning capability
• What it means to be an “E-shaped” practitioner
• Adapting communication across sectors and cultures
• Using facilitation to navigate change
• Measuring impact beyond dashboards and vanity metrics
• Why follow-up and aftercare matter more than launch
• Turning fear into clarity through narrative

If this conversation helps you cut through complexity, follow the show, share it with a colleague who wrangles tough messages, and leave a quick review so others can find it.

Voices of the Learning Network is the Learning Network podcast connecting the learning and development community. https://thelearning-network.org/

In this episode of Voices of the Learning Network, host Bill Banham sits down with Linnéa Sjögren, Swedish learning strategist, founder of LinnéaLearning, and a leading voice in the global conversation around modern learning ecosystems.

Linnéa works with organisations navigating rapid technological change, helping them move far beyond reactive training requests and into proactive, business-aligned learning strategy. She also plays a key role in the Global Learning and Development Community and leads several Swedish L&D networks — bringing a systems-level, international lens to the evolution of our field.

In this conversation, we cut through the hype around AI in learning. Linnéa shares why value doesn’t come from tools alone, but from skilled humans applying smart technology with clear intent, strong guardrails, and a bias toward outcomes over outputs.

We explore how L&D can define practical boundaries for agentic AI, teach teams to prompt and verify responsibly, and ensure speed never outruns quality. From there, we tackle the harder strategic question: how L&D stays relevant, funded, and positioned as a true business partner.

This episode is about moving from “create a course” to “build an ecosystem” — auditing where learning actually happens, fixing friction in knowledge access, enabling managers to coach, and strengthening psychological safety so mistakes become fuel for growth.

If you’re ready to step out of order-taker mode and into strategic partnership, this conversation offers a blueprint.

In this episode, we explore:

• Common misconceptions about AI’s role in learning
• Setting guardrails for agentic AI in organisations
• Teaching teams to prompt, verify, and apply responsibly
• Moving from reactive training to proactive strategy
• Acting like a business partner before you’re invited
• Designing learning ecosystems in the flow of work
• Securing trust and budget through data + empathy
• The power of community and collective intelligence

Enjoyed the episode? Follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review so others can find us.

Voices of the Learning Network is the Learning Network podcast connecting the learning and development community. https://thelearning-network.org/