People, Skills and AI: What is Next for Healthcare Learning?

Introduction

Nolan: Hello, and welcome to the Learning and Development podcast sponsored by Infopro Learning. As always, I’m your host, Nolan Hout. Today, we have a very special guest, Geoffrey Roche. Geoffrey Roche is a total Swiss Army knife. He’s been a Forbes Council Member, executive director of the Harrisburg University, a partner at a product 10 accelerator, director of workforce development at Siemens, and, most recently, excited to announce he’s been hired as the senior vice president of Risepoint, in their healthcare solutions area.

And today we’re going to talk to him about the trend line through all of these positions, which has been in the healthcare industry. Specifically, we will look to the future. What does it look like in education, training, and development in that field? With great honor, it’s my pleasure to present our guest today, Geoffrey Roche, also known as Geff. Welcome to the podcast.

Geoffrey: Thanks, Nolan, glad to be here.

Geoffrey M. Roche’s Journey in Healthcare

Nolan: Before we begin the podcast, we always start with a little bit of an origin story, if you would, Geoffrey, of what brought you to where you are today. For anyone interested in learning more about Geoffrey Roche’s background, visit his LinkedIn profile and review his experience. It is phenomenal. Could you tell us a little bit about where it started and how all those little things led you to where you are today?

Geoffrey: I always tell people that I give my mother a great deal of credit. As the son of a nurse, I can certainly attribute a significant influence to what first drew me to the healthcare field. But I always knew I didn’t want to be clinical. However, even before college and throughout high school, I thought I was headed for a career in politics. I had worked in state government, and actually, I had done so in high school.

I worked for a local state senator for two and a half years, then worked part-time for a state representative while in college. I also completed a Capitol Hill internship, and I thought I would secure a job on the Hill after that, and the rest would be history. And in my last year of my academic semester as a senior, my advisor said to me, ‘You love healthcare; your mother’s a nurse, why have you never thought about administration?’ And I just hadn’t.

However, I did, which led me to a semester-long internship in an administrative-type fellowship. And I fell in love with the opportunities that were provided. And then, a month later, after I finished the internship, I landed my first job at a healthcare system in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Spent a decade at that organization, grew from a professional level role to a management level role, led multiple departments and multiple teams and was involved in everything from all the strategy to the implementation of those strategies to being a state lobbyist in Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, managing a lobbying team in DC. And it all came together back from that college end.

And then honestly, we were acquired by a larger healthcare system, and as we know, what happens sometimes at the middle to senior level management, you get restructured, that was me, and moved into academia from there, which was very intentional because I wanted to understand if I could use what I learned in industry to try and help solve that system.

Did a lot of work in that space? After that, I worked in the EdTech space and as a consultant. And then, obviously, had the amazing opportunity to lead an inaugural role at Siemens Healthineers for the past several years, which involved helping a global med tech company envision its potential in the workforce development space and considering how Siemens could bridge healthcare systems and higher education. The government, philanthropy, and the entire ecosystem of workforce boards collaborate to build a sustainable, future-ready workforce.

And, just finished my tenure there and was fortunate to move on to Risepoint to serve as their first ever Senior Vice President of Healthcare Solutions where I have the opportunity to work across the country with colleges and universities and hospitals and healthcare systems to look at that workforce needs and think about from pre-licensure to post-licensure nursing and everything in between. What does that involve? What’s the training? What’s the professional development? What’s the leadership? And certainly, what are the degree programs to help build a sustainable, future-ready workforce? Not too dissimilar from what I was doing at Siemens, but certainly important work.

Transitioning from Buy Side to Sell Side

Nolan: And will this be your first time? It’s an interesting topic. Some people refer to it as the buy side or the sell side. Siemens, you’re obviously on the buy side. You’re working with other vendors. Risepoint, you’re more on the sell side. What led to that decision to go more in that direction, or was that a thought? Did it not cross your mind that the one to move to university, you said, was very intentional, as you wanted to apply that in the public? Was this also a matter of being in the right place at the right time, or had I always wanted to be on that side?

Geoffrey: I think that there’s a right time, right place element. I can tell you that, having worked on the healthcare system side, it was a great time in healthcare, a time when we had community hospitals that truly cared about their communities. It was at a time when I was fortunate to be part of a system that valued academic partnerships, and we undertook a significant amount of work in that space. And then, coming into the nonprofit academic space was a great experience.

And then, honestly, when I look back, I never would have thought that I would work in a global corporation. That was never really in my cards, but sometimes, when you’re tapped on the shoulder and asked to consider opportunities, there are reasons. When I reflect on that experience, it was truly unbelievable. I learned a great deal while representing Siemens on a global level. It’s just great exposure and great experiences.

However, there has also always been a part of me in my career trajectory that has been extremely impressed and wanting to know more about what we can do on the private equity side. And Risepoint is a private equity-backed organization with a very strong record within the private equity space. And I’m super intrigued to leverage what is truly a phenomenal organization, doing incredible work, long-standing work with colleges and universities, to envision how we can help those institutions to build the best, most strategic relationships with hospitals and healthcare systems that ultimately can drive the value that’s necessary to build a future-ready, sustainable workforce.

Having a nursing focus is also very important to me because, in the event of a healthcare crisis, there’s no greater one than nursing. And if I can have an impact in that space as the son of a nurse and someone who has been wholly devoted to that for my whole career, certainly that was a factor.

The Role of Passion in Learning and Development

Nolan: And what is it that you mean? Passion is something that comes naturally; one of the things I’ve seen that drives a role in learning development and training is passion, right? It is a topic that is passionate for me, but I feel that many people get into it for varying reasons. One reason is that I had a great teacher, and I wanted to replicate that. Oddly enough, another reason is that I had a terrible teacher.

And that could be either a terrible teacher, or what I had was such a bad onboarding experience that I almost made it. I said I’d never let that happen again, as a gold medal basketball player. She said I couldn’t help having such bad coaches. I just thought I could do much better. And that’s what drove me to get into the field. What do you think is at the core, not that you had a good teacher, bad teacher, or whatever, what is it? Is it the idea of helping others that I think can help the most people within a corporate world? What is it, you think?

Geoffrey: Let me start by saying that, because, as you were saying, and I was reflecting, I recently went through an orientation here at Risepoint as a senior leader. I’ve also shared this with my colleagues. It was the best orientation I’ve ever gone through. Kudos to our Chief People Officer and the People Team because it was an incredible orientation. In fact, for those who spend time in orientation, I would chat with the team because I met with about 15 different professionals, and every one of us thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Now, I must say that when I look back on my career, I was fortunate to start my career in my hospital system with, and still to this day, the best leader I’ve ever served with. And my health system CEO was just an incredible person.

I used to call her the Mother Teresa of healthcare, which she hated when I called her that. But she instilled in me many important values through her questions. Certainly, service being one, she was a very strong believer in servant leadership, also a strong believer in transformational leadership, and I use those terms as a current doctoral student because I’m learning a lot about digging into those theories and also much of what, frankly, is broken about leadership in many organizations.

But also, she was the type of leader who reminded us, and reminded me particularly, that you can’t forget your humble beginnings. And she was the type of leader who, as a nurse, would throw on those scrubs and go right back to work when it was busy. It didn’t stop her just because she was the CEO. There’s a lot about her, and I’ll tell you one of the things that I love most about what she taught me is that I would come to her all the time and say, ‘I don’t like this about the organization.’ I don’t like this. And she would say to me, Then where’s your solution?

And I remember coming to her and saying, ‘I don’t think that we, as an organization, are doing enough in learning and development.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Look, yes, learning and development in relatively small organizations reports to the chief human resource officer.’ However, suppose you don’t act as a director. In that case, you need to either A) partner with the director of learning and development or B) determine what you will do within your team to provide and ensure they have what they need from a learning and development perspective, because you’re the owner of that and you’re responsible for their development.

And that was one of those moments where I realized being a leader is a lot more than people realize. I never thought I was responsible for my team’s learning and development. I thought that was the responsibility of the learning and development team. And in that experience, it changed everything about how I think about it. And it led me to think deeply about every leader, regardless of title, whether you consider yourself a leader or not, who is responsible for another person’s learning and development. It was incumbent upon me to partner with our small learning and development organization to help think about how to scale that.

As I thought more about it, my perspective shifted significantly. In many cases, the learning and development field tends to attract individuals who come from human resources. And frankly, through a lot of that work and a lot of what I was experiencing, I learned that they need more industry people who are people managers, people leaders of other areas to thought partner with them to help make the change that’s possible, necessary, actually the change that’s possible happen. And that’s a lot of what I experienced.

Leadership Is Ownership in Action

Nolan: What lovely and I, that’s such a good call to action, I think for, we, I just had this experience at an offsite and I looked at somebody and I said, do you realize that when you’re talking about these things you don’t about the company, you talk to them, you’re speaking in the third person.

But you’re a senior leader; this is your company, just as much as it’s mine. Maybe I’ve got tenure, maybe I’ve got whatever, but you manage your team and you’re building the company that you want it to be. Are you happy with that? And I think that a lot of times, especially we see today, and there’s all this griping of, you People don’t want to take ownership, or I don’t think these companies they’re working. But its edge has to cut both ways. Suppose you want leadership, if you want more power. You want more position; you want more ownership.

Sometimes, that means taking it. That means saying, I am the solution. End of the day, there’s this wonderful book called The McKinsey Edge. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of it or read about it, but essentially, it outlines how to be good for your boss. I was trying to summarize it for someone, and it essentially outlines how to be effective in your role. And it’s widely applicable, because everybody has a boss. Even the CEO, their boss, is the board. And everybody has a boss. And if you can do what’s good for that person, it can drive everything else. And what does your boss want? Solutions. If you present a problem, that’s one more issue to address. Anyway, really good professional advice for those who are going through the same process, saying, ‘I just don’t know how we do things here.’ Stop, think, what would be different? What would we do differently and come up with that plan?

The Future of Education and Training in Healthcare

Nolan: Speaking of what we should do, much of what we’re discussing today concerns the future—the future of education, training, and development in healthcare. And when we were talking, we said, Let’s break it into three things. Let’s talk about the people. Let’s talk about the process. Let’s discuss the technology within those buckets and spend a little time evaluating each one. Let’s start with people.

You mentioned that the CEO is also a nurse, working on the floor. In my mind, everybody seems to be wearing many hats these days. Do you view the shortage of qualified and skilled nurses as a concern? What is the future of education and development for the people? And that’s you and me, the people in the field doing this work, creating the training programs, educating people. What does the future hold for them?

Geoffrey: It’s really interesting. I was recently on another show and was asked a similar question. One of the things I particularly commented on was that I don’t think there’s a greater time in the learning and development field. The reality is that, in many cases, executives are realizing this for the first time, and other leaders, including the board, may also be coming to this realization. Now, I would also like to emphasize that the board needs to recognize this even more, including shareholders. But learning and development are transformational.

To make it even more impactful, you must invest in it. And the reality of it is that when I look at the future, I do think that as we’re seeing in many organizations and many parts of industry, especially in healthcare, learning and development are the professionals that are looked to around culture, retention, career and talent mobility, building that next generation workforce, thinking about things work-based learning, apprenticeships, and critical aspects that, career pathways, etv. And I think it’s all about opportunity, and it’s also about leveraging the voice.

And I do think that learning and development historically have been way too humble. They collectively don’t discuss what makes them passionate or what gives them purpose. I think back to my former director of learning and development, who’s a dear friend, and she and I recorded and developed a course together for Northern Arizona University’s MBA program.

A couple of years ago, the course focused on your brand and identity as a leader and professional. And in it, we talk about our journey together. When I entered leadership, she coached me, invested in me as our Director of Learning and Development, and in many ways helped shape who I am today. Now she’s humble and would tell you if she didn’t, but the truth is she did.

And that’s interesting because I hear from students all the time about how impactful that class is when they take it. And when I revisit it, it’s a perfect example of how transformational learning and development can be. And obviously, many people in the learning and development space know Keith Keating, and I can’t agree more with Keith when to says, Stop acting as an order taker.

I recently had a conversation with some team members this week; they do not act as order takers. You go in there and you tell them that I am the expert and this is what I believe we need to do. Instead of having them tell you what they think they need to do. Because nine times out of ten, there won’t be many people who know how to do this unless they’ve taken the time to understand it. And, you take your example with coaching. Recognize that learning and development experts are often present in organizations, yet many people mistakenly believe they can coach, which leads to poor retention.

We have many people who think they can lead, yet when we examine the data, we see a far different picture from the facts. And, we’ve got to, when I think about the future, we’ve always got to be thinking about succession planning, which is to me a very scary thing that I don’t think most organizations think about. And especially in the L&D space, because we’ve got to think about that element. Now, I will also say that for all the L&D leaders out there, if I were in their shoes, I would be thinking about making sure I have subject matter experts on my team.

That doesn’t all come from the traditional HR, L&D space. Bring in people who have also been leaders in other areas, as this provides a bridge to those functional leaders who may question L&D, given that it’s L&D. It’s harder to question when it’s been somebody who has been embedded in those critical roles. And that’s where I’ve been unique in the work I’ve done, that I can never walk into a room and say I’m a bona fide learning and development leader or a professional.

I don’t want to. However, I can walk into a room and say I’ve been a people leader and continue to be one. I have successfully implemented learning and development solutions, whether formal or informal, achieving outstanding results. And we’ve got to walk that walk and talk that talk, and we need to stop being humble. We need to demonstrate the results truly. I’ll provide an example that was shared at a recent conference I attended in Philadelphia, where I joined other chief learning officers and leaders in this field.

And Merck CLO provided a great example, where Johan shared how their model has evolved. And instead of just talking about the number of Merck colleagues that do a training program, they’ve shifted the entire model to tie what L&D does to the business strategy of that year, and then look at the results that were achieved that year, and then tie back those results to the work that L&D did to supplement and amplify the achievement of those results.

And now, as you can imagine, the other executives are, my gosh. We discussed the need to be more adaptable and agile, and then examined the impact on productivity in this area, guess what? That wouldn’t have happened without L&D’s help in getting there. And it’s a great model that we all need to consider.

Nolan: I was early in my career. I was sitting next to our CEO, talking to someone, and he said, ‘What am I frustrated about?’ When I visit the Salesforce website, it’s right there, right on the front page. The company implemented Salesforce, and its sales increased 7,000 times. And he’s saying that because they bought this technology, all of a sudden, all their salespeople were better, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Was it a piece of the pie? Sure, but was it all of it? Probably not. Why aren’t we doing this and learning from it? Why aren’t we asking, Did your sales increase last year? Did you receive extensive sales training? Why aren’t you saying that you’re the reason?

Understanding ROI in Onboarding Processes

Nolan: And it was a really interesting conversation to have with him, because it was just an open conversation with his executive. And, to your point, as you start to track those things, I was recently asked to help calculate the ROI for this onboarding. This company is a BPO provider for Apple and several other technology companies in Latin America. And he’s on board with 100 people a week.

He’s, like, yes. And we do that every single week. He’s, like, what would the ROI be on this? And I said, it would be, I crunched the numbers. Listen, for every 15% improvement, if you’re able to automate it 15% more, you can decrease 90-day attrition by 15%.

Not total, just 15% of whatever it was, 30%. If you made it, 26%. Every six months, you’re saving half a million dollars. And I’m that, and I sent it to him, but I haven’t shared it with him. I just said, ‘Listen, I need you to go through these numbers with me because you’re going to see them and originally think that’s not right.’

But it’s the numbers; it’s the same way marketing says that if I spend $50 million on a 30-second Super Bowl ad, I’m going to get extra results. It’s the same type of conversation, but you said you have to be bold and willing to let it blow up in your face. End of the day, that’s the reality. Some of these bets won’t pay off, but everybody else is also making them.

Connecting People, Process and Technology

Nolan: It’s to make a bet and fall short, but I think it’s to be bold. I think now is the time to be bold and to say, I’m willing to place the bet on the table. If I don’t, at least the executives around me know that I’m trying to make an impact. Good, phenomenal with people. Now, let’s move on to the process, which is a really big topic today, right? Really, big.

There’s this whole idea, know, one of the big things we look at now is the process of the person, right? In the company, in the healthcare, right? We’re looking at the big one: a shift from job-based to skills-based organizations, focusing on skills versus behavior. What are some threads that you’re seeing there coming down the pipe?

Geoffrey: I think that when I consider this topic, it’s hard for me to think of process and technology separately, because immediately, when I think of process, I think of my healthcare experience. And, frankly, it’s no wonder we experience burnout and moral injury when we have processes that are not, in fact, human-centered.

And I do believe that if we look at most industries, we need to take a real hard look from a leadership standpoint and say, are we certain that we’ve created a workspace that allows individuals to work at the top of their license if they’re clinical or work at the top of their expertise, regardless of whether they’re clinical and get their job done and get it done in a way that they enjoy doing it, or at least in a way that doesn’t cause them stress or mental health breakdowns, right?

The reality is that the process should always be connected to people. To me, all three are interconnected. And it’s one of the reasons why, when I discuss AI, I focus on its potential to augment or assist us in completing critical tasks in a way that enables our people to do what they need to do and do it effectively.

Nolan: I had that idea, and I keep coming back to it, but there was, gosh, was it Bill Bryson’s ‘The Brief History of Nearly Everything’ or ‘Sapiens’? Don’t remember what they talked about or one of the other books. It discusses how every major innovation has had the same design, as you mentioned. Gosh, if AI works, people can work less, be less stressed, and so on.

But then, recently, if we look back, did making letters sent over computers make our lives better or worse? Did having 24 *7 access to the internet in my pocket make my life better, or did it make my life worse? As a power user of AI, I’m also sitting back and thinking, ‘I know this will bite me.’ I know I’m going to sit back and somehow be bitten by this. But you’re right, that.

Geoffrey: However, I think your point is valid, and the question you raised is a valid one. My response to this is that to make it work, we need to ask those closest to the work if it’s a solution or not. In healthcare, for example, we rolled out electronic medical records. And for us as patients, that can be great. Not everyone has the same level of understanding of technology, so it may not be suitable for all. But we never ask the clinicians. Whether there were elements of the workflow within an electronic medical record that would allow them to have a better process.

One of the things I discuss in healthcare is that we need to ask the clinician, the one who’s closest to the work, whether this solution addresses the issue you’re facing. And when we don’t do that, we do create more work and more stress than we need to. And it ultimately comes down to asking those closest to the work whether this is a viable solution or not. And then listening to them because guess what? Nine times out of 10, the ones who are going to make the decision are not close to it anymore, and maybe they never were.

The Role of Skills in Workforce Development

Nolan: That’s I think the real, all these things are connected, People at Prosthetic Knowledge, they’re all, I had this great conversation with this gentleman at Deloitte and we were talking about you can’t just, the role of L&D is a consultant role because you are not an expert in anything except for making an impact. That is where your expertise lies: helping people reach their full potential. However, you don’t have any experience in sales, nor do you have a background as a doctor.

I’m comparing this, of course, you do, and how closely can you get yourself to the problem and then develop a solution around it? And many times, we fall victim to the head of sales asking me to do it; that’s what I’ll do. And then the salespeople say, this is the worst training program I’ve ever had. And the L&D person says, ‘It is.’ I could have told you that. I didn’t talk to you. I just talked to Jim Bob, and I think that’s 100% a consultant mindset, because you’re right. I don’t know many doctors who can spell EMR. Where do you fall on that, because especially in the medical field, you have such a wide range of skills?

Every company does, I would say, but we were implementing this program for Mercy Hospital Network, which is a big player in the Southeast. They knew they needed a training program for every employee who came into contact with them. This included a neurosurgeon who earns a billion dollars a year, the marketing person, the staff, a food service worker, a janitor, and a physical therapist. And I was, that’s many skills.

That’s such a remarkable feat; how does a company even manage that? When you look at the role of trying to educate such a vast number of people, how will they be trying to do that? Should we adopt a skills-based approach versus a job- or task-based approach? Because there is much overlap. In corporate America, you often find marketers who are also skilled in sales, communications, PR, HR, or other areas. Still, it’s not the same as being able to apply my skills as a neurologist to become an optometrist. Maybe, I don’t know. What are your thoughts on that?

Geoffrey: You certainly can’t take a skills-first approach in the clinical license areas because it’s just the nature of the field. You have to be licensed, educated, trained, and validated in those respective areas. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a skills and experience approach in other areas. I often reflect on my days in hospital administration; even then, we had an HR policy that stated you couldn’t promote someone into leadership if they didn’t have a college degree.

And I thought, I thought that was an archaic approach. And I fought with HR respectfully for over a year until I finally got my way and was able to promote a member of my team into leadership who did not have a college degree, an associate’s degree, or a bachelor’s degree.

Because she didn’t, that was not where she was in her life journey. However, what she did have was incredible skills and an amazing pedigree of experience, which, in my opinion, was one of the best hires I ever made. She also possessed an amazing character. And I knew that on the other end of her journey would be much benefit to her family as a single mom.

Achieving this dream would have lifelong effects. The best part of the story is that it happened, and then several years later, when her daughter was getting married, I was asked to officiate at her daughter’s wedding. And it was icing on the cake, but not an easy process. And this was the early 2000s, 2014, 15. And when I go back to that, I think there.

The question you pose comes down to a simple one. We need to review every HR policy and every process in our organization to ask the question: Where are we limiting opportunities and access? And when we are, are we because we are still limiting access and opportunity at a time when our workforce is more constrained than ever? Perhaps skills-first can be a solution.

And let’s also be honest, we’re at a time where many jobs were also being done by individuals who were here as immigrants. And now they are being sent to other locations, possibly to be sent back to their home countries if they’re treated humanely. Whatever the case may be, we’re losing them in the workforce. In many critical jobs, people realize that we’re losing them in the workforce, and we need to fill those critical roles.

At a time when the question is whether we can. And we’ve got to be thinking about these things. I’m a big believer in the value of skills and experience. And I do believe there are critical jobs in healthcare that absolutely can take a skills-first approach. We’ve got to get off this idea that, look, I’m also a big believer in higher education. I think there’s a place for everything, but no one can ever substantiate to me that we shouldn’t value experience.

And then on the higher education side, we should also value experience for credit more effectively, because frankly, I don’t need to pay for a course to learn. If I’ve learned on the job and in the job, I should be earning credit for that job. We need to have a better process there.

The Future of Technology in Healthcare L&D

Nolan: I do know that it is pervasive. I have a buddy who is a doctor, and he said, ‘You get it,’ as he’s trying to establish some virtual care. He’s, it’s, if you don’t have a doctorate in this, nobody wants to talk with you because, know, anyway, absolutely pervasive problem. That brings us to our last point, which is technology. Now, really good position, obviously in healthcare, technology drives everything and a lot of the more recent innovations, but also at your current role at Risepoint, because I believe RisePoint is a technology that supports most of what we’re talking about what do you see, and this is, you usually the most popular topic, but what do you see in the future of technology, specifically in learning and how we’re going to apply that in training in the healthcare realm?

Geoffrey: I think that there’s just a lot of excitement around scalability. When I think about learning and development, healthcare, and larger organizations, I immediately think about scalability—being able to reach individuals in a way that helps them where they are. We need to consider it through the lens of the modern learner. We also need to consider it through the lens of the modern employee. You have five different generations in the workplace, and we are seeing younger generations emerge with innovative elements.

They learn on TikTok. They learn in various ways that are different from how I learn. As a father of three young children, I think about it, and my oldest has a group chat with his classmates. And I look at the conversation and the phrases they use, and all of that; they’re on TikTok, so they hear about the news on TikTok.

And I think that we, as an organization and as an industry, need to be prepared to provide learning and development in a way that resonates with that audience. At the same time, we also need to be able to do it for all audiences. And when I think about technology, I immediately go to that. We have not leveraged or harnessed the power of people, process, and technology to truly meet the diverse needs of all learners, employees, and generations.

We have a system that was built for boomers and generations that are far removed from the workplace, and we have not caught up to millennials, let alone the newer generations that are now emerging. And we have a lot of work to do. And we need to harness technology to assist us more quickly in reaching a critical point.

Nolan: I think it was before 2018, maybe even 2016, when blended learning was everywhere. That was the word. Right. And I’ve been thinking a lot about that because one of the things we are trying to do as a company is to create, and we’re not quite there yet. ‘Blended’ is the best word for it. I believe a blended learning approach, which combines in-person training with online content, is beneficial.

I learned in the classroom, and then I continued my learning on my computer. However, as you mentioned, now we’re saying, how do we take the same asset and deliver it to a millennial, a Gen Z, a boomer, or whatever? Take that, and what I tell people is, ‘Listen. How I learn is that I love to listen.’

Take that product manual, put it on Notebook LM, and give me the podcast version. I’ll listen to it on my way home; otherwise, I won’t listen to it at all. You have those two choices. Would you have me do? And I think, and that’s where I get back to this point of email versus postage stamp.

Geoffrey: 100%. 

Nolan: Does this mean that every learning asset now has to have 10 different assets? And I think, but isn’t that what we want? Don’t we want to engage with Nolan and meet him where he is, but also meet Geoffrey Roche where he is? And he loves to read, let him read. Or let him ask, let him give him a coach, give him an AI agent, and just let him ask a bunch of questions to it. I do think it is that.

I think that at first, and still, many people hold the idea that AI and Tech can cut my budget by 50%. I’m listening. This is the wrong way. You do not have one of my marketing teams write the headline to an article. He said, ‘Learn how to slash your budget by 50%,’ and I said, ‘Whoa, that’s not at all what we’re saying.’ I was, “What do you mean? I was no, we might slash your production cost by 50 % but that’s not your budget.

That’s just allowing you to do more with what you have. If you don’t have to spend 50 % on a video or a podcast or whatever it is, what are you going to use that money for? Do something else. Engage your learners more. I wholly agree with you on this idea, which I think is the most effective way to meet these learners where they are feasibly.

Geoffrey: And I think to your point, the other piece that’s super critical is, good example, right, when we talk about slashing budgets, the worst thing an organization can do at any time is to reduce the L&D budget, frankly. And often it happens far too often. And right away, they want to say, ‘No, we need to work on retention, we need to work on culture, we need to work on current ability, we need to do this, this, and this.’ But if you slash those budgets, you can’t do this and this.

And you have to have that strong understanding and recognition to say, ‘Let’s not cut in those areas.’ And I’ll give you an example. Mean, look, I, I, for both of us have been in a situation where you have to reduce budgets. When I was in the healthcare system, we had a central Labor and Delivery team.

I had L&D for our EMS professionals. And the learning and development that we did for our EMS fire. Lease. I had a member of my team who reported to the manager I mentioned earlier, who was responsible for all the learning and development for those individuals. And every year, I would be asked to review all my respective budgets.

And I refused every year to reduce in that area because to me, how could I, as a leader, choose to reduce an area for the first responders who need continuing education to provide the first-level care that’s necessary for our community? But some executives would challenge me every year on those areas.

And much, I remember one of them, looked at him and said, I hope you don’t get an ambulance that comes to you one day, with a professional that hasn’t had their continuing education, because I’ll make sure they know that you wanted to cut their budget.

Nolan: Totally.

Geoffrey: We need to emphasize these areas. And, to your point, I think the people, the process, and the technology all need a human-centered aspect. The final point I would make on all three is that they must have a human-centered aspect. And we should never overlook that aspect in any decision we make about people, any decision we make about process, or any decision we make about technology.

Nolan: Yep, and I agree. Sometimes it is as simple as getting back to basics, and I think that applies to many things. You lose sight of the big picture, and you drop things. Things are going to change. Its AI is going to be replaced with something else. A skills-based organization will be replaced by something else. The nurse shortage is likely to be replaced by something else, such as Gen Z, or whatever comes next. However, if you have a fundamental understanding of what drives people and what drives organizations, you’ll be in a good spot.

Closing Thoughts

Nolan: Geoffrey, thank you very much. We appreciate you taking the time to join us this afternoon, sharing your wisdom, and spending your afternoon with us. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I can’t thank you enough for being here.

Geoffrey: No. Thank you for the opportunity and for the important work you do.

Nolan: All right, thank you.