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Hey there,

The latest L&D Podcast episode is easily one of my favorites. Here’s why:

Martha Soehren, former Chief Talent Development Officer at Comcast, reveals what it took to align more than 800 L&D professionals and their stakeholders across a massive Fortune 10 company with nearly 125,000 employees.

When Martha started, only 39 of those 800 L&D pros reported directly to her. But managing their work—and driving real business impact—was nearly impossible without a more unified approach. She knew she’d need to make a rock-solid business case to leadership to centralize L&D. Her advice?

“You can never over-communicate to senior executives. The more times—and the more different ways—you tell them things, the greater the buy-in will be.”

With this mindset, Martha successfully co-chaired a formal Learning Council with Comcast’s CEO, and pulled in their top 10 senior executives to bring greater cohesion, credibility, and impact to one of the most complex L&D functions in the corporate world.

In this episode, she unpacks:

How she centralized a fragmented learning ecosystem for 125,000 learners
Why getting stakeholder buy-in early on is non-negotiable
The power of executive storytelling and data in influencing the C-suite
Her strategy for handling tough feedback (and turning it into success)
A real-world learning solution that delivered 700% ROI

As Martha puts it, “L&D professionals aren’t business experts. These executives know a heck of a lot more about the business than we do. So we have to learn from the leaders we’re serving.”

But perhaps the ultimate goal of business alignment is this: building relationships so strong, your execs become your biggest champions—even when you’re not in the room.

Continue with Martha’s highlights

Freddie’s favorite find

Ash, the first AI designed for talk therapy, just launched this week. Many people have already been using ChatGPT for similar purposes, but concerned experts have pointed out that users are essentially being fed what they want to hear.

Ash, on the other hand, is trained on one of the largest behavioral datasets yet, integrating a wide range of therapy styles, and fine-tuned by a clinical team to “know when to challenge someone, when to stay silent, and how to handle critical moments”.

I’m honestly curious to hear how this platform performs vs generic chatbots–the demand is certainly there, and I think specialized AI tools are quickly increasing accessibility to valuable resources in our professional and personal lives. But what do you think: will Ash be an industry leader, or just another hyped-up AI tool?

Community threads worth reading

Pssst...did you know we have a free global community of 5,000+ learning leaders?

This week, L&D experts are talking about:

Their tried and true methods to keep learners engaged
Microlearning tool recommendations for busy professionals
Interactive platforms for product launch training
How to secure leadership buy-in with better conversations

Join them in The L&D Collective to discuss and discover the latest L&D insights and strategies, or reach out to us on LinkedIn!

And that’s it from me this week! 💛,

Freddie from 360Learning

P.S. If you have any questions or feedback, hit reply – I read every email and will get back to you personally.
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360Learning

1 council. 10 execs. 700% ROI.