My Top 5 Moments from ATD 2018
Wow.
What an event.
10000+ Attendees. 4 Days. 400+ Speakers. 300+ Sessions.
ATD 2018 has been a journey that’s for sure!! Here are my top 5 moments……
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Opening Keynote President Barrack Obama
What a WOW this was. How could it not be No. 1 on the list? Politics aside – I was left in no doubt that I was in the presence of greatness as I listened to President Obama.
Sat side by side being interviewed by Tony Bingham, ATD CEO for the past 14 years he shared stories of his life and time in office and thoughts on learning, education and leadership.
Many readers of my blog may or may not know that I take notes continuously at conferences, in fact I take copious notes continuously – full stop. And when I’m not note taking I’m journaling my own thoughts J
But for this session I just listened.
I listened to the power of his stories – and stories not only about himself but about his team, he was keen to share stories of their successes. I listened to examples of great leadership from the White House office where President Obama described how he asking questions of the outer circle at key cabinet meetings, those who had pages of notes and were passing information to the key leaders with a seat at the inner circle. President Obama described how this has a threefold benefit – not only did it mean that the outer circle were always prepared as they knew they could be called on at any time, it also gave them empowerment that their opinion matters, and it illustrated to the senior leaders at the table that they needed to be listened too.
I listened and related to his stories of decision making when he realised that as President of the USA that every single decision that came across his desk was a difficult decision with no one correct answer or approach.
If it wasn’t one of his team would have already made a decision.
My favourite section of the interview was when President Obama spoke about the importance of values – not fancy corporate values but the good old-fashioned values of honesty, integrity and hard working. He described as a foundation his team were able to achieve many things beyond what they had thought initially impossible. That’s something I will take with me beyond ATD 2018.Being part of a delegation!
2. Being part of a delegation!
ATD 2018 in San Diego was not only the 75th anniversary for the ATD it was my 7th time of attending. Between 2005 and 2018 I’ve been to Washington, Atlanta, Denver (twice), Orlando (twice) and now San Diego all to be part of the buzz that is ATD…. Formerly ASTD of course.
This was my first time though attending as part of a delegation. And it made ATD it even more of a rich experience than usual – as they say… it’s good to share!
Jacqueline Evans from Lion and I co-lead a group of what started out at 20 people and ended up with 30 Australia / New Zealand attendees in our Whatsapp group exchanging anything between where the best sessions were and where the best coffee was (and shock horror when the global village temporarily ran out of coffee!)
We kept the delegation organisation to a minimum and very simple, 2 webinars before we left to set us up for success and a few specific whole group meet ups– but the group created a momentum of its own and had dinner before Jacqueline and I even met with them and set everyone up to enjoy a baseball game one evening.
I’d definitely recommend joining a delegation. We set out with the intention of people getting involved as much as little as they liked – and it worked. I’m sure some lifelong friendships will come from this experience – along with a heap of learning that has already happened! And how’s this for a photo of a happy bunch of people!
Bring on the 2019 Delegation that will be hitting Washington May 19-23rd… watch this space!
3. The first session I attended! Leadership and organisational practises for a post automation workforce
Don’t you love it when you attend a conference and with the first session you attend you know if you don’t get anything else from the trip it will have been worth the visit?
Well Dr Debra France from W.L. Gore & Associates session was just that! You may not have heard of Gore Associates but you will have probably heard of Gortex the fabric used in high performance jackets and unbeknown to me they also produce medical devices are really an innovation company.
Dr France spoke of millennials comprising 75% of the workforce by 2025 fuelled by autonomy and purpose. There will be a rise on contractors, and far more choice for people to be able to configure how and where they work. Organisations won’t own their talent so will need to really work out how to genuinely attract people to want to work with them.
I love the idea of organisations needing leaders rather than managers in the future as lattice networks and short term teams become the norm. Dr France spoke of the counter intuitive concept that people need to know the rules to help them have more freedom within the organisation or team.
I’ll share more about this session when I run my ATD2018 debrief webinar – it was fascinating and a real highlight.
4. The moment of meeting a Coaching Hero at 3 Counterintuitive Strategies to Build a Coaching Culture
Attending many conferences, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s two types of presenters that I love at conferences – those that really resonate with me because I agree with their view on the world and they stretch that view to a new level and those who completely bamboozle me with new ways of thinking and getting me to consider a perspective that I’ve never come across before.
Michael Bungay Steiner – was the former and I sat in his session grinning from ear to ear… this is what I believe! He is my coaching hero.
He shared his ‘NCAC’ fundamentals that Nobody Cares About Coaching in organisations and encourages linking to what people do care about use coaching as a small part of a bigger game. Michael also had a great way of introducing the drama triangle into organisations. If you want to know more about Box Full of Crayons approach to workplace coaching take a look at their website.
5. The moment of deeper learning .- Artificial Intelligence has reached a tipping point. Will it end L & D as we know it? Panel session
And this was the latter! A diverse international panel of Ger Driesen and Evert Prius from the Netherlands, Amit Nagpal from India and Koto Nakahara from Japan challenged our thinking and opened our eyes as to what’s happening within AI in learning now and looking into the future.
They shared how AI will not only be impacting manual tasks but cognitive ones too and where they are replaced they will be highly augmented. And I liked the distinction that we should be considering that the impact of AI isn’t always directly apparent on jobs and roles but more on job content and tasks.
I also liked the shift of management work being from where we are now of giving instruction for ensuring execution and management of tasks to identifying what to look for and asking questions correctly – we can see this shift already happening.
The panel also shared some case studies of what’s already happening and next year I’m putting my hand up for our AI transfer bot to be included in the session! I was so inspired by Ger’s work last year at ATD 2017 that I ran with it and will be launching to the wider market soon…. trials have been successful and we are on our way.
So those where my moments. The conference was a powerful, reflective learning experience – and aren’t they just the best kind!
To close – a shout of to those who are in Australia. We have our own conference coming up VERY soon in the form of AITD2018 on June 7th in Sydney. I’m very happy that I’ll be taking the stage with one of my clients sharing our story of creating an internal learning transfer team. Do come along and get involved. I really look forward to seeing you there!
Here’s to us as learning and development professionals keeping learning!