This week we're joined by Kausta Spann of Kausation Consulting to discuss the importance of creating and managing compelling content for corporate learning.

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Welcome back to Learning Matters. I'm your host, Doug Woolridge. And today we have Kosta Spann on the podcast with us to talk about her company, Causation Consulting, can be used for content development as well as management. Let's get to the interview. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Kosta. I'd like to start off with just you telling our audience a little bit about how you found yourself into the world of learning and development and how you came to founding.

costation consulting. Sure. So I am I came into the world of learning and development. Actually, I'm from a family of educators. So my mother, my mother, she was an elementary school administrator. She started as a first grade teacher, worked her way up, became a principal.

And my maternal grandfather also was an educator and also in elementary school education. So I had vowed that I was not going to be a teacher. But I guess it was in my genes because I stumbled into learning and development very, very early in my career. And I've been there ever since. So my whole career has been in learning and development. I just love.

learning new things every day. love speaking with experts, the SMEs, the subject matter experts. I just love talking to people about their roles and their daily duties and help in using that information to help others learn and become better. Well, that's what makes us fun, right? The beauty of corporate training and learning and development is that

any day it could be a new project and it could be a new industry, could be a new thought leader type of thing, it could be anything. So just the excitement is always there. When you decided to create your company, was there a gap that you were hoping to fill within the industry? In going to why I decided to create Causation. With Causation, I created Causation during the pandemic. Virtual training was abound.

A lot of new learning was taking place. People were on Zoom calls all day trying to learn. And I felt it was a good time for me with my professional experience to kind of into owning my own learning and development firm. And that's how causation came about. And I think

for a lot of our listeners and a lot of folks out there. The pandemic was just a wild situation for everyone in the industry. Folks who had been doing a lot of face -to -face training immediately just transferred into that, okay, we have to do everything virtual, we gotta do it now. So did that kind of shape the way that you jumped into this new deep end of owning this company? Definitely, it definitely did.

because everyone was jumping into virtual learning and training. Being digital, it definitely shaped the way I approached it. Also, I realized I had to kind of learn new skills and it was myself just to be a depth at that, you know, with the digital learning component. And as you know, I'm sure you're familiar with,

corporate training, as far as learning and development goes, is very, very formalized. So those processes and procedures, the pandemic really shifts these as far as just...

just as far as training goes and as far as quickly being able to develop that training just on the fly because we weren't anticipating the pandemic. And so it caused everyone to really pivot really quickly and it showed the importance of what we do as instructional designers and learning and development professionals. Definitely. And,

You worked in higher ed for several years. What do you think is the main difference between higher education and corporate training? Definitely, Doug. I would say kind of touched on it a little bit before. For me, in higher education, it gave me the chance to really kind of step into that sandbox of facilitation in a different way.

And professionally, when I'm doing work, instructional design work for corporations, I'm often behind the scenes. You know, I develop things and pass it off to somebody who's gonna be responsible for the facilitation or working with a facilitator to make an existing trainer more engaging. So it's different with higher ed. I mean,

From soup to nuts, I was just awesome before it all. Right? But it was also very fun because it kind of gave me a chance to be really innovative. It take an idea that I thought might be interesting and see it through to execution, even if it was posing a question to my audience and seeing how, you know, just how things.

pivoted. So one of the classes that I taught during the pandemic was a class that I created and it was called College Communication for Introverts, which was not supposed to be taught online. But I'm sure

the 20 some of my students in my class were excited as it's your birthday that they were able to take it from their rooms. But that was a chance with Higher Ed where I really got an opportunity to see and thought a lot of ideas out there. We did a virtual show and tell. We talked about different ways to engage and meet people in college and.

It just was a really, really great time and it really invigorated my feelings around instructional design and it showed even with higher ed how engaging this little forethought could be and how important it is to kind of try to close.

the space by really helping virtual spaces be very, very engaging because I was really worried with that class because, you know, by nature, these students are introverts. you know, conducting this class in a virtual environment, I was a little bit nervous, but it turned out really, really well. Were there any type of techniques that you used to get them to open up and be

participatory during these online settings? Yes, I think typically for anyone in that type of, for any learning and development professional or somebody who's teaching a course, always say letting your learners know that this is a safe space, that this here is kind of like a learning playground for you to learn and kind of get your scrapes.

as far as how to interact. And so that really helped by me letting them know that, this is a safe space. Also, that class was unique in that everyone were introverts, right? So your struggles are all of our struggles and this here could just be an environment where you can build confidence. And also you can create relationships.

you know, meet friends and so it really helps. A tip that I did give them was it's with everyone. Meeting friends and meeting people who are passionate about the things that you are passionate about makes things much easier. So kind of focusing on who you are, your gifts, your interests.

can really help let your guard down as far as developing those relationships. That was a really good tip that I shared in the class too. Wise words for sure. And on the opposite side of things in the more corporate training style, what are your techniques for making that type of training more engaging? know, behind the scenes, like you said, is a little tough to really gauge how things are going to go during the execution of the training.

How do you make sure that learners are set up for success? So I take a tip from Stephen Covey. I always begin with the end in mind. I asked him, what would success look like? First of all, it helps kind of start at a positive place. It could help alleviate anxiety for the person who may feel like, you know, a lot of the onus on if this training is successful or not is on them as a stakeholder.

So talking to them about what would success look like, what is going well with the class, and then going into areas of improvement. So I always thought they're putting the stakeholder in a positive frame of mind, letting them know that we're going to work together on this, and then just really building trust in their relationship. Because much of instructional design is about relationship building.

It is about the stakeholders and the subject matter experts trusting you with the information needed to develop a course or make a course better. So I really try to let my stakeholders, my subject matter experts, leadership, mean, anyone I'm collaborating with know that I have a vested interest in the success of the course and then just asking questions so I could get up to speed and.

make sure I'm on the same page with them. This boy's learning goals are concerned. Definitely. I'd like to talk a little bit about content creation. So what type of content do folks generally ask you to help create and how are you able to help them make a true plan of action for the creation and then the release of that content? So it is random gamut from videos to interact

computer -based training modules and e -learning modules. I've created instructor -led training as well. So it runs the gamut and it depends on our audience on exactly what I really enjoy, e -learning modules and doing things with that as far as when it comes to corporate spaces, a lot of articulate and you know.

So Storyline 360 and those tools, because I find that they offer a lot when it comes to blended learning opportunities. And you can really use those to make really engaging training. So I enjoy using those tools. Let's shift a little bit to human resources. When I was doing a little bit of research, I noticed that you spent quite a bit of time

back in school doing human resources and I feel like mentioning HR to some folks seems like a very scary thing and and As someone who is well versed in HR What is it that makes a great HR team and and how can that make or break a company? definitely I would say an interest in people Just a vested interest in people and relationships

I think, again, in corporate environments, those relationships, those programs that HR can develop or have going, and just helping meet the needs of the workforce can really make an impact on the organization as a whole, and especially when it comes to attrition. you know, using your role,

Basically to be a bridge, feel like it's important when you're talking about HR and thinking about the programs and the different offerings that HR has. mean, just about the employee is a hollow when it comes socially, you know, because the employees are the social capital of an organization. so, whether it's their wellness programs or, you know, learning and development like we've been.

we have been speaking about today. I feel like with HR is really important just to think about the entirety of an employee, even if it's work -life balance, right? So seeing them as a whole person and then, you know, being a bridge between the resources a corporation has and that employee I think really helps make a great HR team.

DEI is something that a lot of companies are finally starting to really embrace. How far do you think we've gotten and where do you think the future is for companies really getting into the idea of having diverse opinions, diverse folks coming into the organization and really opening up a more transparent way of building a company.

not just from the leadership side of things, but also just from all of the employees. Yes, I think with DEI, there's always room for growth, right? Just generationally, we have a lot of different generations in the workforce now. So there's always room to learn and grow from each other. think social media too, the advent of social media shows how different

we are and have different opinions and views can be. So with DEI, think in a corporation or organization, just knowing the values of their organization and really promoting just the workforce being cohesive and collaborative. I think DEI is important because where there's diversity, there's innovation.

All organizations, you want an innovative team. You want a team that can creatively solve problems. And a group of diverse individuals are gonna have lots of different ideas and they're gonna come up with something really, I'm sure, great and creative. And so I think that's why diversity.

is necessary because really to have a cutting edge and to have just an advantage in the workforce, different people working together on a singular problem, it always produces outstanding results. So yes, I definitely feel, you know, there's always room to go with DEI and there's always space for it, you know, organizations. Definitely.

I feel like a lot of leadership over the last decade and a half have finally started realizing, my gosh, we've been just missing out on this. Having an open dialogue with different ideas, different folks just allows us to come up with better solutions much quicker. So I think that's the most exciting part about it is that we're finally getting to a point of where

corporations as a whole are open to the idea to the point of where they're like, my gosh, we we've been missing out on this forever. And why are we doing things like we were before? So before I get you out of here today, one last question for you. If you could work with one industry, what would be the most exciting in your mind?

So, if I could work with one industry,

I would say tech. Tech because it moves so fast. I love that. think working in learning and development, know, in Silicon Valley would definitely, definitely feel like there are a lot of opportunities there. I mean, whether a startup,

or an established organization. A tech company focused on learning and development is an exciting organization to work for. So if I had to pick one, I would say tech, but of course I've worked in lots of different industries and they all are very And I feel like anybody working in learning and development is

an eager learner. mean, that's, you have to be to kind of stick it out and stay in learning and development. So I, I, I have a, just a natural curiosity in lots of industries, but if I had to choose one, would say tech. Well, that's a great choice. And, just being open to new learning every day really makes this job a pleasure.

So thank you so much, Kosta, for joining the podcast today and really looking forward to keeping an eye on Causation Consulting and seeing what you come up with in the future. So thank you so much. Thank you. Great talking to you today, Doug. Thanks so much for listening. As always, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter, The Buzz, to keep up with all things L &D. See you next time.