The Assembly

The Assembly: Where L&D Minds Assemble The future of workplace learning doesn’t live in theory — it lives in lived experience, fresh research, and honest conversations. That’s what The Assembly delivers. Hosted by Adam Lacey, Co-Founder of Assemble You and digital learning veteran, and Brigid McCormack, a newcomer to the world of L&D, this is your go-to space for rich, real talk on what’s driving L&D forward. In each episode, you’ll find: Richer insights that go beyond surface-level tips to unpack what really works in learning today Expert perspectives from leaders shaping the L&D landscape Access to new research on tech, methods, and innovations defining tomorrow’s learning culture Practical strategies you can use right now to build essential skills like leadership, communication, and adaptability Whether you’re designing programs, shaping strategy, or driving culture change — if learning is your thing, this is your podcast. Formally known as L&D Challenges.

The Assembly is a education podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 120 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The Assembly, a education show with 120 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #102

  The L&D Nobody Has to Show Up For with Emma Ackers

  Aug 17, 202632 minS3

  Most L&D is built for a captive audience: employees who have to attend whether the training is any good or not. Emma Ackers builds for the opposite, an audience that can walk away. Her learners are external insurance brokers, free to ignore her work entirely, and that one difference sharpens how she designs it. Adam Lacey sits down with Emma Ackers, Learning and Development Manager at Aviva and President of the Insurance Institute of Manchester. Emma is not a typical in-house L&D lead. She designs learning for Aviva's broker partners, the firms who sell insurance out in the market. It is offered to those brokers as a service, which means they only take it up if it genuinely helps them. With 21 years in insurance, starting out as a broker herself before moving into learning, Emma knows first-hand the day job her learners are trying to do. She explains why the first question is always the business problem the broker is facing and never the course itself, the ambassador model she uses to test an idea with a trusted group of brokers before rolling it out to everyone, and why she judges success by whether people apply the learning back at work more than by how many turned up. What you'll learn: Why building for an audience that can walk away makes learning sharper and more useful for everyone How starting from the business problem, rather than the training, builds the value in from the first conversation The ambassador model: testing a new idea with a trusted group of customers before you roll it out to everyone Why the best insurance professionals need both technical knowledge and people skills, and how Emma develops both How volunteering, including leading the Insurance Institute of Manchester, builds skills your day job never will Connect with Emma LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmaackers/ The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/ Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/ More from The Assembly & Assemble You Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com Privacy & Data This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

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  Episode #101

  Stop Proving Value. Start Being Valuable with Tom McDowall

  Aug 3, 202643 minS3

  If the value conversation happens at the end of your projects, the only question left is how to justify what you have already built. Adam sits down with Tom McDowall, who through Evolve LD helps organisations upskill their L&D, training and HR teams in practical ways of working, to unpack a distinction that changes how a function operates: the difference between proving you were valuable after the fact and asking how you can be valuable before anything gets made. From managing a sales team, to delivering the same induction week after week for a year and a half, to leading digital teams and chairing the Learning Network, Tom brings a practitioner's lens to measurement, with a fully worked example and real numbers to go with it. He breaks down the metric chain that connects an intervention to a board-level objective, why line managers are already doing the observation L&D is not capturing, and where AI has finally become good enough to do the statistical work. What you'll learn: Why proving value after the fact is a conversation no other business function has to have, and what to ask instead How to build a metric chain from intervention to behaviour to KPI to organisational objective, and how certain you should expect to be at each link Why every learning asset needs a sunset date, and how zombie content survives in most catalogues How to get closer to your own business, from reading the annual report to what to say when you ask for an hour of the C-suite's time Connect with Tom LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-mcdowall/ The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/ Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/ More from The Assembly & Assemble You Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com Privacy & Data This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

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  Episode #100

  The Science of How We Actually Learn with Tessa Forshaw, PhD

  Jul 27, 202644 minS3

  If your learning programmes are built on instinct and inherited habits, the science of how the brain actually learns changes what good design looks like. Brigid McCormack sits down with Tessa Forshaw, a cognitive scientist who studies how we work, learn and create, to unpack what neuroscience reveals about how adults really learn, and the myths still shaping L&D. A cognitive scientist, award-winning designer, TEDx speaker and co-author of Innovation-ish, Tessa co-founded the Next Level Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and teaches at Harvard's Division of Continuing Education and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She spent more than a decade designing corporate L&D before going back to study how the brain learns, and now brings that science back to real teams. She breaks down why learning styles do not hold up, why nobody can multitask and how memory really works, then turns the science into practical design: learning that is deep, durable and practiced. What you'll learn: Why the learning styles myth falls apart under the science, and how to match the method to the content rather than the person Why nobody can truly multitask, and the switching costs that break focus every time a learner dips into the side chat How memory really works, and why retrieval practice beats leaving recall to chance The groove in the sand model for building deep and durable learning through effort and desirable difficulty Why the strongest L&D leaders are moving from content provider to strategic advisor as AI automates the rest Connect with Tessa Forshaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessaforshaw/ The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/ Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/ More from The Assembly & Assemble You Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com Privacy & Data This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

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  Episode #98

  Sell the Problem, Not the Programme with Lori Anne Powell

  Jul 20, 202636 minS3

  If your L&D team keeps landing the last seat at the table, the way in is to get close to the commercial reality of the business. Brigid McCormack sits down with Lori Anne Powell, leadership development consultant and co-founder of LVL London, to unpack how L&D earns influence the way any function does: with credibility, trust and results the business can see. Lori began her career at Harrods and went on to lead learning and development across Europe, the Middle East and Africa as Director of L&D at Tiffany & Co., supporting multi-territory teams at scale. She brings a commercial, human-centred lens to how learning drives performance in premium service environments. She breaks down how to build a commercial mindset in L&D, how to influence stakeholders when you do not hold budget or authority, and what luxury retail's high-stakes shop floor teaches every learning leader. What you'll learn: Why the most impactful learning creates a pull rather than a push, and how to build that appetite How to influence without authority by diagnosing before you prescribe, and making the stakeholder part of the solution What it means to be the commercial thinking partner, and how to reverse engineer learning from sales, retention and development Why the shop floor is where strategy meets reality, and how to close the friction between it and head office The skills for life that retail builds better than anywhere: presence, reading a room and recovering from rejection Connect with Lori Anne Powell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-powell/ The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/ Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/ More from The Assembly & Assemble You Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com Privacy & Data This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

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  Episode #97

  Leadership Is Judgment in Action With Amy Smith

  Jul 13, 202635 minS3

  If your leaders keep asking for the perfect words before every difficult conversation, what they are missing is not a better script. It is confidence in their own judgment. Brigid McCormack sits down with Amy Smith, Inclusion Campaign Manager at Business in the Community, to unpack person-centred leadership: the idea that fairness does not necessarily mean sameness, that leaders shape people's experience of work and not just their performance, and that inclusion is a leadership challenge rather than a language one. With over seven years designing and delivering culture, engagement, belonging and workplace wellbeing initiatives across complex organisations, Amy brings a lens shaped by her own lived experience, being mixed race, neurodivergent and moving continents, to how leaders create dignity at work. She breaks down the psychological contract and why neglecting it surfaces later as lost trust, innovation and retention, the three-part toolkit she leans on in place of a script, and how DEI work is changing as leaders try to sustain connection and fairness in a more polarised environment. What you'll learn: Why fairness does not necessarily mean sameness, and what person-centred leadership looks like in practice The cost of promoting leaders on technical expertise alone, and why it only shows up later in trust, innovation and retention How leaders weaken the psychological contract without noticing, and why picking apart superficial details signals that uncertainty is unsafe The three things in Amy's leadership toolkit in place of a script: accountability, change capability and capacity building Why AI can hand you a script but not judgment, and how to interview, develop and measure for the skill that matters 🔗 Connect with Amy LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-smith-yprofile/ 📮 The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter 👋 Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/ Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/ More from The Assembly & Assemble You Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com Privacy & Data This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

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