Thought Leadership and Adult Learning | Manja Horner | 486

As a thought leader, you want to see your content actively helping people, not just sitting on a shelf. 

But how do you move insight to action?

Today,  we're going to talk about the intersection of thought leadership and adult learning. My guest is Manja Horner, the founder of Boost Learning Design, where she helps other big-hearted entrepreneurs make a difference - while growing their businesses.

Manja tells us how she took her ideas from imagination to actualization, by presenting her insights in ways that showed they were relevant to her audience's needs. In order to do that, thought leaders have to take a step back and put themselves in their audience's shoes. What do they need to know? What problems are they trying to solve? And, most importantly, how does your content address and resolve those challenges?

Creating learning that will enhance learning and skills is a difficult task, but creating thought leadership that changes mindsets and behaviors is even tougher! Manja explains why you have to ask questions, and how to encourage your audience to think in larger terms about possible solutions.  Furthermore, by helping them develop empathy through role-play, she helps those who are "stuck" to develop a real growth mindset.

Additional Resources:
During the conversation, Bill and Manja discuss the Wired 5 Levels series; a textbook example of tailoring your ideas to various audiences. In addition Blooms Taxonomy is discussed; you can read more about it here!

Three Key Takeaways:

* Adults learn by doing.  The faster you can take someone from information to application, the better.

* When you have even 10 minutes of a learner's time, think about getting them to apply new knowledge to their situation.

* There is a fine balance to knowing your audience because it can be easy to create content that is too complex or even too simple and lose them either way.