Finding Your Voice as a Learning Leader with Heather Burright
In this episode, I sat down with my friend Heather Burright, who runs the Learning for Good podcast, and we got into our own career journeys, how we've invested in our own growth, and what it actually takes to build confidence and find your voice as an ID or L&D professional. If you've ever felt like you're doing great work, but still struggling to get a seat at the table, this one's for you.
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Transcript
Heather
Luke, I'm curious, what first pulled you into this work, this field of instructional design?
Luke
So I had no idea instructional design was a thing for the longest time. And it wasn't until I worked at Southern New Hampshire University many years ago and I was just networking up a storm because I kept on seeing that we were hiring like crazy — every single week we were hiring fifteen more people, and this is when SNHU was really growing at the time. And every single time more people came in the door, it was like, "What do you do?" Because there's no way we're going to be employing hundreds upon hundreds of people who are all instructors or academic advisors. And that's what I was — I walked students through their courses, helped them get oriented, answered any and all questions. And eventually I spoke with one person — his name was Bruce — and he said he was an instructional designer. And of course I was like, "Well, what the heck is that?" And he's like, "Well, you know how you walk your students through these different types of courses? Well, someone has to make those, and that's me — I work with faculty and we partner together to create them." And at first I didn't believe him. I was like, "That's not what you do." And he's like, "No, this is literally my job." And at that point — I'd always loved online learning, I have degrees in online learning too, but I went into it as a student, not realizing that was actually a career path. And that was back in 2013 or so when I first heard about it. And then I kept on trying and trying and trying. And that's how I got into this instructional design world.
Heather
So have you always been in higher ed? Has that always been your home?
Luke
Besides one corporate job that I had, which was cold calling businesses and getting them to use a discount plan they didn't know they were on — which was very fascinating — yeah, pretty much my life has always been in higher ed. Which is also odd to say, because my world has always been a blend of higher ed and corporate learning — I've always been in this professional development sector, if you will. So it's an interesting blend of both worlds. But yeah, that's where I've always been.
Heather
Very cool. I have definitely met academic advisors who have transitioned to learning and development in some way in the nonprofit sector too. So definitely cool to see that transition happen.
Luke
Yeah. What brought you into this work?
Heather
Yeah, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. I went to college, spent a bunch of money on tuition, changed my major like five times because I couldn't decide. I finally landed on English because it's so open-ended — I figured I could do anything. And then had the rude awakening that it was so open-ended I couldn't really do anything. So I found a job as an assistant editor in a curriculum department. It was a government contractor creating training for first responders all over the nation, and I was editing the curriculum. That's how I fell into this world, realized it existed. At the time I was in my early twenties, and they were looking for people who would basically volunteer to learn more about how people learn so they could improve the curriculum. I was young, still had no idea what I really wanted to do with my life — obviously, after changing my major five times in college. So I volunteered, and I just fell in love with it, and have been doing it in some capacity ever since.
Luke
Isn't it always interesting that when you hear about how people learn, and then you think back to your college experience, it was basically the exact opposite of everything that should work? And it's not to poke fun at college or at instructors — I know many wonderful instructors and professors — but thinking back to so much of my college experience, it was just like, nope, that was a bad idea. That person just did a brain dump of information on me. That person clearly created this kind of—
Heather
That happens.
Luke
—chaotic learning environment, a lot of stress, intentionally. And you're like, yeah, that's not the best way of learning things, you know.
Heather
Yeah. I mean, definitely as an English major, there was just a lot of lecture. And I guess there is a point — after the lecture you have to actually write about what you're learning, so then you're synthesizing and producing something, and that's actually really valuable. But the majority of my classes were just lecture — write down everything the professor says.
Luke
Yep, yep, exactly. I had a fine arts course many years ago, an 8 a.m. fine arts course. We were in the dark so the projector looked better — great recipe for learning, by the way. And one time I unfortunately fell asleep in class. The next week she asked me to sit in the front row, and said, "Luke, you can't fall asleep." And I was like, "Well, maybe we shouldn't put me in the dark at 8 a.m. where clearly I'm not paying attention." And the funny thing is, I loved art — this wasn't me finding art boring — but it was just 45 minutes... I think the class was an hour and a half, actually, and it was just: here's the title of the painting, here's how it formed, here's about the person — at me for an hour and a half. Meanwhile I'm scribbling down notes like, "Okay, Van Gogh, and this is the da-da-da-da." So, yeah. Good times. Very odd.
Heather
Thankfully we have moved beyond projectors and dark rooms. We're still working on moving beyond the talking-head instructor sometimes, but we have at least moved beyond dark rooms and projectors.
Heather
So Luke, was there a moment when you realized you didn't want to just create and deliver training or content — you wanted to actually influence how organizations learn and grow? Because at some point you made the transition into instructional design, and now you teach instructional design. So there's a bit of a transition there — from "I'm going to do it myself" to "I'm going to help other people and influence how they influence their organization."
Luke
Yeah, it was interesting coming out from behind the scenes and getting in front to talk about how the behind-the-scenes work actually works. People are like, "What do instructional designers actually do?" And then when you explain designing learning experiences — how to make them meaningful and relevant, the objectives, the assessments, the activities, but really how to make a learning experience cohesive and flowing, and drive results and outcomes — which is the whole point, especially in my world of adult learning, where I want you to get better at your job. The moment was thinking: if I'm no longer just the behind-the-scenes person nobody knows exists — what if I get on a stage and talk about how learning works with people, and in turn they can bring that back into their own classroom? Because I didn't want this to be the "fun Luke show" — look at him do his stuff. I wanted people to bring it back into their schools, something they could use immediately. And the first time I ran workshops like that and saw the influence — and then heard back from people, sometimes six months later, saying, "Hey, this actually made a difference, this improved my organization, my students are improving because of what you taught me" — that trickle-down effect, person to person to person — that was the moment of, wow, I'm actually making a difference. It's not just me creating courses for the sake of creating courses — this is going somewhere. That's been huge to see. And finding myself in this instructor role, teaching people how all this works, is something I never thought I'd be doing, but it's been awesome to see carry on through the years.
Heather
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's interesting that you — and they — had the data to come back and say, "Wow, we're seeing a difference here." I think that's something that, as someone who works with nonprofits, data is always a bit of a challenge. So the fact that you get to see and hear that from people is really meaningful.
Luke
That's how you know it's working — and I know you don't get that a lot. It's rare, I'd say, for an organization to come back and say "this improved X, Y, Z process" or to actually have the stats to share with you. But anytime you get something like that, you know you're on track, and you're not just creating content for the sake of creating content. It's not just someone coming in and saying, "We need an hour-long workshop on blah," with no rhyme or reason, and you're like, "Well, why? What led to this conversation? How did we get here? What's the problem we're actually trying to solve?" Instead of just "teach about this," you get to say, "Let's talk more about that." Did you also have a moment of evolving from content-creation mode into designing more meaningful learning experiences for your audience or organization?
Heather
Yeah, for sure. I think I definitely had some element of that working for a government contractor, knowing that realistically, lives are at stake — first responders are responding to situations that are inherently dangerous. So there was always a bit of that. But I think when I got to the nonprofit sector — fast forward maybe eight years or so — I really started to think more about it. There was some complexity in the organization I was in: it was a national office, a federated organization. The people we trained were basically employees of other organizations, in a sense — that's probably too vague a way to say it, but in a lot of federated organizations there's a national or global office providing support and resources, but no direct reporting line to the local chapters or agencies. Those are their own 501(c)(3)s that carry the same brand. So when we created training, we had no way of mandating it, and no reliable way of following the through-line to see what happened, because they weren't required to report back to us. We couldn't just pop in and see the impact of what we created. So I started thinking a lot more systemically about how we actually create change, and how we know we're creating it, and how we make it meaningful for people. Yes, part of that is data collection — we do our best, measure what we can, get creative about it — but we also need to design in a way we're confident actually works. So it was a bit of both: we need to measure it, figure out how to do that even in our complex structure, but we also have to be confident in what we're doing.
Heather
So I think that just started changing what I do, why I do what I do, and how I communicate that to other people.
Luke
Did you find that after that you were leading more without power — or influencing, even if you didn't use that word at the time — without having the full picture of everything? Because that's got to be hard — you create a training, it goes out to all these branches, and you just hope they follow through. That's tricky.
Heather
It is tricky, for sure. You very much have to partner with your stakeholders, partner with the subject matter experts — there's no way you can know everything. I also had to be in it with the audience — run focus groups, run interviews, engage the subject matter experts even when I didn't have direct access to them. So there's a lot of influence involved — almost a change-management approach to learning — but it also really benefits your needs analysis. You're a little more confident when you understand their day-to-day experience, understand how this is going to be challenging for them, understand what they're bringing to the table, and understand what the impact is going to be. That doesn't always happen when someone just hands you the content and says, "Go create the training." You might understand the content, but you don't understand the context. And because we had to rely on influence so much, there was a lot of opportunity to understand that context.
Luke
And I know I'm asking a very broad question here — does that happen a lot in the nonprofit world? Or was it this particular organization, or the times? I don't know enough about the nonprofit world, which is why I'm asking.
Heather
Yeah, I'd say yes. A lot of the larger organizations I've run into are federated, so that structure itself is pretty common. But even in organizations that aren't, the nonprofit sector tends to be very collaborative — there's a lot of value-driven, purpose-driven work and people. So the more you can connect why you're asking someone to do something to how it's going to help them or the people they're serving, the better off you'll be in getting that buy-in. So even in less complex structures, there's still this element of collaboration — you want to engage them, understand their day-to-day — not just for the benefit of the training, but for the whole process: buy-in, influence, and at the end of the day, a better solution.
Luke
Mm-hmm, absolutely. For some of the trainings I've developed — learning experiences served out to massive parts of organizations — one key part was meeting with C-suite folks to say, "We need your buy-in too." Because if you don't — which has happened to me — you create something for the people on the ground, the actual boots-on-the-ground factory workers, and then find out leadership has no idea what they're doing, and they're like, "Good, they're still working." And you're like, "Wait a second, we did all these things to get buy-in and influence this, and now you're not even aware of what we're doing." So it's not going to come up in performance evaluations, goals for the following year, KPIs — none of those standard things. It just goes right over your heads. So trying to do that, in my experience, has been a whirlwind. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a real slog, and you're doing your best to get through.
Heather
If I'm working on something that's going to impact a program or service, I'm always thinking: what do those folks need, and what do their managers need? Because just because we teach someone how to do something differently doesn't mean their environment is conducive to doing it differently. There are things you can't control when you're not in that environment, but there are also things you can influence — and the manager is often where you can have a lot of influence. But they have to be aware of what's changing, why it's changing, what the expectation is, how to know if the person is meeting it. So I'm almost always designing in duplicate — not exactly duplicate, but close — because I want the person implementing to understand what it is, what they're trying to do, and build those skills. But I also need that people manager or leader to understand it too.
Luke
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Heather
So Luke, I am really curious. As instructional designers, as learning and development folks, we spend a lot of time helping other people grow — helping other people learn and grow. But we often spend less time on ourselves and how we learn and grow. This has been something floating around for me for a bit, so I'm curious to hear your take: how do you personally invest in your own learning and development as a leader?
Luke
What I really try to do is have challenging conversations with people in my network about things that are currently giving me pause. I'll share my perspective on something, and then ask them to play devil's advocate, or bring up a different perspective I didn't think about, and push back on my thinking. That's helped me grow more than anything else — hearing from someone I deeply respect, when I feel strongly about one side, and they bring up an angle I hadn't considered, and try to help me see the light. Because I'm a pretty stubborn person — but if you give me a genuinely compelling argument, I'm always willing to listen. There have been plenty of times I've completely changed my mind going into something, expecting a fearsome battle, and coming out the other end like, "You know what, I was definitely wrong about that." So having those difficult conversations with people I trust has been the thing that's pushed me most — maybe that's my director, a former boss, a former mentor, or someone else in the learning and development space. There have actually been conversations on the podcast where I've said something, and the guest goes, "Yeah, I see your point, but have you thought about this?" And I'm like, "Huh, I haven't thought about it like that." And right now, especially in higher ed and instructional design, as soon as you say "AI," everyone has strong thoughts and feelings — some are super pro, some are obviously against. And you see how the discourse tries to pit us against each other because everyone wants the clickbait rage from all these perspectives. But it does bring up really interesting conversations around growth, especially when a new topic gets lobbed into your world and you have to ask, "What do I do with this? Can I ignore it, or do we need to talk about it?" And that's when you go to more conferences, events, workshops, and talk with other educators.
Luke
That's what's helped me grow the most, by far — those intimate conversations where I knew I could be transparent and vulnerable without being afraid of judgment. I'm thankful I've built that network of people I can talk to and trust. So that's been my approach. Have you been doing anything similar, or am I insane for putting myself in that position?
Heather
No, I think there's so much value in being in the room with people, a hundred percent. I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts, and I focus a lot on growing myself as an individual — mindset, just generally being a good person, leadership, that kind of thing. How do I get into a growth mindset, how do I grow as a person. And I also learn about learning, and I'm very much in the camp of "sometimes you just have to do it" — getting that practice in, figuring things out, is another way I learn, especially when it comes to learning about learning. But I agree with you — getting in the room with people is so valuable. I host a private community for nonprofit training professionals, and convening people is one of my favorite things to do, because anytime people are in the same room, they're learning something — you're engaging in conversations you wouldn't otherwise have, talking to people you wouldn't otherwise talk to, and every time you walk away with some new insight, some new tool you haven't heard of. I think that in itself is so valuable. So I agree.
Luke
Learning is a social process — we've talked about that enough. Even with all the research on communities of practice, we somehow still say, "No, it's fine." Whenever I hear from people concerned about rapidly evolving technology, fearing no one's going to talk to each other in the future — maybe we get some dystopian outcome there — but overall, you don't learn unless you're actually talking with other people, interacting, experimenting. Even right now, learning about the nonprofit space from you — I didn't know any of this, because I'm not in the nonprofit world. I want to hear more, and I'm going to read more about nonprofit L&D going forward. And of course, that's something I can take away and use for my own audience — like, "Hey, I don't talk about this much, but if this is something you need help with, I'll bring on people to talk about it and find better ways to serve you." So that speaking piece is so huge — and even when we do it, it has to be positioned and framed the right way. I'm sure you do this in your community — set the stage correctly, make sure people know they can talk about this stuff and don't have to be guarded. Because if you just put people in breakout rooms and say "go have fun," that's not it — you've got to set the stage so it leads to better, deeper conversations.
I went to a conference — have you ever been to Fusion, the conference by D2L? I went to one in Toronto a few years ago, and met someone talking deeply about the future of higher education and how politics are going to get involved, and how we've seen things progress over recent years. I was like, "You're definitely right about this." And after the conference he added me on LinkedIn and said, "We had a great conversation — can we just keep talking? You don't need to set up an appointment, just keep this momentum going, because it's pushing me and challenging me and I've been enjoying it." If you can find that one person, or two people, within a community or conference that you really click with, it's so helpful to have. I'll send messages to people I've met before with no greeting at all — just, "Did you see this in the news? What does this mean for us?" That's just so key for L&D people evolving and growing.
Heather
Yeah, that's so true. Now, you bring up LinkedIn, sharing your voice — we both have podcasts, we both post on LinkedIn, we're both constantly putting things out there. So what helped you develop your confidence and your voice in being able to share your perspective like that?
Luke
That's a good question. If you'd told me even ten years ago — or fewer — that I'd be on a microphone all the time talking about this, I would have never believed you. Especially for the folks who only know me this way now — and I'm sure it's the same for you, on YouTube, doing events, public speaking — man, I hated public speaking growing up. I was such a nervous kid, did not like the spotlight. And now it's, "No, I want to talk about this more." Did you have one friend or family member who kept pushing you to talk more, to do this more? Because that was part of it for me — having people encourage me. The first thing I remember, from grad school, was taking a public speaking course and giving it everything I had, because I had a ruthless professor — every person who got up to present, she just tore apart. Red pen marks everywhere. I was like, "I can't be like that," so I tried as hard as I could, and this new voice came out of that. I carried that over through more public speaking courses and experiences over the years, and more friends saying, "You really need to speak more at conferences, get your name out there more." Eventually that bled into podcasts and LinkedIn — I found that passion and spark to share more. And the only way to get your voice heard is to build that kind of platform, and then relentlessly keep doing it — consistency, posting all the time, meeting more people. It's been an odd journey to get put in this spotlight — did you ever envision this for yourself?
Heather
Yeah, no — I've always loved a stage, but I did not anticipate this by any means. Didn't anticipate having a podcast, let alone keeping it going this long. I get recognized now when I go places — not in public generally, nobody knows me in Chicago, but if I go to a learning event, people are like, "You're the one with the podcast." And I'm like, that's interesting, that's not at all what I was thinking. When I started it, I'd been guesting on podcasts for a year or two, and I got to a point where I thought, "I'm saying things, but there's no single place where it's all said." I wanted that single place — if I'm going to say things, I want somewhere they can live. So I started the podcast. I was encouraged to do it, and I knew going in I had a few buckets of things I wanted to talk about, so everything revolved around that. I definitely wanted to speak to nonprofit training folks — that was the intended audience. So I had some of that going when I started, but lately I've been really thinking about what makes my work different — what am I doing differently than someone else might, and how is that impacting the way I work? As I've started to define those things, I feel like my voice has gotten stronger in the process. When I started the podcast, it was very much, "I'm going to talk about instructional design, leadership development, and change management," because for me those all intertwine. I was developing my voice as I created those episodes. But now, thinking about what actually makes someone successful in a learning and development role, I feel like I'm getting—
Heather
—more clear in my opinions within each of those buckets, if that makes sense.
Luke
Makes plenty of sense. It's interesting how you can be so confident in one area, and then someone comes in with a different perspective and you're like, "Maybe I don't know as much as I thought." There are so many things — I actually pinged my old boss the first time I learned that Bloom's taxonomy wasn't only the cognitive domain. I was like, "Why did you never tell me this?" At the time we were only developing cognitive stuff — we weren't talking about action, weren't talking about emotion, just the part everybody knows. Finding out there was more, I was like, "Man, I was so confident I knew everything about Bloom's taxonomy, and maybe I don't." And then you're like, "I never even read the original book," so you go down that rabbit hole to find more. It's interesting to see how your confidence in what you do takes shape and grows. And the other thing — for you and me, having a podcast, putting it out there — when you're wrong, hundreds of people get to hear you be wrong, and it lives on the internet. So you have to be able to say, "I can admit I was wrong, but I've changed my mind." I've been trying to do more of that — "I was confidently wrong years ago, I now feel this way instead, I acknowledge what I said previously could have been worded better, and here's the different direction." Especially for educators — you should be growing, you shouldn't be the same way every single time, not changing. You should be evolving and getting better. If you don't acknowledge the past stuff, you can't say, "I could have worded that better, so now I'll do this instead going forward."
Heather
It's a sign that you're learning and growing. It's a good thing to look back and say, "Huh, I don't necessarily agree with that anymore."
Luke
Yes. Especially — have you ever gone back and listened to your original podcast episodes?
Heather
No.
Luke
I have, just for the sake of it. But the thing that drives me a little crazy — in a good way — is when someone says, "Hey Luke, I just listened to your episode with Katie Novak." And I'm like, "Cool, the first episode? Awesome, how'd that sound?" But then they say, "It was really great, you talked about X, Y, and Z, and it helped me out." And I'm thinking, "Man, I sound horrendous, I don't know what I was doing, clearly I was just winging it." But at the time, people were commenting and sharing, saying it was helping them, and you see the reviews come in and think, "Okay, maybe I'm onto something." But man, you grow over time. You should check out your old stuff.
Heather
A hundred percent. Yeah, for sure.
Heather
[Checking notes]
So we talked a little about how we invest in our learning and development, how we're growing, how we're shaping our voice and perspective. What advice do you have for someone — or what would you encourage someone to do — if they're looking to grow in this way too? Wanting to be more confident in their leadership, or have a stronger voice around learning, even if it's just within their organization. Maybe they're not looking to post on LinkedIn every day or start a podcast, but they want to show up with a strong voice. What would you encourage them to start doing, or stop doing?
Luke
Absolutely. You do not need a podcast, you don't need to post on LinkedIn or go on YouTube — you absolutely don't need any of that, especially if you're just trying to grow within your own organization. But you've got to meet people, get out of your bubble, and network as much as possible. I know for some people that word "network" feels icky, but especially within your own organization — if you don't know everybody, you're not going to be able to move things up the ladder, because you don't know the key players. That's huge, especially when you realize the person with the most power often isn't who you'd think, and it's someone else entirely who actually makes the decisions because of who they can influence. You've got to meet those people. I love setting up coffee chats, 15-30 minutes at a time — or even just chatting with someone in the kitchen at the office. I know people think this is weird, but I'll just walk up to someone, pay them a compliment, and introduce myself. That way, going forward, they know who I am, and I can bring it back up again. Truly, that's the one-on-one way to make a friend — say something nice, then say, "By the way, I'm Luke, I've seen you around the office, never introduced myself, just wanted to say hello." And the next time I see them, "Hey, what do you actually do day to day? I heard you're in marketing." And you learn more about them. That's how I network with a lot of people in person — and LinkedIn is the same way. You comment on someone's post, say they made a great point, or — in your case — "I listened to your podcast episode, it was incredibly helpful. Hey, do you have five minutes? I'd love to figure out how I can help you, or pick your brain about something." It's about starting those conversations in a non-awkward way that eventually builds your confidence and your influence within your organization — just very, very small steps.
It goes back to: just go do something. Take the first step. Don't overthink it, don't spend all your time reading and listening trying to figure out when's the right time to make the first move. Now's the right time. Go try it. It's not going to hurt anything to send an email to someone in your organization you're not close with, just to say, "I've been thinking about the impact you've had around here, it's been great working with you." It's nothing tricky or hard to do. I literally did this the other day with a very senior person at MIT — just said, "Hey, you've only been here a couple months, but you've already been making an impact, it's been great working with you, I'll catch you around the office." And now when I see that person, it's, "Hey, Luke" — three months ago they didn't know me, now they do. It's those small things that make a difference. What's your take on spreading that kind of confidence and influence?
Heather
Yeah, I think there's so much value in exactly what you're saying — building those relationships, building trust. The more you show up and show you care about the other person, the better off you are. For you, that shows up as a compliment, an introduction, curiosity about what they're doing, how they're contributing — those are all ways you build trust and build the relationship. Honestly, everything we do in learning and development — probably in the world, but definitely in L&D — is so dependent on the relationships we have.
Luke
A hundred percent. I know one person in particular who's been saying, "Why aren't people buying into this idea? It's a great idea, we should be talking about it." And when I dug in further and peeled back the layers, I realized — no one knows you. You're screaming into the void because you haven't built those relationships yet. Why would someone be on your side if they're thinking, "Yeah, there's that random guy again with his megaphone, shouting at me to adopt this new principle"? It doesn't work like that — you have to actually make those connections. They don't have to be your best friend, but at least friendly enough that they know you're not just after something, that you're trying to make a meaningful change in the right direction. That part gets overlooked. If you ever went back to a business school 101 class, it would basically be: step one, get your coworkers to like you.
Heather
Wait a minute — I think there's a book like that. Someone wrote it. How to Win Friends and Influence People — that one exists.
Luke
Yeah, it does, it does. But I'm thinking back to learning and development — we've got the different areas, obviously how learning works, project management, research, technology — but then there's that little bubble of relationship management and people skills, and that gets glossed over the most. Especially when you talked about working with subject matter experts earlier — you hear from people about all these challenges, SMEs not showing up on time, ignoring them, ghosting them. And you're like, "Let's talk about it, because I bet it's a relationship issue." And when you peel back the layers, you find out they have other constraints — deadlines, way too much going on, the budget driving them insane — and you realize you're just not the priority. But if you were higher up on their favorable ladder, so to speak, they'd make it a point to communicate that with you instead of leaving you in the dark. It all goes back to people skills at the end of the day, for what we do.
Heather
Well, Luke, this has been such a fun conversation. I'm so glad we got to do this together, and I can't wait for others to listen in too.
Luke
Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you so much for the invitation — it's a great idea, having two L&D people come together and chat about things. Love it. Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.
Heather
Thank you.
