We’re now about two months post the big announcement: Mindtools have acquired Kineo. So how are we getting on and what’s the Kineo vibe about this acquisition?
Out of the gate – we’re excited! As someone who’s been with Kineo for 16 of our 20 years, I’ve seen a lot of change. From a small startup with a scrappy entrepreneurial feel to a global organization with more than 250 employees across multiple continents, this isn’t the founders’ Kineo. And now this change feels like the biggest and best yet.
Remind us about Kineo….
Kineo has been doing great things in the digital learning environment for 20 years now. We’ve established a strong record of working with some of the world’s biggest brands to provide better training solutions that have a real impact.
This has looked like high-end compliance programs for big tech companies that get reviews like “the best compliance program I’ve ever taken”, to total learning ecosystems built on Totara that actually drive revenue for manufacturing through incentive learning programs for resellers. We offer multiple Learning Platforms to the market and a library of top-notch off-the-shelf learning content on a variety of topics.
Our Consultants and Learning Experience Designers work with teams to solve big, hairy learning problems: defining a learning strategy for a financial services firm, designing a fully blended onboarding curriculum for a series of renewable gas plants, mapping out a complete learning journey for a Marketing Skills Academy.
In those 20 years, we’ve grown into a truly global organization, with a strong presence in the UK, US, Australia, LATAM, and South Africa.
So, what about Mindtools? What’s exciting about this new fusion?
Did you know that one in two managers reports never receiving any support or training for their role? So new managers are often just set up for failure. “I’ve been promoted to a manager. Now what do I do?”
Mindtools brings together tools, resources, insights and development pathways you need to empower and support managers and leaders at every level.
Building out manager skills is a key focus area for many L&D teams and organizations. I’m really excited to be able to include this offering alongside Kineo services. It rounds us out, ensuring we’re solving problems and meeting organizational gaps across a full spectrum of solutions.
As we’ve been starting to integrate our two businesses, one of my first steps in discovery has been to dip into the Mindtools product suite and get to know the offer. Mindtools offers a suite of tools and services to empower managers across their leadership development journey. With the M: Suite, you can “empower your managers to upskill them with tools and resources designed by industry experts.”
Manager Skills Assessment
First off, I completed the Manager Skills Assessment (MSA). The MSA is a comprehensive, research-based assessment of one’s skill-level, mapped to 12 core modern manager skills across four categories: emotional intelligence, setting expectations, motivating your team, and developing your team. Mindtools research team identified these 12 skills as the core skills that make the most significant impact on people, manager and business outcomes.
My MSA results gave me a spider map diagram of my skills, mapped against benchmarks collated from others who’ve completed the assessment. It identified my gaps and then recommended specific Learning Paths to me so I could target my development around those skills. Now I’ve got some focus!
Manager Skill Builder
With those MSA results, I’ve now enrolled in a series of structured skill builder activities across topics related to those above-mentioned gaps. The Manager Skill Builder courses are adaptive learning experiences, published in a bite-sized format – 15-minute ish sessions (longer if you need more development in that area, as the system adapts to each learner), targeted on a core skill, with lots of opportunity for self-reflection, real-world actions, and deliberate practice within the tool.
The Content Hub
The Mindtools Content Hub extends the learning from those Skills Bites with a super robust content library. Over 3,000 articles, videos, tips and tricks, in a wide variety of formats – to support managers and people with the info they need when they need it. Customers can also turn on the Ask M: Coach, a tailored chat bot trained on the Mindtools Content Hub; people can ask their questions knowing that the content that’s being accessed has been well-researched, well-vetted, and well-reviewed by the Mindtools content team of experts. And soon this will also be available as an app for deskless or managers who work on the move.
Bonus content – I’ve also signed up for an Expert Skill Bite: “Mastering AI for Managers with Markus Bernhardt.” Great stuff, Markus and Mindtools!
Mindtools Custom + Kineo Custom
The Mindtools Custom team is chock full of award-winning learning designers, adding on to Kineo’s already strong custom content development team. Together our teams have produced some amazing programs that have real impact on organizations.
Most exciting for me is the Insights & Analytics team at Mindtools – a team of PhDs with a focus on behavioral science and demonstrating impact. Adding these services onto any custom content offering is somewhat of a no-brainer. We’ve been calling it “designing for results” at Kineo for years – now we can take that to the next level with practices and insights backed up with academic rigor.
It’s all about the people, man.
The best part about this new Mindtools Kineo organization? It’s the people, man!
I took on the role of the unofficial Kineo welcome wagon and met with as many of my new Mindtools colleagues as I could. So many amazing humans on this team, doing really amazing work. I have been struck by the passion and intensity of the Mindtools team – people committed to making an impact and producing high-quality learning experiences that truly move the needle on behavior and performance.
Get in touch!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little intro to our new world over here at Mindtools Kineo. We are actively in the process of aligning our teams, getting to know each other, and building a shared culture. This takes time but things are definitely starting to take off. If you’re interested in learning more about how our newly expanded organization can help, give us a shout. We’re here to help you solve complex problems!