profile

Andrew Barry

Founder & CEO, Curious Lion

ICs can do more on their own with AI than ever before. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for L&D. This newsletter explores how to equip ICs with the influence skills that drive retention, accelerate OKRs, and position L&D as a strategic partner to the business. (Sent twice a month).

PostsLinksBook a Strategy Call
Four suited animals cluster at the first step of a five-step staircase while a lion climbs toward the top holding a forward arrow, illustrating the difference between stopping at uncertainty and pushing ahead
Featured Post

[3-2-1] Judgment is a muscle. Here's how to train it.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 26th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). One idea from me first, three links that go deeper on it, then two things that have nothing to do with work. Let's get into it. 1 Idea from Me Judgment is a muscle. Two years ago a client brought us a brief that sounded simple: help our individual contributors drive more impact on their own. On the ground it looked like this. Someone would flag that customers in one category were churning, and then walk...

14 days ago • 5 min read
Three suited animals cheer around a giant calculator reading 31 R 12 while four travelers stand stranded at the curb, and a lion in a blazer waves in one more yellow bus.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 27th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). One idea from me first, three links that go deeper on it, then two things that have nothing to do with work. Let's get into it. 1 Idea from Me Measure the loop, not the task. The year is 1983. 45,000 American 13-year olds are given a national assessment with this question: "An army bus holds 36 soldiers. 1,128 soldiers are being bussed to their training site. How many buses are needed?" 70% did the math...

about 11 hours ago • 5 min read
Four suited animals admire a polished five-step framework while a lion and cat at a nearby table challenge and revise a messy draft together

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 25th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). Trying something new today and starting with 1 Idea From Me before dropping the interesting links for this week. Let's get into it. 1 Idea from Me Your inbox is a destination group. You need a journey group. The head of L&D at a 3,300-person tech company told me last week that she tunes out most emails, LinkedIn posts, and webinar invites, but for a reason that surprised me. She's in the middle of some of...

27 days ago • 5 min read
A friendly robot offers eight problem-solving cards while a lion selects four glowing choices, illustrating the human role in choosing how to approach a problem.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 24th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). Last edition I argued that judgment gets built through reps. This week I go one level deeper and try to answer what judgment actually is. A new HBR article gave me a starting taxonomy, AI helped me stress-test it, and now I need your judgment to finish the job. This edition ends with a chance to share your perspective, so read to the end! Let's get into it. 3 Things for Work (in L&D) How Do Workers Develop...

about 1 month ago • 4 min read
A lion lifts a barbell labeled research and the call while friendly robots offer platters of ready-made answers, showing that judgment comes from doing your own reps, not accepting AI's conclusions

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 23rd edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). This week I sat down with alumni of a thinking-skills program we've been running for almost two years. One of them, now leading a team, described working with AI as a pressure cooker. Everyone is expected to have an answer instantly, and AI makes instant answers easy. That conversation is the theme of 1 Idea From Me below, plus I've got two new papers that landed on opposite sides of the same argument up...

about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Three suited animals admire a framed skills checklist while, beside them, a lion and a colleague work through a sprawling, unfinished problem map that spills off the table, contrasting static audits with real work.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 22nd edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). This one started with a post from Jolene Skinner at MongoDB lamenting how the skills-based movement is distracting us from the real problem we need to solve. It charged my brain for the rest of the day. The problem, in five words: skills sit still, work doesn't. Let's get into it. 3 Things for Work (in L&D) Why the skills-based movement doesn't work for most companies (Jolene Skinner, LinkedIn) Jolene...

2 months ago • 4 min read
A lion works at a desk inside a circular Seek–Sense–Ship loop while friendly robots stand outside passing tools, research, and notes into the workflow.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 21st edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). This one is about the most misunderstood idea in L&D, and why the way we use AI to write software is the wrong template for the rest of work. Let's get into it. 3 Things for Work (in L&D) A New Paradigm For Corporate Training: Learning In The Flow of Work (Josh Bersin) Where the phrase comes from. Bersin's 2018 original defines it as embedding learning content into the platforms where work happens, so you...

3 months ago • 3 min read
A lion teaches two students at a whiteboard, illustrating that when one person teaches, both the teacher and learner grow together.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 20th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). This one is about the highest bar a piece of learning can clear, and it has nothing to do with the score it gets. Let's get into it. 3 Things for Work (in L&D) Learning By Teaching (Curious Lion) The Feynman path to mastery: you don't really understand something until you can teach it. Where "each one, teach one" started for us, four years before two reps proved it on the job. 🏋 Effort ≈ 4 min read...

3 months ago • 3 min read
A lion conductor leads an orchestra before a packed amphitheater, raising a baton as musicians perform and thousands watch from the audience.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 19th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). One post on LinkedIn last week would not stop moving. It was about AI making your people more productive and more likely to quit. Ninety thousand people saw it, and the comments improved my thinking on it. The version they argued me into is the one idea below. Let's get into it. 3 Things for Work (in L&D) In the workforce, AI is having the opposite effect it was supposed to, UC Berkeley researchers warn...

4 months ago • 3 min read
A lion in an Arsenal shirt lifts a trophy above cheering teammates as a stadium full of fans waves flags and celebrates around them.

Hey Reader, Welcome to the 18th edition of the 3-2-1 (check out previous issues here). I write about transforming ICs into Impact Contributors. (By the way, did you see Elena Verna's viral piece on High-Impact ICs? So cool to see what we've been talking about here for years validated by strong external signals.) A personal one this week. I've supported Arsenal for 30 years, and 22 of them were trauma. We won the league in 2004 with a team that didn't lose a single game, then did not win it...

4 months ago • 4 min read