Why Nearly All Professional Development Training Is Still Missing the Point (And What Actually Works)
I was at this corporate training session in Brisbane recently when the bloke beside me started scrolling through emails. Can’t say I blamed the poor bloke. The trainer kept using buzzwords that would make a corporate consultant blush. Twenty-plus years in this industry across every big Australian city, I’ve seen this same worn-out formula repeated everywhere from construction firms in Darwin to fintech companies in Melbourne.
The thing that drives me mental? We’re throwing money at training that trains nobody but definitely enriches the training companies.
The majority of training programs are built backwards. They start with what the training company wants to sell rather than what your people actually need to learn. I’ve walked into numerous organisations where the L&D manager proudly shows me their “complete 47-module leadership program” while their best performers are walking out the door faster than you can say “employee engagement survey”.
The uncomfortable little secret? About seventy three percent of professional development initiatives fail to create lasting behavioral change. I pulled that figure out of thin air, but anyone who’s worked in corporate Australia knows it’s probably conservative.
I remember working with Sarah, an complete gun at a transport company. One of those unique people who could look at a logistics nightmare and see the solution immediately. Her company sent her to a three-day “Strategic Thinking for Leaders” course that cost them $4,500. Everything she learned was theoretical nonsense with zero relevance to her actual job challenges. The whole experience left her questioning whether the company understood her role at all.
This is problem number one: we’ve turned learning into a factory process.
We’ve turned workplace learning into fast food – speedy, low-cost, and ultimately unsatisfying. A forklift operator and a marketing director receive identical leadership training. Imagine walking into a clothing store where everything comes in one size. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn’t.
The next big flaw is when this training actually happens. Most professional development happens when it’s convenient for the business calendar, not when people are ready to learn or facing actual challenges. We bundle people into courses based on their job title rather than their genuine development needs.
There was this factory in regional Victoria that decided every supervisor needed the same communication course. Half these fellas had been managing teams for decades and could handle tricky conversations in their sleep. The rest were new promotions who broke into a sweat at the thought of performance reviews. Guess which group got the most value?
This is going to be controversial, but soft skills training is mainly throwing money down the drain.
The skills matter, but we’ve got adult learning completely wrong when it comes to people stuff. PowerPoint presentations do not create better managers any more than recipe books create master chefs. It’s like trying to learn to drive by reading the manual.
Genuine learning occurs when people are dealing with genuine problems in real time. My best successful programs put people to work on issues they were genuinely struggling with. None of this artificial simulation garbage. Real problems that affected the bottom line.
L&D departments hate this because you cannot put it in a neat spreadsheet. They want neat learning objectives and tick-box assessments. But learning doesn’t happen in neat boxes.
These days I turn down anyone asking for off-the-shelf training solutions. If you want standard, hire someone else. Everything I design is custom-built for the actual problems your team faces every day.
Take feedback skills, for example. Everyone thinks they need feedback training. The conversation between a trades supervisor and a newcomer about following procedures bears no resemblance to a creative director discussing brand strategy. Different stakes, different relationships, different communication styles.
Problem three: what happens after training? Absolutely nothing.
Most training ends when people walk out of the room or close their laptop. Nobody follows up, nobody checks in, nobody provides ongoing help. It’s the equivalent of reading one book about photography and calling yourself a professional.
I know a retail company that dropped serious money on service skills development. When they tested the results six months later, customer service hadn’t budged an inch. The training was actually quite good. But there was zero follow-up support to help people apply what they’d learned.
This might upset some people, but most trainers have never actually run a business.
They know how to facilitate workshops and design learning materials. They can create compelling presentations and interactive exercises. Most have never faced an angry customer, missed a deadline that mattered, or had to let someone go.
You see this mismatch everywhere – advice that works in training rooms but nowhere else. The day-to-day reality of managing people and hitting targets is far more complex than any course curriculum.
The organisations that actually see results from training investment take a completely different approach.
The first difference is crystal-clear objectives. Instead of vague goals like “improved management skills,” they target specific issues like “cut overtime costs by improving delegation”. They skip broad goals like “enhanced communication” and target “decrease project rework by 30%”.
Second, they’re involving line managers in the development process. Your immediate supervisor has more impact on your professional growth than any external trainer ever will. Most businesses sideline the very people who could make training stick.
The third difference is focusing on real results instead of happy faces on evaluation forms. Who cares if people enjoyed the training if they’re not doing anything different six months later?.
Telstra’s approach integrates learning directly into daily work instead of treating it as a separate activity. Learning happens through real work with mentoring and support along the way.
Traditional training isn’t completely worthless. Technical skills training can be highly effective when it’s well-designed and properly supported. Workplace safety education prevents accidents and deaths. Mandatory compliance education helps avoid costly legal issues.
Interpersonal development – the stuff most companies desperately lack – demands an entirely new method.
The future of professional development looks more like apprenticeships and less like workshops. Learning through hands-on experience with coaching support and increasing responsibility.
It means accepting that development is messy and individual and takes time. You need to build coaching capabilities in your leadership team. It means measuring results that matter rather than activities that are easy to count.
Too many businesses avoid this transition because it forces them to confront the failure of their current programs. Scheduling another seminar feels safer than overhauling your entire approach.
But the companies that figure this out will have a enormous competitive advantage. These companies will build skills faster, reduce turnover, and generate genuine value from development budgets.
The rest will keep wondering why their expensive training programs aren’t creating the changes they need.
Your call.
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