The Professional Development Fiction That’s Destroying Australian Businesses
Three months ago, I was sitting in a Sydney boardroom watching a CEO explain why their star performer just resigned. “Look at all the training we provided,” he insisted, scratching his head. “Management programs, skill-building sessions, you name it.””
This conversation plays out in boardrooms across Australia every bloody day. Organisation pours money into development programs. Star player walks out the door. Leadership scratches their heads and wonders what went wrong.
Having spent close to two decades working with organisations from Perth to Brisbane on development strategies, I’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself like a scratched record. We’ve reduced professional development to a bureaucratic process that serves everyone except the employees it claims to develop.
The ugly truth? Most professional development programs are designed to make companies feel good about themselves, not to genuinely develop their people.
What drives me absolutely mental is how professional development gets treated as a optional benefit. An afterthought that gets mentioned during performance conversations to tick the development box.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Development should be fundamental to how every organisation operates. Yet it’s treated as optional, something that can wait until next quarter.
There was this Adelaide construction firm I consulted with where the supervisors could build anything but couldn’t lead teams. Instead of addressing this properly, they sent everyone to a generic “Leadership Essentials” program that cost them forty-eight grand dollars. Months later, the supervisors were still having the exact same issues with their crews.
The problem isn’t with development itself. The problem is our backwards approach to implementing it.
Too many organisations begin with assumptions about employee needs instead of asking what people genuinely want to develop. There’s a massive difference between those two things, and it’s costing Australian businesses millions every year.
Genuine professional growth starts with understanding: what’s holding you back from excelling in your role?
Skip what your supervisor believes is important. Disregard what the development brochure promotes. What you personally know as the obstacles to your peak performance.
I think about Sarah, a marketing professional I coached at a Brisbane business. The organisation continuously enrolled her in online marketing programs because management assumed that was the gap. Sarah’s actual struggle was handling her unpredictable boss who shifted direction constantly.
No amount of Facebook advertising training was going to solve that problem. One chat with a mentor who understood challenging boss dynamics? Complete transformation.
This is where the majority of organisations get it totally wrong. They focus on hard skills when the actual barriers are usually soft skills. If they ever get to soft skills development, they choose theoretical programs over practical mentoring.
Presentations will not develop your ability to navigate challenging interpersonal situations. You develop these skills by practicing real conversations with expert coaching along the way.
The most effective development occurs during real work, with instant coaching and guidance. Everything else is just expensive entertainment.
Something else that makes me furious: the fixation on degrees and professional credentials. Don’t get me wrong – some roles need specific credentials. But nearly all jobs require capabilities that can’t be certified.
I know marketing directors who’ve never done a formal marketing course but understand their customers better than MBA graduates. There are project leaders who developed their skills in the field and deliver better results than accredited specialists.
But we continue promoting structured courses because they’re simpler to track and explain to executives. It’s like assessing a builder by their certificates instead of examining the houses they’ve built.
Businesses that succeed with professional growth know it’s not about structured programs or formal credentials. It’s about creating environments where people can learn, experiment, and grow while doing meaningful work.
Companies like Google does this well with their 20% time policy. Atlassian supports creative sessions where employees explore opportunities outside their typical role. These companies understand that the best learning happens when people are solving real problems they care about.
Small businesses can establish these development opportunities without enormous budgets. I’ve witnessed incredible professional growth in smaller companies where people tackle diverse roles and develop through practical needs.
The key is being intentional about it. Rather than hoping development happens naturally, intelligent companies design challenging projects, collaborative opportunities, and coaching relationships that push people appropriately.
The approach that succeeds: matching people with diverse experience on actual company projects. The newer team member learns about different problems and how decisions get made. The experienced individual builds mentoring and team leadership capabilities. Everyone learns something valuable.
This method is uncomplicated, affordable, and linked to genuine company performance. Though it needs leaders who can mentor and grow people instead of only distributing responsibilities. Here’s where the majority of businesses completely fail.
We promote people to management positions based on their technical skills, then expect them to magically know how to develop others. It’s equivalent to making your top engineer an engineering manager and wondering why they can’t lead people.
If you want professional development that really develops people, you need to invest in developing your managers first. Not via management seminars, but through ongoing mentoring and assistance that improves their ability to develop others.
The irony is that the best professional development often doesn’t look like development at all. It appears as engaging tasks, demanding initiatives, and supervisors who genuinely want their staff to thrive.
I remember a Canberra accounting business where the principal partner ensured every staff member tackled something new and challenging each year. No formal program, no certificates, just interesting work that stretched people’s capabilities.
Staff turnover was practically non-existent. People stayed because they were growing, learning, and being challenged in ways that mattered to them.
Here’s the winning approach: development linked to important work and personal motivations rather than cookie-cutter capability structures.
Most professional development fails because it tries to be everything to everyone. Better to focus on a few key areas that matter to your particular people in your unique context.
Which brings me to my biggest bugbear: one-size-fits-all development programs. These generic methods disregard the fact that individuals learn uniquely, possess different drivers, and encounter different obstacles.
Certain individuals learn through action. Others like to watch and contemplate. Some people flourish with public acknowledgment. Others favour private input. Still we funnel everyone through identical training sessions and question why outcomes vary.
Wise businesses tailor development similarly to how they tailor customer relationships. They understand that effective approaches for some individuals might be absolutely inappropriate for others.
This does not require building numerous separate initiatives. It means remaining versatile about how people connect with growth opportunities and what those opportunities include.
Maybe it’s job rotation for someone who learns by doing. Maybe it’s a reading group for someone who processes information better through discussion. Maybe it’s a conference presentation for someone who needs external validation to build confidence.
The point is matching the development approach to the person, not forcing the person to fit the approach.
Here’s my prediction: in five years, the companies with the best talent will be the ones that figured out how to make professional development personal, practical, and directly connected to the work that matters.
The rest will still be sending people to standard workshops and wondering why their best performers keep leaving for competitors who understand that great people want to grow, not just collect certificates.
Professional development isn’t about checking boxes or fulfilling training quotas. It’s about creating workplaces where people can become the best versions of themselves while contributing to something meaningful.
Master that approach, and all other factors – staff loyalty, involvement, results – fall into place naturally.
Fail at this, and you’ll keep having those management meetings about why your star performers quit regardless of your major development spending.
Your choice.
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