Do You Know These Ten Reasons Why Training Fails?

Training doesn't work. Most training, that is. In particular, formal training doesn't work. At least, not very often. What's formal training? It's training that you would recognize: one or more people getting together with an instructor to learn something new. Informal training is a different story, one I promise to take up sometime soon.

Below I list ten reasons why formal training fails. I could have listed more, but frankly I got fed up thinking about this problem and stopped at the ten worst and most common sins. Perhaps I'll add to the list another time.

Training Fails When...

1. It confuses activity with improvement. Most corporate training departments are far more concerned with appearing busy than with creating performance improvement. They measure how happy students are in their classes and they report the number of students they taught as a sign of achievement and contribution to the firm's success. By the way, this sin is not exclusive to large companies. I've seen it at all levels.

2. The focus is on "repairing" individuals' weaknesses. You'll never get very far trying to improve someone's performance by concentrating your efforts on what they don't do well. Put the same amount of effort into fostering their strengths and you'll have a champion on your hands. Notice that Olympic sprinters don't train very much on endurance.

3. Programs lack a means of transferring learning to the job. Most studies on this subject show that only 10 to 20% of all learning actually gets transferred to use on the job. That's a pitiful showing. But most training programs lack any direct connection to the learners' jobs. No wonder the next reason is so common.

4. Management doesn't support it. Very often, learners return to the job after what could have been a very useful training session only to be told, "Well, that's fine for training class, but we don't do it that way here." Another form of management non-support is asking employees to complete training on their own time. Unpaid. Go figure.

5. It is really a motivational lecture in disguise. This is often the case in one-off sales training seminars. You know the type: the facilitator is little more than a successful rah-rah sales manager who found it easier to make money giving structured pep talks. Another form of this fault is when a manager holds a "training" meeting where the only thing being taught is a change in the commission structure designed to provide a greater incentive to sell high-margin products.

6. Trainers are not held accountable for performance improvement. This one should be a no-brainer, but it isn't in far too many organizations. When you ask someone to mentor a new hire, shouldn't there be some understanding that the new hire will learn to do the job right, and quickly?

7. Management views training as a cost, not an investment. This is closely related to #4 above. When management fails to see the potential for training to contribute to the company's success, it will almost never contribute to the company's success. Sort of a chicken-and-egg problem. But, as with most aspects of an organization's culture, it all starts at the top.

8. Fails to make a connection with the company's business needs and goals. This is the flip-side of #7. If the people responsible for training don't link their training efforts to the organization's business needs and goals, then there's absolutely no chance they will help the organization prosper.

9. The methods being used ignore how people learn. I bet most of you have been in a "training" session like this one: a techie introduces a new software application by showing what every menu item does. In order. From left to right. With no hint of why you would use that menu item, under what circumstances. And of course, there's no opportunity for you to actually use the software until it shows up in your office. By the way, this sin isn't restricted to computer training.

10. It doesn't get done at all. Unfortunately, this is far more common than any of us will ever admit.

You aren't making any of these mistakes, are you? I hope not.

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