The Professional Development Problem Everyone’s Ignoring (And How to Fix It)
I was at this corporate training session in Brisbane recently when the fella beside me started scrolling through emails. Can’t say, I couldn’t blame him. The trainer kept using buzzwords that would make a corporate consultant blush. Twenty-plus years in this industry across every large Australian city, I’ve seen this same worn-out formula repeated everywhere from mining companies in Perth to tech startups in Surry Hills.
The thing that drives me mental? We’re throwing money at training that trains no one but definitely enriches the training companies.
Training companies have the entire process back to front. It begins with what looks great in a brochure instead of what actually solves workplace problems. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen HR departments excited about their elaborate training curriculum while watching their top talent head for the exit.
The dirty little secret? About 73% of professional development initiatives fail to create lasting behaviour change. I made that statistic up, but it feels about right when you look at the evidence scattered across numerous workplaces.
Let me tell you about Sarah from a logistics company I worked with in 2019. Sharp operations manager, fifteen years experience, could solve problems that would make your head spin. They invested serious money sending her to a cookie-cutter management course. Everything she learned was theoretical nonsense with no relevance to her actual job challenges. She returned to work more annoyed than before she went.
That’s the first problem. We’ve industrialized learning.
We’ve turned workplace learning into fast food – quick, cheap, and ultimately unsatisfying. You get the same recycled content whether you’re managing a team of tradespeople or leading a finance department. Imagine walking into a clothing store where everything comes in one size. Sometimes it works. Usually it does not.
Problem two: terrible timing. Training gets scheduled around budget cycles and conference room availability, not when people really need help. We bundle people into courses based on their job title rather than their real development needs.
There was this factory in regional Victoria that decided every supervisor needed the same communication course. Half these guys had been managing teams for decades and could handle tricky conversations in their sleep. Meanwhile, the newer supervisors were scared stiff of saying anything that might upset someone. Guess which group got the most value?
I’m about to upset some people: the majority of interpersonal skills training is completely useless.
These abilities are essential, but our approach to teaching them is fundamentally flawed. Watching videos about leadership is like trying to learn swimming by reading about water. It’s like trying to learn to drive by reading the manual.
Real professional development happens in the messy reality of genuine work situations. My best successful programs put people to work on issues they were genuinely struggling with. Forget theoretical scenarios and paid actors pretending to be difficult customers. Actual stuff that mattered to their business results.
L&D departments hate this because you can’t put it in a neat spreadsheet. They want neat learning objectives and tick-box assessments. But learning doesn’t happen in neat boxes.
I’ve started refusing clients who want me to deliver “standard” programs. If you want standard, hire someone else. The training gets created specifically for your industry, your culture, your particular headaches.
Look at performance conversations, for instance. Everyone thinks they need feedback training. But a construction foreman giving feedback to a new apprentice about safety procedures is completely different from a marketing manager discussing campaign performance with their creative team. 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. Zero follow-through, zero support, zero chance of lasting change. Imagine having one tennis lesson and expecting to play Wimbledon.
I know a retail company that dropped serious money on service skills development. Half a year later, secret shoppers couldn’t detect any difference in how customers were treated. The training was actually quite good. There was no system to help staff actually use their new skills.
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. But they’ve never had to hit a quarterly target or manage a difficult client relationship or deal with a team member who’s consistently underperforming.
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 companies getting real value from professional development are doing a few things differently.
First, they’re ruthlessly specific about what they want to achieve. Instead of vague goals like “improved management skills,” they target specific issues like “cut overtime costs by improving delegation”. Forget generic outcomes like “better customer relationships” – they want “reduce client churn by 20%”.
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.
Point three: they track what people actually do differently, not how they felt about the training. What’s the point of five-star feedback if nobody changes how they work?.
Telstra’s approach integrates learning directly into daily work instead of treating it as a separate activity. People learn by working on real projects with coaching support built in.
I’m not saying all traditional training is useless. Technical skills training can be highly effective when it’s well-designed and properly supported. Health and safety programs genuinely protect people. Regulatory training protects you from legal problems.
The people skills that businesses are crying out for need a totally different strategy.
Tomorrow’s workplace learning will resemble traditional trades training more than corporate seminars. Staff developing skills through actual work projects with mentoring and progressively harder challenges.
This approach requires admitting that learning is chaotic, personal, and slow. You need to build coaching capabilities in your leadership team. Success gets measured by meaningful outcomes instead of convenient metrics.
Most organisations aren’t ready for this shift because it requires admitting that their current approach is not working. Ordering more training feels less risky than admitting the whole system needs rebuilding.
The businesses that master this approach will dominate their industries. They’ll develop people faster, retain talent longer, and get better business results from their development investment.
Meanwhile, other organisations will keep throwing money at programs that change nothing.
Your call.
