Advice
Why Most Corporate Training is Rubbish (And How to Fix It)
The training room smelt like stale coffee and broken dreams. Again. Another mandatory session where twenty-three middle managers sat zombie-eyed through PowerPoint slides about "synergistic paradigm shifts." Sound familiar?
Here's the thing nobody wants to admit: 84% of training programs fail because they're designed by people who've never actually done the job they're trying to teach. I've been running transformative training programs for seventeen years now, and I can tell you the dirty little secret of our industry – most of it is complete bollocks.
But here's where I get controversial. The problem isn't that people can't learn. It's that we're teaching them like they're robots instead of humans with mortgages, kids who won't eat vegetables, and bosses who email at 11pm expecting responses.
The Netflix Problem
Remember when Blockbuster said streaming would never catch on? That's exactly what traditional training providers are doing right now. While Netflix revolutionised entertainment by understanding what people actually wanted, corporate training is still stuck in the era of three-hour seminars about time management that somehow manage to waste everyone's time.
I made this mistake myself back in 2019. Spent six months developing what I thought was groundbreaking leadership content. Fancy workbooks, interactive exercises, even brought in a motivational speaker who'd climbed Everest. The feedback? "Boring as watching paint dry." Ouch.
That failure taught me something crucial: transformation doesn't happen in training rooms. It happens in the real world, in real moments, when people are dealing with actual problems.
What Actually Works (Spoiler: It's Not What You Think)
The most effective training I've ever delivered was to a construction crew in Darwin. No PowerPoints. No role-plays. Just stood on-site in 40-degree heat and showed them how to handle difficult conversations with subcontractors who were cutting corners.
One bloke – let's call him Dave – had been avoiding confrontation for fifteen years. By the end of that session, he was confidently addressing quality issues that had been plaguing the project for months. Why? Because we weren't pretending to be in an imaginary scenario. This was his actual workplace, his actual problems, his actual solutions.
Traditional training assumes everyone learns the same way. That's like assuming everyone likes the same flavour of ice cream. Some people need to see it, others need to do it, and some need to argue about it first. The best programs I run now are messy, unpredictable, and completely tailored to the chaos of real work environments.
The Emotional Intelligence Myth
Here's another unpopular opinion: emotional intelligence training is often emotional manipulation dressed up as professional development. I've seen too many programs that teach people to "manage" emotions rather than understand them.
Real emotional intelligence training starts with acknowledging that work is emotional. When someone's stressed about redundancies, telling them to "think positive" isn't helpful – it's insulting. What they need are practical tools for navigating uncertainty, not platitudes about mindfulness.
The programs that actually create lasting change focus on business supervision skills that acknowledge the human side of business. Because at the end of the day, we're not managing resources or assets – we're working with people who have feelings, fears, and Friday afternoon energy slumps.
Why Australia Gets It Wrong (And Right)
Australian workplaces have a weird relationship with professional development. We're simultaneously sceptical of anything that sounds too "American motivational speaker" while being desperately hungry for genuine growth opportunities.
I've worked with teams from Perth to Brisbane, and there's definitely a pattern. The most successful transformative training happens when we stop trying to import American corporate buzzwords and start building on what Australians actually value: straight talking, practical solutions, and respect for experience.
Melbourne teams, in particular, seem to respond well to training that challenges assumptions rather than reinforcing them. Maybe it's the coffee culture encouraging deeper discussions, but I've noticed they're more willing to push back on content that doesn't make sense in their context.
The Technology Trap
Every second training provider now wants to gamify everything or create virtual reality experiences. Don't get me wrong – technology can be brilliant when used properly. But I've seen organisations spend hundreds of thousands on elaborate e-learning platforms that employees ignore in favour of asking their colleague sitting two desks away.
The best transformative training combines high-tech tools with high-touch human interaction. Use technology to track progress, provide resources, and create connections between sessions. But don't use it to replace the fundamentally human experience of learning something new alongside other people who understand your challenges.
Some of my most successful programs involve crisis leadership training that uses simulation technology but requires participants to work through scenarios with their actual team members. The technology creates the pressure; the human relationships create the learning.
The Follow-Up Failure
Here's where most training programs completely fall apart – the week after. People return to their desks energised and full of good intentions, then get swamped by urgent emails and deadline pressures. Within a month, those expensive new skills are gathering dust like the gym membership you bought in January.
Effective transformation requires what I call "persistence architecture" – systematic support that continues long after the initial program ends. This isn't about more training sessions. It's about creating conditions where new behaviours can actually survive in the wild.
I now insist on six-month follow-up programs for any serious transformation initiative. Not because I want to sell more training (though obviously that's nice), but because sustainable change takes time to embed.
What Success Actually Looks Like
Last month, I got an email from Sarah, a team leader in Adelaide who completed one of our programs eighteen months ago. She wasn't writing to thank me for the training – she was asking for advice on how to scale the communication improvements her team had made to the broader organisation.
That's what transformative training success looks like. Not glowing course evaluations or completion certificates, but people who are still using and building on what they learned months or years later.
The organisations getting real value from professional development understand this isn't about ticking compliance boxes or keeping staff happy. It's about systematically building capabilities that drive actual business results while making work more satisfying for everyone involved.
But here's the catch – you can't buy transformation off the shelf. Every organisation has different challenges, different culture, different constraints. Cookie-cutter solutions might feel safer and cheaper upfront, but they're usually expensive failures in disguise.
The uncomfortable truth? Transformative training requires leaders who are willing to invest time, energy, and genuine commitment to change. Not just financial resources, but emotional and political capital too.
If your organisation isn't ready for that level of commitment, save your money and buy everyone a coffee machine instead. At least then people will stay awake during meetings.