Rex Gatto Ph.D., BCC
Executive Coach and President
Gatto Associates LLC.
5 Reasons Training Can Be a BUST!
Is your training paying dividends: employee development, behavioral change, and or better
leadership? Smart CEOs realize that organizational success really begins and ends with the
employees’ development that supports day-to-day actions that sustain organizational success.
Today, due to the Internet and the ability to conduct evaluations, online surveys, multi-rater 360˚
feedback, webinar training, and live streaming, programed learning modules create formats for
on-going talent and training development. So many opportunities, so little behavioral change!
Why isn’t training working?
Training is a process that assesses characteristics, teaches, encourages learning, supports
behavioral change, gives evidence, and asks questions about an individual’s performance,
strengths, and development regarding:
• Competence (knowledge, skills and abilities)
• Motivation (effort, desire, and attitude)
• Interpersonal (communicating, conflict resolution, teambuilding and leadership)
Why Training Doesn’t Work - Reason #1: Workshops are a fun day!
Go to the workshop, relax and have a great free lunch. It is at the nicest hotel in the city and you
will enjoy yourself. Yeah, I deserve a nice day like this! You know you have been to too many
workshops when you plant tomatoes in June and tell the family they are deliverables for August!
You will do a few role-plays and meet people you don’t know – no work, just a great time.
Leaders and managers are awful at following up with direct reports as to what they received
during training. We sent you to a workshop; you had fun, now get to work. Organizations have a
commitment to spend a great deal of money on training because it keeps the internal HR
department and HR vendors working. Great!
Why Training DOES Work - Reason #1: Return on Investment
What benefit does training really provide by way of organizational performance other than the
one time training? Training tools, sharing of various insights from training facilitators and more
importantly from participants are invaluable and need to have continual reinforcement,
discussion, follow through, and a comprehensive Action Plan that should be tied to the formal
performance feedback process. If your training process does not have the commitment of your
manager’s follow-up on an Action Plan, then save your money along with your time and have a
party!
Development, coaching, organizational change, and growth can only occur through consistent
focus on each individual’s performance enhancements and growth. If done appropriately and

with follow up, training, regardless of the format, is an essential part of organizational change
and growth. If only Kodak, Encyclopedia Britannia, Eastern Airlines, Gulf, Pan American, the
Banking Industry, and WorldCom (just to name a few) had developed and trained strong leaders
and innovative middle managers, they might still be here today!
Why Training Doesn’t Work - #2: Ego-centered Boss
This is how an ego-centered boss would view training: “I send my employees to training to be
fixed. Now that I sent them, it proves that I am a great leader. I spent the money on their training
and that shows my concern for MY people and MY dedication to their growth. I am the leader of
all leaders and people need to know I care about MY people. When MY people come back from
training, I expect them to do more and more and will wait for them to show ME that they learned
a lot from training. I will watch to see who rises to the top. After all, that is how I got promoted,
competitively showing I was better.” Mediocre to poor performing VPs, Directors, Managers,
and Awful Leaders blame the utility of the training process on “what did I get in return for my
time, effort, and money?” They tend not to look at themselves as the focal point of coaching their
people.
Why Training DOES Work - Reason #2: Enhancing Performance
The true Leaders and HR people need to be role models for how to receive and utilize training,
skill-based assessment that accompanies most training and enhanced performance. Training and
skilled-based assessment, and feedback are a developmental process that is given as a gift to
support each person by literally saying this is what you do well and this is what you need to
enhance. The training process, reinforced by managers, and directors of all employees on a
consistent basis is important to the implementation of the training. The key aspects (strengths
and enhancements) of the training must be established and reinforced again and again over the
following year at least once on a quarterly basis. Each person who receives feedback needs to
complete a robust Action Plan that is a comprehensive debrief of the training with key actions
(sustainable and developmental) and a timeline of sustained performance, behavioral change and
development.
Why Training Doesn’t Work #3: One size fits all
There are many companies that have training, assessment and feedback tools that come off a
shelf. Managers in leadership positions want to save money and get the cheapest training because
“we need to save money.” Right: save money on your people’s careers. In some cases, the large
HR vendors who offer training, assessment, and consulting fool organizational leaders. These
HR vendors present warmed over material facilitated by people that know one or two topics for
discussion and lack the organizational knowledge to answer in-depth questions. The problem is
that one-size truly does not fit all. What is even more disconcerting is that there are some people
in HR positions who lack the humanistic understanding of that position. Luckily HR has greatly
grown over the last twenty year as a specialized field with specific competence. Before that
period of time, HR was a job frequently given to people who were nice but incompetent in their
field. I could cite many different organizations that put people in place that could not perform.
An example I personally saw was of an engineer whom everyone liked but cost the company

hundreds of thousands of dollars on a project. What happened to him, promoted into an HR
position? Then there was the Director of Finance who did not correctly meet IRS requirements
and cost the organization embarrassment with a forensic government audit cost thousands of
dollars. But, he was so nice, and rather than letting him go (you guessed it), he became the new
Director in HR, where he muddled around until retirement. Now, fortunately, the HR profession
has competency credentials and is a growing profession that requires a specific skill set.
Why Training DOES Work #3: Customized training does fit
Each organization has its unique: needs, culture, traditions, leadership style, people, chemistry of
interaction, rewards, and standards of performance. Each organization has unique leaders who
create and support the interaction with employees that supports organizational success. How do
you measure that with a one size fits all training and development feedback? What you train
(give) is what you get (outcomes) by way of results. People are not cookie cutters. You need to
measure skills that are most needed within your organization. Employees will figure out quickly
how to perform based on what is needed, rewarded, and leads to success. A key point is that with
every training program, the facilitator should collect all the notes of the small and large group
discussions, type them and give them to all participants and the organizational leaders. This helps
to support training not as a program but a process to be implemented and measured. Notes
can be used as follow up discussions. Such a process should be used as a major benchmark when
choosing the right training process and facilitator. Each organization is unique, having a variety
of organizational variables that need to be identified and developed.
Why Training Doesn’t Work - #4: Real aspect of training is the collection of workbooks on
your book self
The purpose of training is to collect workbooks, so you can stock your bookcase. The workbooks
on your bookshelf show where you have been for training, the type of training and, of course,
how smart you are. The really good workshops have colored workbooks so people who come to
your office can easily see them and the HR provider. The workbooks, and pictures during the
training are great things to populate your office. The only thing better are family pictures of your
kids doing activities.
Why Training Does Work #4: The Real Aspect of Training is Change in Behavior
Training, development and enhancement feedback should be collected on key work behaviors,
which are the day-to-day actions that the person needs to utilize to be successful in the job. The
people giving the training, development and enhancement feedback need to understand the
responsibility attached to giving feedback. They also need to have a meeting explaining the
purpose of the learning process and how it will be used with the participants or people receiving
the feedback, not only for understanding in the workshop, but for taking back to the
WORKPLACE, sharing the information, and putting it into practice. Managers need to know,
understand, and exercise the behavior of the term andragogy: adult education in the workplace
(Malcolm Knowles). This type of learning is self-directed and evidence-based behavior that is
always developmental.

The 360˚ Process
Often as part of a developmental process, a multi-rated 360˚ feedback is used. The people giving
the feedback must be qualified; the raters do need to understand the rating process and how to
use it. There needs to be a minimum and a maximum of respondents consisting of direct reports,
peers, supervisors, managers, and internal/external customers). The 360˚ feedback process
should not be a witch-hunt of asking questions that do not directly relate to the participant’s job.
The questions need to relate to the persons’ job so the participant can easily make a connection
between what he/she does and the feedback being received which will culminate in a clear
Action Plan for ROI. The collection of data from the raters must incorporate questions (usually
on a Likert scale of 5 or 7 is most common) and narrative questions, which actually are more
important than the rated questions. In the pre-meeting, it must be clear that raters will not tolerate
games and that this is a work-related activity of the highest order. A process for disseminating
the feedback is important. Usually feedback will be given to executives in a one-on-one setting
and manager/supervisors in a larger conference room with no more than five people in order to
individually talk with each person about their feedback and Action Plan. The follow up to the
action plan is essential over the rest of the year.
The best and the worst that a 360˚ can offer is to be specific to job performance. The best way to
do that is to focus on narrative questions that are supported by the general rated questions. The
narrative questions are far superior to the glitzy graphs and language developed by most vendors.
Here are simple questions that can re-position a 360˚ feedback process to support the individual
receiving the feedback:
What are his/her:
• Greatest strengths and contribution to the organization
• How does this person demonstrate competence (work-related skills and abilities)?
• How does this person demonstrate motivation (effort)
• Greatest need for development
• One thing this person could do to better person his/her job
Why Training Doesn’t Work - #5: Training should be a surprise with no expectations
It is easier for managers to put people into training programs than to coach them and work with
them through personal development. We all know managers are too busy for that. A Manager
calls in her direct reports and indicates that the following week, the employees are scheduled for
training (happens more that you think). I have had people put into a workshop because managers
did not want to give their employees performance feedback; they just wanted them to be “fixed”
in the workshop. Some people come to workshops because the manager wants them to be
promoted but never told them. Some people are put into workshops to specifically receive 360˚
in which the manager rips them a new face but has never said anything to them face-to-face.
None of these reasons are why someone should attend a training workshop. You may think I am
exaggerating, but I am not this time. I have seen this too many times!

Why Training would work - #5: Pre-meeting and Transparency
It is extremely important that the people going through a training process have a pre-meeting
with their manager to explain: the training process, expectations, why they have the opportunity
to attend this training and, subsequently, what implantation is expected from the training. The
pre-meeting is the key to setting the tone for the process and gives each person attending the
workshop the opportunity to understand the individual benefits to him or her. People should
never attend a workshop without knowing the reason for the workshop and the personal and
company benefits of attending. I recently did a workshop for a small group (not a team) on how
to become a team. There were many agreeable comments to start. I asked the groups of 15 to
break into smaller groups of 3 or 4 and had them focus on what they did well, what they needed
to enhance as a group and one suggestion to make this a better place to work. I gave the feedback
to the managers and discussed the key next step actions. There was no pre-meeting and no post-
meeting or follow up. The attendees thought it was “nice” and gave high ratings for the
workshop, but the company executives did nothing upon their return to the workplace. This only
makes things worse. Without the commitment of goal setting in a pre-meeting and follow up
actions and request or requirement of behavioral change, training will not work, especially with
poor performing managers who use training as a substitute for departmental goal setting and
follow up.
These are your five key points to make sure your training is a success:
1. Identify a Return on Investment and let people know what it is.
2. Utilize training as a process to enhance performance (hold people accountable for
behavioral change)
3. Customize the training for your organization: each organization is different
4. Remember that training is a process, identifying development through sustainable and
enhancement/change in behaviors
5. Hold a pre and post meetings to support the training process to ensure it supports
organizational growth