It's cool to be cold...or is it?

With temperatures dropping across the Mid-Atlantic, the first frost ??is right around the corner. Naturally, I suggested to my 14-year-old daughter that she wear a jacket to the bus stop. Cue the classic teenage eye roll. ??

"I’m fine, I don’t need one. It’s not cool to wear a jacket." Instead, she threw on her sweatshirt ??and headed out the door, looking like she was ready for early September, rather than a 47-degree mid-October morning. I didn’t push it. (I knew she would wear it to appease me, only to take it off when out of sight and risk leaving it on the bus). I thought back to my own childhood when my mom always made me bundle up in the longest (sometimes ugliest) coat imaginable. Even in lean times with our family business, mom always invested in the warmest coats and boots - she wanted her kids to be warm. I wore them without question because that’s what you did. That was normal. And it wasn't until today, as I watched the kid across the street head to the bus in shorts, that I wondered: Why do we follow trends that aren’t practical or useful?

That same thought hit me earlier this week during a conversation with my new web designer. We were working through a brand narrative exercise, and I was venting about the challenges of marketing. No one is actively looking for performance solutions. Instead, companies keep pouring time and money into traditional learning programs and competencies that sound good on paper but don’t address the real gaps in performance.

Just like my daughter clings to what’s trendy—thinking a sweatshirt will do the job—the business world often sticks with what feels familiar: training initiatives that look good but don’t actually drive measurable outcomes. When I try to introduce new solutions, I have to work hard to point out what’s missing:

• Learning programs that don’t close performance gaps.
• Coaching efforts that look robust but don’t lead to behavior change.
• Development initiatives that feel good but don’t move the needle on business results.

The reality is, just like wearing shorts in the cold, what’s popular isn’t always what’s smart. It takes a bit of courage to step away from what everyone else is doing and invest in what actually works. Real performance improvement requires a different mindset—one that focuses on uncovering and scaling what top performers do differently, rather than defaulting to traditional training methods that miss the mark.

So, whether it’s rethinking a learning strategy or convincing a teenager that a jacket isn’t just for show, the lesson is clear: Don’t let “what’s cool” distract you from what’s truly effective.

Because when the frost hits—whether in business or on a chilly bus stop morning—you’ll wish you had invested in something that really keeps you warm.