In praise of training

One of the first things I learned as a novice L&D consultant was that my profession was about ‘learning’ not ‘training’.

Training was bad. Old fashioned. Ineffective. Almost embarrassing.

Training was extending the folly of school into adult working life: people sitting at desks for hours on end watching someone talking in front of a screen. It was patently ridiculous.

‘Learning’ was what we should really be focused on. Or rather ‘learning and development’, although I’ve come across very few L&D professionals who could give you a ready, crisp definition of that term without struggling to distinguish between those two words.

But what was important was learning. Approaches that championed the ‘learner’. Bite-sized workshops. 70:20:10. Micro-learning. Digital learning. Social learning. Learning in the flow. Lifelong learning.

Hear someone talk about ‘training’ and those of us in the know would raise an eyebrow or exchange a weary glance. For here was someone still talking about vinyl when we’d all moved on to CDs (at least in theory).

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And yet here I am now, decades later, advocating for removing the stigma attached to ‘training’.

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Those who know me may at this point be suspecting that I’ve had a blow to the head. For I’ve long advocated for ‘modern workplace learning’ (always preferring Jane Hart’s term to the very flawed ‘70:20:10’, although the word ‘workplace’ now sounds so 2019).

But I’m not suggesting that classroom delivery should once again be championed as the go-to L&D intervention.

What I am suggesting is that we should take another look at the word ‘training’.

Because what I’ve failed to grasp all these years is that in most contexts outside corporate classrooms, ‘training’ means something quite different.

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Think of soldiers, fire officers, athletes, surgeons, pilots, plumbers. And then think of ‘training’. What comes to mind now..?

For me, ‘training’ in these contexts means long periods of demanding, focused effort in real – or highly realistic – situations. And above all, ‘training’ is something that those people own. They choose to engage in it. They put in the effort. They practice. They may be supported by instructors or coaches or mentors or even classrooms. But make no mistake: the sweat and dedication and achievements belong to them.

They are not being trained. They are training.

And it’s this sense of ownership that we’ve lost in the corporate world. The move from active to passive.

For in so many ways – at least in my experience – ?‘learning’ has become a commodity. It’s less something we do and more something that is transacted. How often have you heard – or used – phrases like these:

• “You can find lots of learning on our LMS”
• “What sort of learning is available in your organisation?”
• “We offer learning to every group of staff”
• “It’s important that learning is accessible to everyone”
• “We spend a considerable amount per head on learning”

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In moving from ‘training’ to ‘learning’, the L&D profession may have been complicit in selling organisations the idea that learning could be bought, offered, stored and downloaded.

Perhaps instead, we should have realigned ‘training’ to what it means everywhere outside the corporate world: an effortful, time-consuming acquisition of knowledge and skills. Something you DO, not something you GET.

The road back to this world of honest graft will not be easy. It will mean trying to convince people that learning comes more from effortful application than it does from effortless consumption.

Nonetheless, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to reclaim the word ‘training’ and come clean with our corporate customers.

Thoughts..?