Seasoned: Why companies need more than just leadership training

This Holiday season has been the perfect time for many of us to relax and just get away from my work and the busyness that comes with every-day life. During this time I tend to feel like a kid again, although it's strange because now I have 3 kids of my own so my perspective has flipped. Nevertheless I get this child-like energy and feeling that I really only get this time of year.

On Christmas morning and, for some, other days around this time of year, many of us are blessed to give and receive gifts from family and friends. This year was no exception for the Koeller household. The my family and I shared thoughtful gifts, homemade gifts, and even random gifts with each other. My 8-year old son even put together a "gift bag" full of homemade puzzles, riddles, and games that you could tell he worked really hard on. So much so that he created a little poem/monolog to get it started. It was incredibly creative and not terribly unexpected coming from him.

I received a pretty large gift myself that has become the inspiration for this article. I was gifted a Blackstone Griddle on Christmas and I couldn't have been more thrilled. If you know anything about a Blackstone Griddle, they are an excellent outdoor cooking surface that allows you to cook nearly anything on it's cast-iron-like surface. Needless to say, I threw away my gas grill of 10 years and will be "grilling" on the Blackstone for the foreseeable future.

But how does that inspire this article and how does it have anything to do with leadership? I'm glad you asked. Unlike standard grills, Blackstones require the user to season the surface before use. The initial seasoning process can be long and certainly tests your patience, lest you incorrectly or under-season it. I think in total it took me about 1 hour to season the whole thing before the first cook on it could even happen. But that is just the start of this seemingly unending process. The surface of a Blackstone is a medium grey out of the box, however the seasoning of it turns it black because you are cooking oil or fat right on the surface almost to the point of burning it. This keeps the surface non-stick and adds flavor to your food. Then Every subsequent cook adds a little more seasoning and flavor to the surface making food taste amazing!

Many companies today, both large and small, host leadership training seminars or classes that last 1 or two weeks. I've been to several and have certainly gleaned new info and knowledge that I use today! However, I've learned that these provide only a temporary high for leaders and when that wears off, have a tendency to revert back to old habits and behaviors that aren't effective. ENTER: the Blackstone.

Leaders need seasoning. Not just once, but continual seasoning so they can build successful teams and successful careers. Unfortunately these leadership classes and seminars only provide an initial seasoning but they fail to add continual knowledge, coaching, and mentorship to help leaders build success for their teams and themselves quickly and for long-term. This lack of continual value forces companies to host seminars on repeat but also stunts the ability for leaders to leave a legacy with their teams.

So in 2025, I'd like to change this chain of thinking. I'd like to move more companies to invest in coaches and mentors for their leaders, rather than trainings, classes, and seminars. Leaders need someone to come alongside them and season them continually for weeks and months, even lifelong in many cases. A coach or a mentor who continually delivers feedback, support, and advice to a leader is setting them up for lifelong success for both the individual and the team they lead. This could be in the form of investing in senior leadership to mentor other leaders, or bringing in a leadership coach who has the time and capacity to build up all the leaders in the organization according to their needs.

Coaching is seasoning. It is a long-term investment that delivers value for years but it also delivers on the development of people, cultures, and companies for a lifetime.

Let's change it up this year and help companies become more seasoned. Let's make more companies legendary.

P.S. Tell me about your company? Are they into seasoning? or do they follow the unfortunate trend of 1 and done training?