Why most Trainings you took are useless

Have you ever noticed that while you're taking a training, the ideas, techniques and concepts seem to all fall into place and be related to you in some way, yet at the same time, within months, weeks, days, even as quickly as leaving the training directly, you lack its implementation in your life?

 This is exactly why most of the trainings you took are useless.

 This calls for a couple of questions. We could ask "then why do we do these trainings at all? It's clearly a waste of time and effort!" or we could look at it from another perspective by asking "what's the reason behind why these concepts, though directly applicable to me in some way, never really come to fruition?". If you're asking the second question, you're already one step ahead of the game; one step closer to getting a benefit from the time spent in the trainings. If you are stuck in the first question, try to just imagine with me for a while that it's potentially not a waste of time and there may be some value in it if we change how we do things.

 Now, let's go back in time to a moment in history when you learned something and it actually stuck and changed how you do things - it could be anything from learning how to play a game of cards to driving a car to learning how to make Excel sheets that increase efficiency in your company, whatever it is, keep that memory in the front of your mind.

 What happened to allow you to really learn how to do it, for the long term? It was probably quite simple and natural - the tools you needed were available, you understood what your goal was from each step of the learning process, you were convinced with how things were done, you imagined the possibilities of what could be done as a result of learning it and then you came out convinced that you can do it. Now, these are all things that (should) happen in a training in the traditional sense... so where's the problem?

 The answer is very simple! Using what you learned secured it in your set of skills, habits, etc.

 Now, let's compare this to a normal training. Generally what happens in a training is you attend a workshop then leave, and it's up to you to use it or not... well, this is just 30% of the learning process! When you only complete 30% of a process, how can you expect to be able to retain what you learned and actually apply it effectively as second nature?

 There is a very famous training concept which has a 70:20:10 split (on the job/usage learning:peer based learning:classroom based learning) which shows exactly where the problem lies... we miss the 70% on the job/usage learning from our trainings; we often feel the training is over when we leave the classroom, which is far from the truth!

 Learning by doing is a powerful tool which we often miss... let's now think back to a time that we took a training which we wanted to apply to our life and it fell through.

 Did you apply it from the moment you left the training room until it became a habit, or did it just remain as a nice concept? If you didn't apply it, why don't you apply that same training's teachings now, what's stopping you?

 Of course, this can be assisted by the company you work in, your closest friends and family, or even the people who gave you the training, but the only person who can make this truly happen is you.

 If the title of this post bothered you by implying that you wasted your time, you can still increase that time's value, the question is... will you do this, for yourself, or will you move on content with the fact that most of the trainings you took were useless?

Written by:
Dean Mokhtar
The Agile Brain
[email protected]

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