If Olympians were trained the way many corporations train their people, they would never make it through the qualifiers. They certainly would not be standing on the podium.
Athletes do not train once and then perform at peak levels the rest of the year. They train constantly. Deliberately. Repetitively. With coaching. With feedback. With correction.
Performance is the outcome. Practice is the priority.
In many organizations, training looks very, very different:
- A discrete, single-touch ‘session’
- Colorful slides crammed with text and buzzwords.
- Model overload.
- Content presentation mistaken for facilitation.
And then we expect behavior change?
That one training day does not magically build skill. Particularly when it’s a content-heavy session focused on telling versus creating insight. At that point, it interrupts the work rather than strengthening it.
Here is what we know about adult learning: Adults build skill through a constant cycle of action and reflection.
A Constant Cycle.
Which means true capability is built through:
- Awareness
- Analysis
- Practice
- Feedback
- Adaptation
That cycle does not happen once. It repeats. Over time.
Information can be delivered in a day. Capability is built through cycles.
So here is my question:
Is your organization’s learning strategy built to fuel that cycle… or just interrupt it?