Is it really a training problem?

A leader comes to me and says the team needs training. Feedback, delegation, accountability, pick one…those are usually the go-to requests. Sometimes that’s a true training need. More often, the team already knows what good looks like. Something else is stopping them from doing it.

What a training problem actually looks like

A real training problem is a skill gap. People don't know how to do the thing, and if they learned how, the result would change. New managers running their first performance conversation. A team adopting a tool they've never used. Teaching works here because knowledge is the missing piece.

What it looks like when it isn't

If people can describe the right behavior but don't do it, look at the system around them. Priorities that change every week. Incentives that reward the opposite. A manager who says "bring me problems" and then sighs when someone does. No workshop fixes that, and running one anyway teaches people that development is something done to them.

Three questions to ask first

Could they do it if their job depended on it? Does anything in their week make the right behavior harder than the wrong one? And who, specifically, would notice if they changed? If the answers point to the system, start there. Training can come later, and it will land better when it does.