INsight/ Addicted to Training

Photo by Jayson Hinrichsen on Unsplash.

Manila, 12 June 2025 — Where does the addiction to training come from, and how will you overcome it?

Story

It happened this week. In the Grow3Leaders community of practice, we asked the members the question of why so many people are addicted to training rather than being invested in practice. Where does this addiction come from? 

For example, we know from research that most leadership training is ineffective, with participants failing to make real changes happen when they return to their workplace afterward. And yet organizations persist in offering more training. Why is that?

Our members are clear on it. The fear of failure, of not being able to deliver change in the real world, will drive people to take more training, they said. Training feels safer than facing the challenges of the real world. Sadly, the consequences of this addiction to training are huge and evident. 

Challenge

We see the impact of the training addition around us. Take the Sustainable Development Goals. A failure to lead in action with significant changes means that the world remains off track for most of these goals. While a slew of conferences and trainings talk about accelerating actions, the results are few.

The same happens in many businesses and organizations that keep organizing more leadership training programs for staff, yet with few results to show for it. What is needed is an investment in leadership actions, rather than more training. We want to see more changes in the real world.

That is why our method of leadership development is radically different from what others offer. The leaders we work with will commit to experiential learning. They take leadership challenges that call them to take action and practice leadership behaviors daily, supported by a safe community space to learn out loud together. 

Question

There is an additional reason why we prioritize practice over training. Researchers and practitioners have long discerned that learning through training, videos, and books generates knowledge by description, resulting in more concepts, frameworks, models, prescriptions, and reports.

This is less effective than generating knowledge by acquaintance, which prioritizes practice and produces a direct, immanent experience of knowledge and knowing become one in the learner. Learning through direct experience is more effective and powerful than what you learn in a training.  

Being in a good training event is exciting, inspiring, uplifting, and pleasurable. It is easy to get addicted to training. However, the world is waiting for leaders to stop this addiction and start making real changes happen through deliberate and consistent daily practice. When you join us, you can experience the difference for yourself.

Thanks to Biplop Swarnakar, Zaki Shubber, and Diya Shrestha for contributing to this article.