The Professional Development Mistake Every Australian Business Makes
Companies are reducing training costs everywhere while simultaneously squandering thousands on programs that achieve nothing.
Nearly two decades of delivering development programs across the country has shown me how badly most businesses fail to grasp what works. Just last quarter alone, I watched three Melbourne firms spend a combined $180,000 on leadership retreats while their middle managers couldnt even run effective team meetings.
The brutal fact is that training initiatives collapse because they focus on symptoms while ignoring underlying causes.
Look at communication workshops. All businesses arrange these courses because they seem vital and meet administrative expectations. Yet when I examine the situation more closely, the genuine issue is not poor communication skills. Its that they are working in environments where honest communication gets discouraged, where speaking up about problems leads to being labeled as “not a team player,” or where information is deliberately kept in silos to protect territories.
Training cannot solve systemic organisational issues.
This became clear during a difficult project with a Sydney banking firm approximately five years ago. Their customer service scores were tanking, so naturally, they booked customer service training for the entire customer facing team. After six weeks and $50,000 investment, ratings remained unchanged. The actual problem wasnt capability their platform demanded three distinct access points and four separate screens simply to find basic client information. Team members invested more effort battling technology than supporting customers.
Fixed the systems. Scores improved by 40% within a month.
Now here’s where I’ll lose some traditionalists: I actually believe in structured professional development. When executed properly, development can enhance performance, strengthen confidence, and generate real skill enhancements. The key is understanding what “done right” actually means.
Genuine professional development commences with acknowledging your actual circumstances, not your hoped-for results. Too many programs begin with where leadership wants the organisation to be, instead of honestly assessing where it actually is right now.
I recall consulting with an Adelaide manufacturing firm that sought to introduce “flexible management methodologies” across their entire operation. Seemed innovative. Problem was, their current culture was built on inflexible hierarchies, detailed procedures, and directive management that had worked for decades. Trying to overlay agile methodologies on that foundation was like trying to install a solar panel system on a house with faulty wiring.
We spent three months just mapping their existing decision making processes before touching any training content. When everyone comprehended how operations truly ran versus documented workflows, we could build development that closed those disconnects effectively.
The strongest professional development I have witnessed concentrates on creating systems awareness, not simply individual competencies.
CBA does this exceptionally well in their branch network. Instead of just training individual tellers on customer service techniques, they develop people to understand the entire customer journey, recognise bottlenecks, and propose improvements. Their managers arent just overseeing people they are perpetually refining systems.
This produces a totally different approach. Instead of “how do I improve my performance,” it evolves into “how do we enhance the complete system.” That evolution alters everything.
Naturally, there’s still heaps of awful training happening. Basic leadership training that employs scenarios from American businesses to instruct Australian supervisors. Interpersonal skills sessions that concentrate on personality assessments rather than organisational relationships. Team building exercises that ignore the fact that the team has fundamental resource or priority conflicts.
The worst offenders are the motivational speaker circuit programs. You recognise them costly half day workshops with presenters who assert they have uncovered the “five principles” of something. Attendees exit feeling energised for approximately a week, then face the same issues with the same restrictions.
Authentic development takes place when you supply people with capabilities to understand and impact their work environment, not merely handle it more efficiently.
Technical capabilities are important as well, naturally. Technical development, project coordination, financial understanding – these generate concrete skill enhancements that people can implement straight away. But even these work better when they’re connected to genuine business problems rather than theoretical scenarios.
I partnered with a retail group last year where store supervisors needed enhanced inventory control skills. Rather than classroom education about stock rotation concepts, we engaged managers with genuine inventory issues in their own locations, with mentors offering immediate support. They absorbed information quicker, remembered more, and applied changes instantly because they were addressing their real issues.
The scheduling element gets ignored frequently. Educating someone on performance management methods six months after promotion means they’ve already formed practices and approaches that require changing. Significantly better to offer that development as part of the progression process, not as a later addition.
Small enterprises genuinely possess benefits here that bigger organisations frequently overlook. They can be more agile, more specific, and more realistic in their development methodology. No necessity for detailed systems or organisation approved courses. Just focus on what people need to know to do their jobs better and give them opportunities to practice with support.
Telstras strategy for technical development deserves recognition. They merge organised learning with mentoring partnerships and project work that requires people to use new skills immediately. The education endures because its immediately useful and continually supported.
But the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address : sometimes the problem is not lack of skills or knowledge. Sometimes people know exactly what needs to be done but cant do it because of organisational constraints, resource limitations, or conflicting priorities.
No volume of training addresses that. You need to address the organisational issues first, then develop people within that improved context.
The ROI issue surfaces regularly with professional development. Valid concern training demands money and time. However, assessing effectiveness demands examining business results, not merely training statistics. Has customer satisfaction increased? Are projects being completed more effectively? Have safety incidents reduced? Are people remaining longer and working better?
Most training assessments emphasise on whether people liked the program and whether they feel more assured. Those metrics are essentially useless for determining business impact.
Here’s something debatable : not everyone needs professional development concurrently or uniformly. Some people need technical skills, others need leadership development, still others need help understanding business fundamentals. One size fits all approaches waste resources and irritate participants.
The future of professional development is likely more customised, more realistic, and more connected with real work. Less classroom time, more coaching and mentoring. Fewer generic programs, more tailored solutions. Less focus on what people should comprehend, more emphasis on what they can realistically do differently.
Thats not automatically cheaper or easier, but its more efficient. And effectiveness should be the only metric that matters when you are investing in peoples growth.
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