5 Questions to Ask before Investing in Training that actually Drives Change

You've put together an exciting programme, invited a well-known trainer and invested thousands of euros in organising the event and covering employees' time, all to help them become better at managing their time or working as a team.

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The only thing missing? The results you were hoping for.

Sound familiar?

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When it comes to training, it's surprisingly easy to start with the solution.

We need better collaboration? Let's organise a team-building workshop!

Managers aren't giving enough feedback? Let's book a feedback training session!

People are overwhelmed? Let's teach them time management!

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But before choosing a trainer, format or programme, it's worth hitting pause.

Because sometimes training is exactly the right solution. Sometimes it's only one part of the solution. And sometimes the problem has nothing to do with a lack of knowledge or skills.

Here are five questions to ask before commissioning or organising your next training programme. They'll help you understand what really needs to change, what's influencing that change and whether training will actually help you get there.

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1. What organisational or people-related problem are you trying to solve?

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"We need leadership training" is not a need. It's already an assumption about the solution.

Start one step earlier.

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What should be different in your organisation after the intervention?

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For example, a request for feedback training for managers might actually mean that employees aren't receiving meaningful feedback about their work often enough. A request for time management training might hide a problem with people consistently missing agreed deadlines. And a collaboration workshop might be an attempt to address teams not sharing important information with each other at the right time.

The more clearly we can describe the desired change, the easier it becomes to identify which intervention might actually support it.

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Ask yourself:

• What's happening today that we'd like to change?
• What should people be doing differently afterwards?
• What would we see or hear if the change had actually happened?
• Why does achieving this change matter to the organisation?

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Checkpoint: Can you describe the desired outcome without using the words "training", "course", "programme" or "workshop"?

If you can, you've moved beyond the proposed solution and started identifying the real need.

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2. Who is the learner, and what do they actually need?

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Once the desired change is clearer, it's time to look at the people whose behaviour will make that change possible.

We often describe target groups in very broad terms: "managers", "salespeople", "new employees" or "everyone in the organisation". But that's not enough to design an effective learning experience.

What matters is understanding what these people already know and can do, and what they need to be able to act in the desired way.

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For example, it might seem that managers don't give feedback because they don't know how.

But look a little closer, and you might discover that they actually do know how. They just avoid uncomfortable conversations. Or struggle to find the time. Or never see their own managers modelling that behaviour. Or perhaps the organisation has never clearly established expectations about how and when feedback should be given.

These are very different problems. And they require very different solutions.

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Ask yourself:

• What do people already know and know how to do?
• What should they be able to do differently?
• Are they missing knowledge, skills, confidence or something else?
• In which real workplace situations should the new behaviour become visible?
• What do the people themselves say they need?

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Checkpoint: Is the problem really that people don't know what to do or lack the skills to do it?

If yes, learning is likely to be at least part of the solution.

If not, it's worth exploring the problem more deeply before commissioning training.

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3. What's already supporting or preventing the desired behaviour?

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This is one of the questions most often overlooked when planning training.

Someone can leave a workshop with new knowledge, improved skills and plenty of motivation, only to return to a workplace where doing things differently is still difficult. Or even impossible.

Imagine teaching managers how to conduct regular one-to-one conversations.

The training was excellent.

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But if a manager has 25 direct reports, a permanently packed calendar and works in an organisation that primarily rewards short-term operational results, no amount of new conversation techniques may lead to visible change.

That's why we need to look at people together with the systems in which they work.

One simple way to do this is to ask three questions.

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1. CAN they do it?

Do they have the necessary knowledge and skills?

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2. WILL they do it?

Do they see the value in the behaviour, consider it important and believe they can succeed?

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3. DOES THE ENVIRONMENT ALLOW IT?

Do they have the time, tools, management support, processes and real opportunities to put the new behaviour into practice?

These three perspectives closely reflect the logic of the COM-B behaviour change model, which suggests that behaviour depends on capability, opportunity and motivation.

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Ask yourself:

• What currently makes the desired behaviour easy?
• What makes it difficult?
• Which processes, tools or agreements influence the behaviour?
• What are managers doing?
• Which behaviours does the organisation actually recognise and reward?
• What happens when someone tries to apply what they've learned at work?

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Checkpoint: If someone knew exactly what to do tomorrow, would they actually be able to do it?

If the answer is no, a standalone training session won't solve the problem.

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4. Is training even the right solution for this goal?

Only now is it time to start talking about solutions.

Not before.

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If the problem involves a lack of knowledge or skills, some form of learning intervention is probably needed. But that doesn't automatically mean a one-day workshop.

Perhaps people need a short guide. A practical tool they can use while working. Opportunities to practise with their manager. Peer learning. An e-learning course. Mentoring. A simulation. Regular reflection sessions.

Or a combination of several approaches.

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And if the problem isn't about knowledge or skills, the real solution might involve changing processes, work arrangements, leadership practices, responsibilities, goals or tools.

So instead of asking "What kind of training should we organise?", ask:

"What combination of interventions is most likely to make the desired behaviour happen?"

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For example, using the B-D-A (Before–During–After) model, a solution might include:

Before learning: Clarifying managers' expectations and identifying participants' real workplace challenges.

During learning: Building essential knowledge, practising new skills and receiving feedback.

After learning: Providing management support, practical tools, reminders, peer reflection and opportunities to apply new behaviours at work.

A good learning solution doesn't have to be a one-off event. Often, it's far more effective to design a comprehensive intervention that helps people move from acquiring new knowledge to actually changing their behaviour.

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Checkpoint: If you removed the training component from your proposed solution, what else would still need to happen for the desired change to take place?

The answer might be just as important as the training itself.

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5. How will you know whether the learning made a difference?

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"The participants were really happy with the training."

Great. But did anything actually change in their everyday work?

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Participant satisfaction can tell us something useful about the learning experience. But it doesn't tell us whether people learned anything, started doing things differently or helped the organisation move closer to its desired outcomes.

That's why impact should be considered before the training, not afterwards.

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Go back to the first question: What change were we trying to achieve?

Then ask:

• What should people know or be able to do after learning?
• Which behaviours should we see more or less of in the workplace?
• How will we know whether the new behaviour has actually been adopted?
• Which organisational outcomes should this influence in the longer term?
• When would it make sense to evaluate the change?
• Who or what can provide us with relevant evidence?

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Not everything needs a large-scale impact study. Sometimes it's enough to agree on a few concrete indicators before starting, so you have something meaningful to evaluate later.

Checkpoint: Before the training begins, can you finish this sentence?

"We'll know this intervention worked when..."

If that's difficult to answer, your desired outcome might not be clear enough yet.

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The right solution starts with the right questions.

Sometimes training is the answer. Sometimes it's only part of the answer. And sometimes the right solution is something else entirely.

What matters is understanding the change we want to achieve and what it will actually take to make it happen.

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At MindShifters, we help organisations look beyond their initial training requests to uncover the real needs behind them. Together, we explore the desired outcomes, identify what's supporting or preventing change, and design learning and development solutions that go beyond knowledge transfer to support meaningful changes in behaviour and organisational results.

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Because the goal isn't simply to deliver great training. The goal is to create meaningful change.

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Have a learning or development challenge you'd like to explore before jumping into solutions? Get in touch and let's think it through together!

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