The Training Trap

Why does "we need training" show up as the answer to almost every organizational problem — even when the real issue is a broken process, an unclear policy, or a leadership decision nobody wants to name? In the second episode of her seven-part series on the Kirkpatrick Model, Vanessa Milara Alzate names what she calls the training trap: the reflex to reach for the most familiar solution instead of diagnosing what's actually broken.

Using the Greek myth of Sisyphus and a real-world CRM rollout that failed for reasons no training could fix, Vanessa walks through the five whys — a simple root-cause tool that gets past the obvious answer to the actual one — and introduces the performance environment: the systems, resources, culture, and support that determine whether any solution, training included, has a chance to work.

Takeaways: why the most familiar solution isn't always the right one, how to run the five whys on a real problem, what the performance environment is and why it has to be assessed before you design anything, the questions to ask before recommending training, and why triangulating stakeholder interviews, surveys, and existing data beats guessing every time.

This episode continues a seven-part series on the Kirkpatrick Model — and it's a good week to pick up Building a Culture of Evaluation and get ready for Vanessa's live Book Club discussion this fall. Learn more at kirkpatrickpartners.com.

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