A Quiet Realisation About Why Training Often Misses the Mark

I entered the Train the Trainer session with a relaxed posture.

Not because I did not care, but because I thought I already knew what I needed. The certificate mattered. The process, I assumed, would be familiar. I have trained teams, facilitated workshops, coached leaders, and spoken in rooms large and small. This felt like another step in a long line of steps I had already taken.

So I showed up calm. Perhaps a little too calm.

Then the session began, and something unexpected happened.

I found myself listening more closely than usual.

Not because the trainer was impressive in the conventional sense. He was not loud. He did not dominate the room. He did not perform. Instead, he spoke with a steadiness that suggested he was not trying to prove anything. There was a quiet confidence in how he framed ideas, how he paused, how he allowed silence to do some of the work.

At one point, I arrived late. I was tired, coming off a long stretch of work, and not fully attentive to my own discipline. He did not correct me. He did not comment on the behaviour itself.

He simply said, almost in passing, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

It landed gently, but it stayed.

I realised that the sentence was not about punctuality. It was about posture. About the invisible standards we carry into spaces we have already decided do not require our best presence.

And in that moment, I recognised a pattern in myself.

The Quiet Bias Many of Us Carry

If you have spent enough time in government-linked training environments in Malaysia, a certain expectation forms over time.

You expect compliance, not transformation.
You expect form, not depth.
You expect endurance, not discovery.

After a while, you stop arriving with curiosity. You arrive prepared to sit through something. To get through it.

There is research that explains why this feeling is so common. Across industries, studies in corporate learning consistently show that only a small fraction of training leads to sustained behaviour change months later. Most people return to the same systems, the same pressures, and the same incentives, and whatever they learned slowly fades into the background.

This is not because people are resistant to learning. It is because learning is often inserted into environments that have not changed.

So when this particular trainer turned out to be thoughtful, rigorous, and genuinely useful, it unsettled me. Not because he contradicted what I knew, but because he reminded me how easily assumptions harden into posture.

That was the first shift of the day.

The second shift went deeper.

When Training Becomes the Wrong Tool

The trainer shared three scenarios. They were not complex. In fact, they were deliberately ordinary. That was precisely why they worked.

The first scenario described a company where sales were declining and people were leaving, even though compensation was competitive. The instinctive response is familiar. More sales training.

But instead of answering quickly, the trainer paused.

“It depends,” he said.

Sometimes the issue is not skill. Sometimes people already know what to do, but no longer know why they are doing it. Sometimes the problem lives in unresolved frustration, misalignment, or fatigue. In such cases, training adds information where what is missing is meaning.

This aligns with a foundational insight from performance research. Decades ago, Thomas Gilbert demonstrated that most performance gaps are created by environmental factors, not individual capability. Unclear expectations, broken processes, inconsistent feedback, and misaligned incentives quietly undermine even capable people.

In this situation, training is not only ineffective. It can feel dismissive.

The second scenario involved low morale. Energy was depleted. People felt unheard.

Again, the easy response is to organise something. A programme. A workshop. Something that looks like action.

But research into team performance, including large-scale studies like Google’s Project Aristotle, points to a different truth. Psychological safety, clarity, and trust matter more than raw skill or intelligence. These are not things that can be delivered in slides. They are conditions that must be cultivated.

What people often need here is not instruction, but restoration.

The third scenario was different. The performance gap was real, and it was skill-based. People genuinely lacked the technique or knowledge required.

Here, training made sense. It had a clear purpose. It addressed a real gap. It respected the situation.

The insight was simple, but it carried weight.

Not every problem should be solved in the same way.
Not every struggle calls for training.

The Step Leaders Often Skip

As leaders, many of us move too quickly from observation to action.

We see a drop in performance and reach for solutions. Training. Motivation. Pressure. Incentives. These responses feel responsible. They feel active.

But they often bypass understanding.

There is a reason for this. Training feels safe. It avoids difficult conversations. It allows leaders to act without interrogating systems, incentives, or their own assumptions.

High-stakes organisations do not operate this way. In military contexts, for example, training is never the first response. Leaders diagnose first. They distinguish between issues of leadership, morale, logistics, structure, and skill. Only then do they decide what kind of intervention is appropriate.

As the trainer introduced frameworks like CCG and Gilbert’s Six Boxes, something connected for me. I already worked with a simple mental model. Current state. Desired state. Path forward.

What was missing was not complexity. It was integration.

That is where ABCDE emerged.

ABCDE as a Way of Thinking

ABCDE is intentionally simple. It is not designed to impress. It is designed to guide.

A: Actual State

Where are we, really?

This step asks for honesty without judgment. What do we see in behaviour, results, energy, and consistency? Not what we hope is happening, but what is actually happening.

Clarity here prevents projection later.

B: Better State

What would “better” look like if things truly improved?

Not vague aspirations. Concrete differences. What would change in how people act, decide, or collaborate?

Many motivation issues are rooted here. When people cannot see what good looks like, or when expectations keep shifting, effort slowly drains away.

C: Constraints

What is preventing movement from A to B?

This is the most important step, and the one most often rushed. Constraints may be technical, emotional, relational, or systemic. They may live in incentives, workload, role clarity, energy, or meaning.

High-performing teams are not those that avoid failure. They are those that notice constraints early and respond thoughtfully.

D: Decision

Given what we now understand, what kind of intervention is actually needed?

Training may be appropriate. Coaching may be better. Sometimes a conversation is enough. Sometimes a system needs to be redesigned. Sometimes the wisest decision is to pause.

This is where leadership maturity shows.

E: Execution

What happens next?

Clear ownership. A reasonable next step. Enough structure to move forward without overwhelming the people involved.

Execution works when it is grounded in understanding, not urgency.

A Personal Realisation

Later in the session, we explored the Leonard Personality Inventory. My results reflected patterns I already knew.

I am naturally high in openness and decisiveness. I see possibilities quickly and move towards them with confidence. This has served me well as a founder and CEO.

It also creates risk.

I can move faster than others are ready for. I can assume alignment where there is none. I can underestimate the relational work required for others to feel secure enough to follow.

ABCDE becomes a discipline for me.

It reminds me to slow down at constraints. To listen before deciding. To honour the human reality beneath performance data.

Not because people need to be handled gently, but because leadership that lasts requires depth, not just speed.

Why This Matters

Leadership is often imagined as decisive action. But over time, I am learning that its quiet strength lies elsewhere.

In choosing the right response, not the fastest one.
In understanding before intervening.
In knowing when not to add more.

ABCDE does not replace training. It protects it. It ensures that when training happens, it is meaningful, timely, and respectful of context.

More than that, it teaches leaders how to think.

And thinking, far more than techniques or tools, is what multiplies impact.

A Closing Thought

Looking back on the day, the most valuable outcome was not the certificate.

It was the reminder that good leadership is rarely loud.

It is careful.
It is attentive.
It is grounded in reality.

ABCDE matters not because it is new, but because it invites us to slow down just enough to respond wisely.

In a world that rewards speed, that may be its greatest strength.