The Professional Development Mistake Every Australian Business Makes
Companies are reducing training costs everywhere while simultaneously wasting thousands on programs that achieve nothing.
Nearly two decades of delivering development programs across the country has shown me how badly most businesses misunderstand what works. Just last quarter, I observed three Melbourne companies waste a total of one hundred eighty thousand on executive retreats when their supervisors struggled with basic meeting coordination.
Here’s the uncomfortable reality : development programs fail because they address surface issues rather than root problems.
Take communication skills training. Everyone loves booking these sessions because they sound essential and tick all the HR boxes. However, when I investigate further with businesses, the actual problem isnt communication inability. The issue is organisational environments that discourage truthful dialogue, where highlighting problems means being seen as difficult, or where knowledge is strategically hoarded to maintain power.
You cannot train your way out of fundamental problems.
I learned this the hard way working with a financial services company in Sydney about five years back. Their customer service scores were plummeting, so naturally, they booked customer service training for the entire front line team. After six weeks and $40,000 investment, ratings remained unchanged. Turns out the problem was not training it was that their system took three separate logins and four different screens just to access basic customer information. Employees devoted more energy fighting systems than assisting clients.
Fixed the systems. Scores increased by 40% within a month.
Now, this might upset old school thinkers: I genuinely support systematic professional development. When it’s done right, training can enhance performance, build confidence, and create genuine capability improvements. The key is understanding what “done right” actually means.
Genuine professional development commences with acknowledging your actual circumstances, not your hoped-for results. Most programs start with executive vision for the organisation, rather than truthfully evaluating current reality.
I remember working with a production company in Adelaide that wanted to establish “agile leadership principles” throughout their operation. Seemed innovative. Problem was, their current culture was built on strict hierarchies, detailed procedures, and authoritarian management that had worked for decades. Attempting to introduce agile approaches on that base was like trying to fit a modern kitchen in a house with inadequate plumbing.
We spent three months solely documenting their current decision making workflows before addressing any development material. When everyone comprehended how operations truly ran versus documented workflows, we could build development that closed those disconnects effectively.
The best professional development I have seen focuses on building systems thinking, not just individual skills.
Commonwealth Bank manages this remarkably successfully throughout their retail network. Instead of merely training frontline staff on service approaches, they develop people to grasp the full customer pathway, spot obstacles, and recommend improvements. Their managers arent just overseeing people they are perpetually refining systems.
This creates a completely different mindset. Rather than “how can I perform my role better,” it transforms into “how can we make the entire system function better.” That shift changes everything.
Obviously, there’s still loads of poor training occurring. Standard leadership programs that use case studies from American corporations to teach Australian managers. Dialogue training that concentrates on personality frameworks instead of workplace interactions. Team development activities that overlook the reality that groups have basic resource or objective conflicts.
The most problematic are the motivational speaker series programs. You know the ones expensive half day sessions with someone who claims to have discovered the “seven secrets” of something. Participants depart feeling motivated for roughly a week, then return to identical problems with identical limitations.
Genuine development occurs when you provide people with resources to understand and shape their work environment, not simply manage it more effectively.
Practical skills matter too, clearly. Hands on training, project management, financial literacy – these create measurable capability improvements that people can apply immediately. 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. Instead of classroom instruction about stock rotation theories, we involved managers with real inventory problems in their own shops, with coaches delivering instant guidance. They grasped concepts faster, retained more, and executed changes immediately because they were tackling their genuine issues.
The timing component gets neglected regularly. Teaching someone performance management skills six months after becoming a manager means they’ve already established habits and methods that need changing. Far better to provide that development as part of the promotion process, not as an afterthought.
Smaller companies actually hold advantages here that big organisations regularly miss. They can be more agile, more specific, and more realistic in their development strategy. No requirement for complex structures or company endorsed programs. 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 education merits attention. They combine formal learning with mentor relationships and project assignments that require people to apply new skills immediately. The learning sticks because its immediately relevant and continuously reinforced.
However, the obvious issue that everyone avoids addressing : sometimes the problem isnt missing skills or knowledge. Sometimes people know exactly what needs to be done but cannot do it because of organisational constraints, resource limitations, or conflicting priorities.
No quantity of training resolves that. You have to resolve the organisational issues first, then develop people within that better framework.
The ROI question comes up constantly with professional development. Valid concern training costs money and time. Yet evaluating effectiveness necessitates reviewing business outcomes, not simply training measurements. Did customer satisfaction improve? Are projects being delivered more efficiently? Have safety incidents decreased? Are people staying longer and performing better?
Most training reviews emphasise whether people appreciated the course and whether they feel more secure. Those measurements are basically worthless for establishing business effect.
Here’s something controversial : not everyone needs professional development at the same time or in the same way. Some people need technical skills, others need leadership development, still others need help understanding business fundamentals. One size fits all methods squander resources and annoy participants.
The future of professional development is presumably more individualised, more practical, and more aligned with actual work. Reduced classroom time, increased coaching and mentoring. Fewer generic programs, more tailored solutions. Less focus on what people should know, more emphasis on what they can actually do differently.
Thats not necessarily cheaper or easier, but its more effective. And effectiveness should be the single measure that counts when you are investing in peoples development.