By Farley Thomas, first published by Forbes Business Council in March 2026.
Ten years ago, Michael Beer co-authored a bombshell article called "The Great Training Robbery." It exposed the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on ineffective workplace training and education.
The authors weren’t shy about who to blame: "By investing in training that is not likely to yield a good return, senior executives and their HR professionals are complicit in what we have come to call the 'great training robbery.'"
Focusing on manager development, I believe employers and managers are still being robbed, leaving teams hungry for skilled leadership. As the head of a manager development platform, I constantly witness performance being left on the table due to ineffective manager development.
Why Manager Training Often Fails
I find that, by far, the most expensive element of manager training programs is the live, expert-facilitated component, which still dominates whether virtual or in person. It’s as if the spectrum of learning options is being ignored, and the costliest and logistically most challenging option is the default.
Over the past three years, my organization has analyzed 1,200 managers participating in a cohort-based, live learning journey—all led by the same facilitator. We were struck by the high degree of consistency across the cohorts we studied. There were almost always three to four individuals in each cohort who were clearly motivated by the opportunity to improve their leadership skills. Then there were roughly the same number of individuals who seemed to be there because they had to. And then, usually five to six people were in neither camp.
Why does this matter? If a quarter of learners actually don’t want to be in the classroom, isn’t that a problem to start with? They join late, ask tangential questions and, if they don’t have video off, they look like they’re doing something else the whole time. They hinder progress others could be making.
I believe facilitators need to invest more energy in minimizing the disruption caused by this "disengaged" segment. When all the facilitator's energy is spent boosting this group's motivation, the engaged segment also tends to lose out. To help, here are my five maxims to protect yourself and your budget:
1. Don’t default to live learning.
Think of live learning as going through the eye of the development needle, which your cohort of managers only pass through if they are all free at the same time, in the same mindset to learn, interested in precisely the same topics (and at the same depth), willing to learn in exactly the same way and have relevant experiences they’re willing to share.
What are the chances of passing all of these tests? Close to zero. Don’t get me wrong, live expert-guided and peer-to-peer learning is absolutely a powerful part of the toolkit, but only when subject to the other four maxims.
2. Don’t skip homework.
There’s a reason kids get homework, isn’t there? It gets some knowledge acquisition and skills practice done outside of precious classes, in one’s own time. It helps everyone in class stay on the same wavelength and at the same level of knowledge.
So it is with manager training. What can managers do by themselves before they get together with their colleagues? With the right prompts and guidance, self-learning should be where the bulk of learning occurs, at ultra-low financial and logistical cost.
3. If it’s not in the diary, it’s not going to get done.
Anyone in elite sport will confirm that micromanagement of pretty much every aspect of their craft is the key to success. Nothing is left to chance. So, if self-learning needs to be done, it’s got to be in the diary.
We’re prone to thinking ill of people who don’t do what they’re supposed to, but we excuse ourselves. Social psychologists call this bias the false attribution error. So, no, everyone needs to put it in their diary and get it done, including you.
4. If the cat’s away, the mice will not learn.
The cat in this case is the manager of the manager who’s supposed to be doing some learning. How often does training get rolled out without the managers of learners in the bus, let alone in the driver’s seat?
This is very odd, given that I've found learning to be pretty much guaranteed if your manager takes an active interest in your learning.
5. Don’t bother at all if you're not creating a learning habit.
Ebbinghaus’ famous "forgetting curve" reflects something we all intuitively know: without reinforcement, most of what we learn fades quickly. So if there's one-off training, however amazing, it will be forgotten unless it is reviewed and applied regularly. I bet you believe without a doubt that learning habitually is better than learning sporadically. So, how are you enabling habitual learning?
The Way Forward
By now, you may have concluded it’s better not to do anything than to put wrong-headed training in place. This might protect you from the great training robbery, but not the bigger heist with bigger penalties: the great performance robbery. And since managers are key to driving team performance, getting manager training right must be a top priority.
Here’s my five-point playlist for successful manager development:
1. Foster a regular self-learning habit, with time in everyone’s diary, ideally 20 minutes each week. Since learners aren’t always in control, let them reschedule to suit.
2. Provide a choice of learning challenges to complete in the allotted time. This way, learners have agency in their learning and can follow the topics of greatest interest.
3. Ensure realistic skills practice is among the learning challenges. Practice makes perfect, and yet this is the biggest weakness of most training programs.
4. Get line managers actively involved more than in a performative way. Brief them, involve them in curriculum choices, get them talking about the training in team meetings and one-to-ones.
5. Overlay classes and one-to-one support as powerful complements, rather than the default. Especially as this is where the lion’s share of the budget will disappear.
