Despite good intentions, the management training industry consistently gets adult learning wrong. Most training sessions involve someone at the front of the room simply talking at managers. As a former teacher, we called these "sit-and-gets"—you sit down, passively absorb a lecture, and hope something sticks (it rarely does). No wonder managers dread these trainings.
According to pre-pandemic research, the majority of people managers receive zero training at all. The limited training available to managers is often inconsistent, irrelevant, and lacking opportunities for real practice. As a recent Forbes article puts it: “learning something without applying it does not bode well for behavioral changes.”
Contrast this with my experience last week. My facilitator and I guided managers through an interactive, two-part experience designed to genuinely build their skills. They were working with scenarios, bringing their own challenges into the conversation, and building an analysis to create solutions. While we as facilitators certainly brought valuable insights, our primary focus was on posing the right questions rather than just delivering answers. Here’s how we’re leveraging key tenets of adult learning to raise the game for management training experiences.
Avoid Lecture
Here’s an unsurprising fact I was reminded of recently at a parent coffee: Most people forget new information within 15-20 minutes of hearing it. Here’s a few reasons why lectures don’t work for adult learning:
- Limited Engagement: Adults tend to retain little information from passive listening.
- Cognitive Overload: Lectures often overload adult learners' working memory, preventing meaningful encoding into long-term memory.
- Lack of Personal Relevance: Adults learn best when material connects directly to their experiences, motivations, or real-world needs. Lectures often fail to establish this relevance.
Yet, this is what most manager training consists of.
What to do instead:
Instead of lecture, focus on what research suggests yields the best results for adults:
- Active Learning: Shift from lecture-driven sessions to interactive, discussion-based, experiential approaches.
- Experiential and Reflective Practice: Integrate scenarios, case studies, role-play, problem-solving tasks, and reflection exercises. Adults (and kids) learn best through reflection on direct experiences and real-world application, not just through hearing information.
- Social Interaction: Provide space for peer discussions and collaborative tasks that significantly enhance adult learning.
- Immediate Practical Application: Make content immediately actionable and relevant to the learners' work or personal goals. Adults require opportunities to immediately use or apply learning to meaningful tasks or problems.
Ultimately, when we create an atmosphere where adults are driving their own learning because they’re invested, connected, and building something in real time, it will lead to better results. The best manager training enables behavioral change through practice and replication.
Ready to take your management practice to the next level? Register for our session on how to give great feedback and join the waitlist for the upcoming release of BremAITM as you look to grow your skills as a manager.
