I can say firsthand there are some amazing learning events out there. Unfortunately, for every great one, there are several mediocre ones. If you’ve been tasked with building or sourcing training for your team, let me save you some grief by sharing nine factors that can kill your effectiveness.

1. It Doesn’t Meet a Real (or Felt) Business Need

One of the hallmarks of adult learning theory is that professionals are much more likely to want to participate in a learning event they recognize will help them solve a problem or pain-point they already have. This seems obvious, but trust me – I’ve seen enough cases otherwise. Always be clear about what problem the learning event will solve.

2. The Learning Objectives Aren’t Clear

You’ve probably sat through a training session that opened with a preview of the takeaways. This is even more important for the learning designers than it is for the learners. If the business need is the north star, the objectives are the road map. Pick the best route – then stick to it.

3. It’s Boring

This may be my biggest pet peeve with learning events. It’s expensive and hard work to develop them and get people to attend. If you want your learning event to be a hit, make it fun as well. Mediocre content that is very engaging will stick (and create much greater buzz) than perfect content that is boring. If your subject isn’t the most engaging to begin with, invest the time to interject fun aspects, like ice-breakers or energizers.

4. It’s Poorly Facilitated

The quality of your facilitator can usually make or break the learning experience. The more important the event, the more carefully you’ll need to select and prepare the facilitator. The best facilitators are flexible; they can teach, ask questions, spark debate and organize group discussions and activities.

5. The Content Complicates Rather than Simplifies

Just because you’re delivering a learning event doesn’t mean the learners need to know everything they possibly can about a topic. Less is generally more. The top three tips will stick a lot easier than the top twelve. You can always provide resources to dive deeper later on.

6. It’s Too Conceptual or Vague

If your topic involves “thinking differently,” make sure you provide concrete examples as well. Otherwise the participants will have trouble determining how to apply the concepts.

7. There’s No Opportunity to Interact or Practice

Here’s a secret: most participants say their favorite part of learning events is the time they spend interacting with each other. Don’t just include discussions of their experience with the topic. Give them a chance to apply it practically.

Imagine a military who sent its recruits to a boot camp that took place completely in a classroom (or online). They might become educated, but they’d be completely ineffective in battle. Practice makes a huge difference.

8. There’s No Reinforcement

I like to say, “Don’t let what happens in the training room stay in the training room.” For learning designers, this means taking the time to include quality reinforcement opportunities that extend beyond the actual learning event. Create meaningful homework assignments, follow-up activities, discussion guides, etc.

9. Supervisors of Participants Aren’t Asked or Able to Support

Supervisors should always be kept in the loop of their staff’s training activities and included as much as possible. Supervisors are a great source of reinforcement, provided they’re included.

Remember, as a designer or coordinator, your responsibility isn’t just to put on a good event, it’s to impart knowledge, skills and behavior to solve the organization’s problems. Even with all the learning providers that flood each industry, high quality learning experiences can, and will, stand out.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

Which session did you learn more from?

Regardless of your function or industry, learning plays a key role in business effectiveness. No one was born knowing how to do any job – and even with all the preparatory training we’ve received over the years (e.g. college), the speed of change demands that we continually learn better ways. (I know I, for one, don’t want to receive the same surgery a “seasoned” surgeon was trained on three decades ago!) So whether you develop training as a profession or you request it as a professional, it’s worth understanding how adults learn best.

Malcolm Knowles was an American educator who shaped much of adult learning theory (“andragogy”) with his publications in the 1980s. His works are considered best practice today. What is most important to understand is what makes adult learning distinct. Here are Knowles’ four adult learning principles – and some tips to be mindful of:

Learner Involvement

According to Knowles, adults prefer to be involved in their learning process – planning, goal-setting, evaluation, etc. In other words, they desire an active role, not a passive one. Because every adult’s situation and experience differs, what one learner takes away may be completely different than another. It’s important for educators to facilitate goal-setting among learners and attempt to design the learning process to capture application on an individual level. In many cases, it can also be helpful for educators to position themselves as fellow learners rather than instructional experts.

Bottom line: If you’re not collaborating with adult learners, you’re missing the boat.

Learner Experience

In formative years, education is geared toward learning something new for the future. For adults, their acquired knowledge and experiences provide a starting point – both successes and mistakes. As a result, “trainers” are rarely the only experts in the learning environment. Peers bring expertise as well. In fact, in a recent organizational assessment I recently conducted of several groups of executives, the top rated learning opportunity was “interacting with peers on common problems and sharing best practices.” If your adult learning environment doesn’t include peer interactions of past & present experiences, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

Bottom line: Interact with and incorporate learners’ experiences into the framework of the learning environment.

Relevance & Impact to Learner’s Lives

The topics most ripe for adult learners are those that can have immediate impact on business or personal life. Remember, children learn for the future, adults learn for the present. Because of this, learning assignments should relate to an adult’s stated goals. When learning is relevant and impact is clear (e.g. a sales professional can learn how to close 20% more deals), the learner is inspired and motivated internally.

Bottom line: Adults want to learn when the topic makes them more successful now.

Problem-Centered

Content is no longer king in adult learning – problem-solving is king. If your team has elected to conduct training, ensure the training addresses the actual problem – don’t just settle for off-the-shelf content, even if it’s good. (Incidentally, many learning needs can be solved in ways other than formal training). Since content isn’t king, learners are more apt to learn by doing than by passive listening. Simulations or practice scenarios go a long way.

Bottom line: The learning solution should be specific to the problem or opportunity.

It’s easy to get learning wrong, even if you have the best intentions and pay top dollar. But the best learning environments – the ones that really result in change – incorporate adult learning theory into the bones of the learning experience.

Are there any learning opportunities you might need to approach differently?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

So how does your organization or team address generational dynamics from an awareness perspective? Are you at least having the conversation? Given how many employees find themselves at odds with colleagues of different generations, it’s worth thinking ahead. Here are some ways to make the conversation a productive one.

Have the Conversation

Believe it or not, many organizations resist holding generational training discussions in the first place. HR fears someone will be offended. Finance doesn’t want to pay for “unproductive” time. It’s important to understand what’s at stake. Generational mindsets and preferences about work and leadership are extremely unique to this era, especially given the technology advances of the last few decades. Baby Boomers will continue to retire en masse. Millennials have now become the largest generational segment in the workforce and are starting to creep into senior leadership roles. (Actually in these cases it’s more of a dash). At any rate, they have significant influence. It’s a great risk to put this conversation off.

Represent & Involve Each Generation

When comparing and contrasting generational themes, don’t leave anyone out. Better yet, solicit perspectives from each. Share the floor. Generate quality interactions. Make the goal better understanding and collaboration. Don’t let one group lecture the other. Do look for ways to build stronger connections.

Bring Out the Best

Are Millennials entitled? Are Baby Boomers out of touch? If that’s the extent of the conversation, be prepared for damage control. Focus on the good. Each generation has an incredible list of traits, perspectives and preferences to contribute. No one likes a lecture. Every segment is important.

Make it Fun

If you can’t find the humor in generational differences, you’re doing it wrong! Most diversity topics are off-limits for poking fun. This one is a little different. Do it tastefully, but give it a try. Each generation has its share of quirks. If you’re nervous, try a video to get the conversation (and mood) going. (This is one I’ve used before).

Keep it Up

Once you’ve held your first event, don’t call it quits. Keep the conversation and the momentum going. Ask for input from your team. Implement some of their ideas. Be willing to adjust your style at times and ask the same of them.

At the end of the day, the team with the best talent wins. If your organization can’t attract and retain the top talent from each generation, you’ll be at a sharp competitive disadvantage. Invest the time and planning now to hold productive, meaningful and engaging generational discussions. Everyone will be better for it.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

Regardless, if you are going to invest in a leadership event, it’s an opportunity for excellence – whether you are an executive, manager or training expert. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Just having an event doesn’t guarantee success. Incorporate these best practices.

Identify a Real Need

Investing in a leadership event shouldn’t happen on a whim. It shouldn’t happen when the boss runs into a vendor at an event or thumbs through a bestseller in the airport. But whether it’s part of a strategic initiative or more opportunistic, a leadership event should focus on a real-life organizational need. That means there should be some sort of assessment or consultation beforehand. Identify the greatest opportunities in the organization and align the event accordingly. Don’t just focus on a topic of interest. Ask: “What do we want people to do differently as a result of the event?” Do as Stephen Covey says: put first things first.

Give Advance Notice

Events are expensive, especially if you are paying an outside trainer. So don’t wait until the event to let people know what’s coming. Make announcements, distribute pre-read materials and exercises, ask people to come with questions and issues. Prime the pump, so to speak, so your people will come to the event prepared to get the most from it.

Enlist Executive Support

Lack of executive support is a big reason why leadership development initiatives fail. But don’t just get their buy-in, involve them. Ask them to send the communication (drafted by you, of course), deliver the opening remarks or otherwise cast a vision for the leadership imperative. This sends the message that the topic is important. It’ll be a lot harder to build commitment on your own. Just remember that in order for this to work, you’ll need to spend extra time up front consulting the powers that be and including their ideas in the final product.

Make it Interactive

One of the central themes in adult learning theory is that learning events are most effective when they are collaborative. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an instructional component. But make extra effort to include opportunities for learners to discuss the ideas (and practical applications) together. This takes more work, but it’s absolutely crucial. Don’t just rely on a fancy presentation to do the trick. If you are working with outside trainers, push them hard in this regard.

Reinforce the Key Points

When it comes to a leadership event, what happens in the room should definitely not stay there. There needs to be follow-up which you’ll need to prepare in advance. Create some reinforcement activities and think how best to involve the participants in future conversations to share how they’ve applied what they’ve learned. Find a natural place for these discussions to occur (e.g. weekly staff meetings) or else create one temporarily.

Leadership events are a big deal. They shouldn’t be taken lightly. So many come and go without leaving a mark. Your careful involvement up front can be a difference-maker.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

I immediately believed the five SOF Truths could hold up as a leadership doctrine for just about any organization, military or not. Below is my slightly amended version.

Humans are more important than hardware.

No matter what type of gadgets, technology, systems or equipment your organization has access to, people are always the number one resource. Since any organization’s mission requires the ability of a team to work together, leaders must focus on the human elements first. People and results are compatible, not competitors. As many SOF operators say, “Mission first, people always.” What this looks like practically speaking is taking time to understand one another’s challenges, needs and objectives in respectful and professional ways before, during and after stepping out.

Quality is better than quantity.

When it comes to leadership, quantity doesn’t necessarily lead to effectiveness. In fact, sometimes it can have the opposite effect. One organization I consulted had a director whose philosophy was that the more people who joined the (non profit-producing) department, the more they would be able to accomplish. The unfortunate result was the team had very little clarity on who was supposed to do what and quickly became a bloated expense to the organization. Eventually the workforce had to be cut back down to size. Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy frequently said to focus on getting better, and if you do, your customers will demand that you get bigger.

When it comes to building a leadership team, a small team of highly capable, focused and committed leaders is always preferable to a large group of generalists.

Leaders cannot be mass produced.

If highly effective leaders could be produced simply by taking a course, everyone would be enrolled on day one of each new job. The reality is that leadership development is time consuming, labor-intensive and takes quite a lot of individual attention. Sure, we need leadership programs, but as Jack Welch says, 70% of a leader’s role is developing the people around him or her. Leadership development depends on an organization’s leadership infrastructure. It also depends on the ability of effective leaders to impart their lessons learned to new leaders and work with them at each stage in the journey. Does this take longer? Absolutely. There is no shortcut when it comes to effective leadership development.

Competent leaders cannot be created after emergencies occur.

When the need for leadership arises, it’s too late to begin the development process. This requires a proactive approach to leader development, instead of reactive. How deep is your leadership bench? If your top leaders goes down, who will take their place? Being promoted into a new leadership role is not the time to learn to lead. That would be a miserable experience for leaders and followers alike! Each person needs to be prepared to perform and ready to lead no matter where they sit in an organization. Then, regardless of business as usual or crises, nothing will stand in the way of flawless execution.

Most operations require outside support.

This truth can be a hard one to accept, as was initially the case with the SOF community. But very rarely does any team act completely independently. If you are an Army special operator, you still need backup support. If you are a special agent, you still need professional staff support. If you are a lawyer, you still need a paralegal. If you are a loan officer, you still need an administrator. If you are a physician, you still need a nurse. All of these roles require additional built-in infrastructure in order to operate effectively. No one operation occurs in a vacuum. The presence of a support function shouldn’t reduce the accomplishment of the team on the front lines of any operation. The sooner we learn to acknowledge that everyone in the organization has a specific role that contributes to the success of ONE team with ONE mission, the easier it becomes for everyone to work together.

You can reference the original SOF Truths here on the Special Operations Command website.

Which SOF Truth does your organization need most right now?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

What’s one of the richest leadership development experiences you’ve ever had and how has it helped shape your leadership ability?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

View the rest of the Powerful Questions series by clicking here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

If you have any type of influence at all, I would like to encourage and challenge you to open yourself up to the ideas contained in this post and then to invest some time learning from Dale Carnegie’s resources. They are so potent I guarantee it will make a difference for you (just like it has for me), provided you will put the principles to use.

Who Was Dale Carnegie?

Dale Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer and training developer born into humble circumstances in 1888. It is hard to imagine a more accommodating individual than Carnegie, who in 1922 changed the spelling of his last name from “Carnegegy” so that he wouldn’t need to trouble correcting the people who frequently misspelled it. Carnegie pursued short and rather unsuccessful stints in both sales and acting before he convinced the director of the YMCA where he was living to let him teach a course on public speaking. Since the skill was necessary in people’s professional lives but there were limited training resources available, Carnegie’s training was wildly successful right from his opening night. Participants would try his principles during the week and report their astonishing successes back at the next class (if they could wait that long). Eventually Carnegie established the corporate training firm Dale Carnegie Training (which still operates today) and wrote several bestselling books, including the timeless classics How to Win Friends and Influence People and How To Stop Worrying and Start Living.

What Can We Learn From Dale Carnegie?

In both his books and his training, Dale Carnegie shared many principles on leadership, influence, human relations, and worry-free living. I’ve decided to share one principle from each topic included in his Golden Book (listed below in the resources section).

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People: Give honest and sincere appreciation (and 2 others)

Ways to Make People Like You: Talk in terms of the other person’s interests (and 5 others)

Win People to Your Way of Thinking: Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.” (and 11 others)

Be a Leader: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement

Fundamental Principles for Overcoming Worry: Live in “day-tight” compartments (and 2 others)

Basic Techniques in Analyzing Worry: Get all the facts (and 3 others)

Break the Worry Habit Before it Breaks You: Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more (and 5 others)

Cultivate a Mental Attitude that will Bring You Peace and Happiness: Count your blessings – not your troubles (and 6 others)

The Perfect Way to Conquer Worry: Pray

Don’t Worry About Criticism: Remember that unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment (and 2 others)

Prevent Fatigue and Worry and Keep Your Energy and Spirits High: Protect your health and appearance by relaxing at home (and 5 others)

Dale Carnegie Resources

PDF: Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book (start here!)

Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Book: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Training Firm: Dale Carnegie Training

Capstone Course: Effective Communications and Human Relations (the best training course I’ve ever taken)

What is your favorite Dale Carnegie principle?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.