After a program ends, participants tend to say one of two things. Some say it was just another training. Others say it was a great experience, and they can tell you what they are doing differently on Monday morning. I have seen both reactions across many projects, and I have come to believe that the difference is decided long before the first day in the room.
What follows are things I have observed and tried across many programs, in different industries and countries. Every organization is different, and each of these ideas has been refined by the people I worked with.
Learning deserves time and detail
The biggest benefit I have seen comes when the learning process is treated as something worth giving time and preparation to. A program that begins to take shape three or four months before launch has room for real conversations, for adjustments, and for the small details that participants notice even when they cannot name them: who is invited and how, how the manager frames the experience, which examples come from their own work.
That preparation usually starts with questions rather than content:
- 1What will people do differently six months from now? Describe something I could watch happening.
- 2Who will notice first: a manager, a team, a customer?
- 3What has already been tried, and what did we learn from it?
- 4What could get in the way after the training days, and who could help remove it?
These questions produce a shared picture of success. They also surface the conditions that matter most later, such as workload, manager reinforcement and existing routines.
Listening to participants before designing for them
Short conversations with three to five future participants can change a design. In my experience, two themes come up again and again.
The first is clarity of purpose. People are often asked to show motivated behavior, and they are ready to do it when they can see why it matters and how the company’s objectives connect to their own professional development. When that link is visible, motivation follows naturally.
The second is pace. Many organizations today balance fast decisions based on immediate market input with the discipline of anticipatory planning. Participants value a space where they can talk openly about how to do both well.
These themes are natural features of organizations in motion, and treating them as design input makes a program more relevant from the first session.
From objective to behavior, one shift at a time
“Improve leadership” is a wish. “Managers give specific feedback within 48 hours of an observed event, twice a month, to each direct report” is a behavior someone can practice, observe and measure. When someone says “communication,” I like to ask, “What would I see a person do?” The answer to that question is where the design really begins.
Choose one core behavioral shift and give it enough time and practice to take root.
Organizations have many worthy priorities, and a training program can naturally feel like the vehicle for all of them. What has worked best in my experience is choosing one core behavioral shift and giving it enough time and practice to take root. Other priorities find their own levers: processes, tools, conversations with managers.
Making the line visible
Participants benefit from seeing a clear line: company strategy, the values that express it, the daily behavior that expresses those values, and the business and development goals that behavior serves. I like to build this on a single page and use it in the manager briefing, the opening session and the follow-up. When people see their own goal in that chain, the program feels like part of their work.
I also like to bring a first proposal as a draft and invite the client to look critically at it. Their knowledge of the context improves it every time, and a design they have shaped is one they can champion.
What the research says
The largest review of leadership training, by Lacerenza and colleagues, analyzed 335 independent samples and found improvements across reactions, learning, transfer and results. Its authors report that effectiveness varies with design: needs analysis, feedback, multiple delivery methods (especially practice), spaced sessions, on-site location and face-to-face delivery were all associated with stronger results. Each has a counterpart in the approach above.
The workplace after the training matters as much. Blume and colleagues reviewed 89 empirical studies and confirmed a positive relationship between a supportive work environment and transfer, a relationship that was stronger for open skills such as leadership than for closed skills such as software use. Leadership depends on judgment in changing situations, so the context around the participant shapes whether new behaviors survive.
A 2023 study also noted that only a handful of studies have examined interventions to support transfer between sessions, with small or no effects. In their own comparison of two follow-up formats, the differences were small and the sample modest. Follow-up helps when it has structure, a clear purpose and a link to each person’s action plan.
After the training room
Follow-up deserves the same care as the workshops. Elements that have worked well:
Manager involvement. A briefing beforehand and a structured conversation afterwards, focused on one behavior and one chance to practice within two weeks.
Spaced practice. Short sessions over several weeks, built on real situations participants bring from work.
Peer accountability. Small groups meeting between sessions with a simple format: what I tried, what happened, what I will try next.
Existing routines. Team meetings and one-to-ones where the new behaviors can live. Culture shifts when a new behavior becomes the easiest thing to do in a familiar setting.
Mentors and multipliers: how a culture consolidates
The longest-lasting impact I have seen comes when, among the participants, we prepare mentors and multipliers for the program. These are people who have practiced the behaviors, understand the reasoning behind them, and are ready to support colleagues who come next. They keep the language alive in meetings, coach new participants, and show what the behavior looks like in daily work. Over time, the program is carried by the organization itself, and a culture consolidates around it.
Measuring what matters
Satisfaction scores tell you whether the day was pleasant. They say little about the job. I believe a training partner should take responsibility for measuring behavior change at 30, 60 and 90 days, using participant self-assessment together with observations from managers, colleagues and team members. The Blume review found that when the same source rates transfer in the same context, the relationships get inflated, so self-reports work best alongside other perspectives.
In programs that took root, the pattern has often looked like this. At 30 days, a change appears in how participants work with their clients. At 60 days, colleagues who did not attend begin to use a similar approach, which shows the behavior is becoming visible and contagious. At 90 days, participants can explain to others how to do it, describing the steps and the reasoning. That is the moment when a behavior has moved from something they tried to something they own, and when mentors and multipliers emerge naturally.
A short checklist
- 1Give the preparation time: three to four months is a good horizon.
- 2Ask discovery questions before proposing content.
- 3Hear from a few future participants.
- 4Define target behaviors in observable terms.
- 5Choose one core shift.
- 6Make the line from strategy to individual behavior visible.
- 7Give managers a defined role before and after.
- 8Plan follow-up and measurement at 30, 60 and 90 days.
- 9Prepare mentors and multipliers from among the participants.
A great experience is designed. It takes time, attention to detail and a partnership between the people who commission the program and the people who deliver it.
References: Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065–1105. Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686–1718. Tafvelin, S., von Thiele Schwarz, U., & Stenling, A. (2023). Can booster activities improve the effectiveness of leadership training? Comparing coaching to e-mails using a mixed methods design. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1).
