Why Training Doesn’t Stick: The Hidden Capacity Gap in Development

Are you doing training and development, but it just won’t stick?

You’ve sent them to the training. You’ve invested in the workshops. But when it comes to applying what they’ve learned…nothing sticks. Does this sound familiar? You’re not alone.

Lately, I’ve heard this frustration from countless leaders trying to develop people, especially leaders, in the most critical skills for today’s ever-changing world of work.

It’s not that they aren’t sending them to training or investing in their growth. It’s that the training and development isn’t sticking. 

They’re listening and learning but it just isn’t translating into new or improved behaviors.

Even if they see short-term improvements, it isn’t turning into long-term results. With time, any incremental improvements fade, and the training becomes yet another wasted investment.

Why is this happening and what can we do about it? Let's first look at how the human brain and body learns...

How do we learn?

Think back to how you learned to read as a child. You knew letters created words, but you didn’t know what any of them meant. You could see the words, but you couldn’t read or understand them.

You didn't begin by memorizing whole sentences or learning how to write them. You built understanding layer by layer. First, learning letter by letter, then sound by sound, and finally word by word. Each layering pathways in your brain until reading became effortless. 

These pathways were built steadily overtime and in a very intentional order to ensure you had what you needed at each step along the way. My twin girls are going through this right now and I’m witnessing firsthand how their brains are wiring each new syllable and sound, allowing them to identify and read more words. 

As a result of this early development, adults are able to easily read and write without any conscious thought. We simply see the word, read it, and our brain begins to make sense of the word’s meaning, individually and collectively.

Contrast this example with cramming for a test in college. I remember one particular calculus test freshman year, staying up all night before the final exam praying it’d be enough to pass the test and the class. 

If you asked me today how to do what I did on that test, I’d have absolutely no idea. In fact, I probably forgot most of what I learned that night within a few weeks, days, or even hours.

When we did things like this, we were essentially shoving data temporarily into our neural pathways and holding it just long enough to spit it back out on the test. Our brains are capable of creating these short-term circuits that we can rely upon for memorization but will fade quickly without further use.

Think for a moment about how much of what you studied for during school truly integrated into your long-term neural pathways. 

The courses or topics you studied that you’ve continued to use or that you enjoyed the most probably integrated more deeply into your neural pathways. You can probably access them fairly easily or when given the right prompts to arrive at the right circuit.

But those courses that you disliked or never used again; they were likely literally cleared out of your brain and body entirely. We have systems that come through and sweep out unused patterns to keep our brain operating efficiently and effectively.

When pathways or connections aren't used regularly, your brain treats them as unnecessary. Specialized immune cells in the brain, called microglia, identify these weak or inactive connections and help break them down, literally "pruning" them away.

The same thing happens with workplace learning. If your people can’t use what they’ve learned, because they lack the capacity, their brains will clear it out. Training wasted. Potential lost.

Why isn’t your training or development working?

Capacity is what makes new learning stick. It's the system readiness—emotional, cognitive, and physiological—that allows people to receive, process, and integrate what they learn.

Just as in the examples above, if your people aren’t interested in or using what they learn, then they will lose it. But even more importantly: 

If people don’t have the foundational capacities to integrate the capabilities they are learning, then their neural networks won’t integrate or retain this knowledge.

The underlying issue is integrating these newly learned ways of being (thinking, feeling, and behaving) into a person’s neural systems or networks. The training and development they are participating in isn’t integrating into their neural pathways sufficiently to stick long-term. 

When learning and developing, integration of insights and wisdom into our neural pathways is the only way in which our bodies are capable of retaining anything we learn or experience. This integration can either build upon pre-existing pathways or build brand new ones.

Building brand-new stand-alone neural pathways is extremely difficult to do. While it's possible, it takes substantial practice, discipline, and dedication that most people don’t have the time or energy to commit to doing.

To more easily integrate insights or information into our systems, there must be a starting place from which to build upon pre-existing neural networks. The foundation from which we build upon pre-existing pathways is key to our integration and long-term retention of new lessons or wisdom. 

It’s also why someone “telling you what to do” doesn’t translate directly into “you doing what they told you to do.” Our bodies must wire their own ways of thinking, feeling, and doing within the neural networks that already exist in our bodies.

It's just like when children learn to read, they have to know the sounds of the letters before they can begin to put them together into words they can read.

While we know this with respect to capabilities, we often miss it when it comes to a person’s capacity to receive and integrate a new capability. For example, we know that before a person can execute their work, they must learn its processes, programs, and procedures. But when it comes to areas like leadership development, emotional intelligence, feedback, coaching, presenting, or even customer service capabilities, we forget that the person must first have the underlying capacities to be able to integrate what they learn.

Training programs aren’t failing because the content is wrong, but because the person doesn’t yet have the capacity required to receive, process, or integrate that content.

What Foundational Capacity Codes are missing?

A good example of leadership training that is frequently provided, but just as frequently fails to have a lasting impact is emotional intelligence training.

What capacity might a person need to have before they participate in an emotional intelligence training to integrate its lessons?

Emotional intelligence is about developing a person’s ability to have self-awareness of their own emotions, to identify and regulate their own emotions, to cultivate awareness of the emotions of others, and exhibit empathy and compassion for their emotional experience.

This type of training frequently fails because people are missing key capacity codes required for them to receive, process, and integrate what they are learning. Here are some examples of what they might be missing:

• Inner Awareness Capacity: (interoception) meaning they can’t name or sense their inner states; possibly because they’ve stayed stuck in survival states.
• Permission to Feel Capacity: meaning the ability to give themselves permission to feel, express, and process their emotions, possibly because they have previously suppressed or numbed them
• Regulation Capacity: meaning they are stuck in survival modes with dysregulated nervous systems that are keeping their systems from being able to form new neural pathways.
• Attunement Capacity: meaning the ability to tune into others’ emotional states and one’s own needs with sensitivity.
• Relational Safety Capacity: meaning the ability to feel safe enough to be vulnerable or emotionally expressive in a group.
• Narrative Awareness Capacity: (Understanding personal meaning-making) meaning the ability to observe the stories we attach to emotions or situations.

Without these underlying capacities, people are unable to fully integrate the concepts they learned in ways that permanently shift their ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Which also means there is no positive or long-term impact on their ways of working (executing, decision-making, and building relationships).

What’s the result?

People end up participating in these trainings and leave them intellectualizing emotions rather than embodying or expressing them. 

People are “doing” emotional intelligence practices, rather than “being” emotionally intelligent. They use the language, recite the steps, label the emotions but fail to show up empathetically, meaningfully, and have a truly felt experience.

Even worse outcomes might occur; the training might trigger overwhelm, shame, or dissociation so they shut down completely. They talk about emotions but totally avoid their own, suppressing their discomfort rather than regulating it.

They start saying all the right words, “I hear you,” or “I understand,” but lack the felt experience and intention behind them. They appear emotionally intelligent but those on the receiving end feel discomfort, sometimes unconsciously, because it feels inauthentic.

They may even show up as defensive or resistant because the feedback they receive activates a survival response rather than curiosity. They may argue with the content with things like, “This is too soft,” or “This isn’t relevant,” and be unwilling or unable to share emotionally when asked.

It can even lead to misuse of the tools or lessons; they use the language to manipulate, avoid or control others instead of connecting. They label others’ emotions as a form of judgement or control, rather than to further connect and consciously communicate.

Ultimately, the training doesn’t lead to positive behavior changes, if there are any changes at all. They quickly revert back to their prior patterns, and nothing improves as a result of their participation. It may even lead to their distrusting or dismissing future trainings because “it didn’t work” or “EQ isn’t for us.”

A Systemic Struggle

This challenge isn’t unique to emotional intelligence. This is only one example of many capabilities that require that underlying capacities exist prior to trying to integrate them.

I’ve seen this firsthand in my work with leaders. They can’t integrate the capabilities they need to accomplish like setting expectations, giving or receiving feedback, developing people, or creating a culture of personal accountability if they don’t have capacity to integrate them.

For example, head-based capabilities:

• Before I can learn the steps or methods for giving and receiving feedback effectively, I must be conscious, coherent, and connected.
• Before I can learn how to establish clear expectations, I must have the capacity to regulate my nervous system and recognize my own assumptions.
• Before I can engage in complex problem solving, I must be grounded enough to tolerate uncertainty and curiosity.

Or heart-based capabilities:

• Before I can lead others with empathy, I must be in touch with my own emotions and needs.
• Before I can build trust in a team, I must have the coherence to align my values with my actions.
• Before I can truly listen, I must be regulated enough to stay present instead of preparing my response.
• Before I can offer compassionate feedback, I must feel safe enough to be vulnerable myself.

Or gut-based capabilities:

• Before I can hold others accountable, I must be rooted in my own integrity and stability.
• Before I can make courageous decisions, I must feel safe enough to trust my gut and tolerate discomfort.
• Before I can act decisively, I must have access to grounded energy—not adrenaline-fueled urgency.
• Before I can advocate for what matters, I must be connected to my core values and identity.

Capability training layered on top of a dysregulated, disembodied, or disconnected system won’t be able to be installed into our systems.

I frequently find myself coaching leaders not on “what to do” but rather on “what they need to shift” in order to change the way they are “being.” Or in many cases, how they can take steps to do the same in their interactions with and coaching of others.

We Still Need Training, But We Need a Firmware Update First

In last week’s article, I talked about how we have to dismantle our defense systems of security (fight/flight/freeze/fawn). Then, we need to upgrade our systems, and finally, we can install new codes. 

This week, I want to point out a critical underlying element that must be updated or re-wired before we can upgrade our systems (culture), download new apps (capabilities), or run new programs (training).

We must restore, rewire, and update our firmware, the foundational code that is stored in our systems, running in the background and is essential for our systems to run correctly.

We must update and rewire our firmware such that our wiring is optimized to integrate the upgraded systems and finally, run the new codes, apps, and programs.

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting you abandon training, learning, or development initiatives. It is imperative that you keep investing in training and development. However, before we put people in training, courses, or programs, we must first address whether they have the capacity (firmware) to integrate it.

We must evaluate which capacities are required for various capabilities to integrate into their neural pathways. Then, identify and rewire any identified cracks or gaps in their capacity.

Conclusion

If you want your training to stick, your people need more than content, they need capacity. Because when their system is safe, regulated, and ready, new skills don't just sit on the surface. 

They don’t just recite concepts; they embed them in their neural networks and embody them in their ways of being. They don’t just apply what they learn, they live it every day in their ways of being and working.

If your people aren’t developing, it’s not because they’re unwilling. It’s not because their training was ineffective. It’s because their system wasn’t ready to receive it yet.

Stop asking, “Why isn’t our training working?” 

Start asking, “Is our system ready to receive it?”

The future of learning isn’t just about what we teach, it’s about what we unlock when we update the firmware in our human systems.

If we want our training to truly stick, if we want it to shape how people think, feel, and behave in lasting, meaningful ways, we must start by building the capacity for change, not just teaching the capability.

Curious how to update your team’s firmware or build capacity for deeper learning? If you’re wondering what capacities might be missing in your people or programs, that’s where we can help.