One of the interesting things I’ve found in working at Diamond6 is having an initial conversation with prospective clients and organizations. Frequently people will come to me and say, “We’re interested in leadership training.”
When that happens, I very gently push back.
“We don’t do training, We do development.”
And I think there is an important distinction between the two.
Training is really repetitive learning where you do a task over and over until you master it, like when I was in the Army- how to take apart and reassemble your individual weapon. Some people would argue that learning a foreign language is training, because it’s repetitive use of the language until you master it.
Development is quite different. It’s not really repetitive, it’s more stimulating. It’s more to get the individual to think creatively, reflect upon themselves, reflect upon their strengths, reflect upon their weaknesses, and map out the challenges that their particular organization faces. So training really lends itself to a more objective calculation, whereas development lends itself to a subjective calculation.
Then I like to talk to organizations about what exactly their leadership development programs are all about, and that’s the baseline where we can begin to help them.
We want to hear from YOU! What do you think are they different or are we splitting hairs? Share your comments below.