Over the last couple of decades, the training industry, hand in hand with corporate HR has developed the following myth: if managers go offsite for a training session once or a couple of times a year, they listen to some smart stuff or play a few games yielding “aha” experiences, gain insights about themselves and others, they go back to work, take a U-turn and change from autocratic assholes to ideal people managers.

Last week, I attended an CHRO meeting where the debate was about employee engagement. Many companies talked about implementing health programs, flexplaces, table soccer, LTIs, dogs at workplace and many creative ideas. But still, almost all of them complained of high attrition rate, especially in the first year of the employment.

I frequently experience that a manager is awfully surprised when his people fail to deliver what he expects from them in the way he prefers, no matter if they belong to his own team, they are peer managers, project team members or colleagues from other departments.

Statements about the quality of management work and leadership behaviour are often based on beliefs and assumptions. In 2012 and 2017 we decided to collect and analyse data to be able to come up with better grounded observations on the actual use of people management best practices in our country.

I had an exciting experience one morning a couple of months ago. One of my customers invited me as a “special guest” to the weekly breakfast meeting of his mastermind group. In case you are not familiar with the term, here is a description.

Over the past few weeks, we had intensive discussions with clients and colleagues about how to become an excellent leader, trainer or an oustanding expert. The widespread logic suggests us that a few days training + exercising a lot is the right way to be an expert. It makes sense at first, however there are some issues with this approach. Besides the short-term impact a training provides, the whole logic is based on several false assumptions.