CEOs: In case your coaching isn’t tied on to job execution, it’s not a growth device, it’s an costly distraction.
Each quarter, you ask the identical query: The place are the inefficiencies, and the way can we repair them? Your groups reply with efficiency dashboards, turnover metrics, and the occasional studying initiative. Someplace within the combine is a well-intentioned coaching program, filled with company jargon, excessive manufacturing worth, and nil affect on what truly issues: outcomes.
As a marketing consultant, I’ve walked into numerous convention rooms the place coaching was framed as an answer, solely to find it was the issue. The most typical failure? Coaching that’s not aligned to real-world duties. It’s content material for content material’s sake; indifferent from the operational actuality your staff face daily.
The Hidden Price of Misaligned Coaching
Let me illustrate with an actual instance. A world software program firm rolled out a coaching module titled “Buyer Empathy within the Digital Age.” Sounds promising. However once I sat with their customer support reps, I rapidly realized the module didn’t cowl methods to use the corporate’s precise CRM system to log, observe, or escalate tickets.
As an alternative, it delivered generic scripts, imprecise psychology ideas, and feel-good slogans. In the meantime, reps struggled with interface errors, sluggish response workflows, and duplicate circumstances, none of which have been addressed within the course. The end result? Name decision occasions went up. Buyer satisfaction plummeted. And worst of all, management had no thought the coaching they authorized had created extra confusion, not readability.
Coaching as a Strategic Multiplier
However right here’s the chance: When coaching is aligned to actual work, it doesn’t simply fill information gaps, it strikes the enterprise.
Whether or not it’s reducing error charges in manufacturing, shortening gross sales ramp time, or enhancing retention in high-turnover roles, the proper coaching turns into a multiplier. It clarifies expectations. It strengthens tradition. It saves cash.
To get there, coaching should be behavior-based and outcome-driven. It should begin with a single query: “What do we want this individual to do higher?” That query doesn’t reside in HR. It lives on the ground, within the workflow, within the metrics your leaders obsess over throughout each efficiency evaluation.
In a single engagement, we labored with a nationwide retailer dealing with stock loss because of human error at checkout. As an alternative of launching a generic “loss prevention” course, we constructed a brief, task-specific coaching embedded within the point-of-sale system. It walked staff by way of precise system features—methods to flag suspicious returns, validate coupons, and reconcile shift drawers. Losses dropped 18% in a single quarter. That’s the ability of coaching tied to conduct.
The place Coaching Sometimes Goes Mistaken
Most coaching failures stem from the identical root trigger: content material is created in a vacuum.
Properly-meaning L&D groups or compliance officers construct applications based mostly on theoretical dangers, authorized necessities, or vendor templates, with out ever observing the job firsthand. What will get produced is protected, sanitized, and sterile. It’s additionally irrelevant. Workers sit by way of it as a result of they must, not as a result of it helps them succeed.
And that has a ripple impact. It indicators that coaching is a checkbox, not a device. It erodes engagement, wastes payroll, and reinforces silos between departments. Worse, it leaves management blind to what’s actually occurring on the bottom.
What CEOs Ought to Demand from Coaching
As a CEO, you don’t must approve course outlines. However it is best to insist on three non-negotiables:
- Coaching should be tied to enterprise metrics.
Whether or not it’s speed-to-proficiency, defect discount, or CSAT scores, there should be a direct line between the coaching and efficiency outcomes. - Coaching should be constructed from the duty, not from the regulation.
This implies capturing how work is definitely executed—not how somebody in company thinks it’s executed—and designing content material accordingly. - Coaching should embrace validation.
In case you can’t observe or measure conduct change post-training, you’re not coaching. You’re storytelling.
The Backside Line
Nice coaching isn’t theoretical. It’s surgical. It doesn’t simply switch information: it permits execution.
In case your groups are finishing modules however nonetheless making the identical errors, the difficulty isn’t motivation, it’s misalignment. And daily that coaching stays disconnected from actuality is a day you’re bleeding productiveness, efficiency, and revenue.
The excellent news? With the proper strategy, coaching turns into greater than an HR operate. It turns into a strategic engine, designed to not educate, however to equip.
So the following time somebody pitches a brand new course, ask: Will this make us quicker? Safer? Extra worthwhile? If not, it’s time to construct smarter.
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