I was recently delivering Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting course, and once again, I found myself reflecting on the gap between the room where we learn and the room where we live. We gather to discuss the nature of our influence, yet the moment we return to the familiar, the system we seek to change begins to change us back.

What struck me is how predictable this is. For all the investment in leadership development, the evidence is consistent: most training does not stick. Decades of research on the “transfer of training” suggest that typically only 10–20% of learning is ever applied back on the job (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Burke & Hutchins, 2007). Studies on memory add a further challenge: without deliberate application, most new knowledge begins to fade within days (the Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve).

Much of what is learned is never meaningfully used. Not because people lack commitment, but because the system they return to is simply more powerful than the insight they gained.

So the issue is not whether the learning was good. It is whether the conditions people return to make that learning possible.

The barriers to our own leadership agency

Before we can act, we must name the forces that keep us stationary. Here are the five shadows that often fall between our training and our transformation:

  • The seduction of more: We leave with more models and ideas than we can possibly use. When everything feels important, nothing becomes actionable. We stay in intention because we are too afraid to choose the vulnerability of practising just one thing.
  • The safety of distance: We often practise where it is easy, with people who do not know us or in neutral settings. But learning sits where it is uncomfortable. If we are not using the new behaviour where it matters, which is where the stakes are real, the learning will fade.
  • The myth of memory: We assume that if we care enough, we will remember to act differently. We will not. In the flow of work, our habits are already in place. Without a specific trigger, which is a cue that says to use it now, behaviour change relies on effort, and effort is the first thing to vanish under pressure.
  • The privacy of the project: We treat our development as a private matter. When we keep our intentions to ourselves, we allow the system to remain exactly as it is. Others will continue to respond to us in familiar ways because they have no idea we are trying to show up differently.
  • The perfection trap: We wait until we feel ready or until we can do it well. Perfection is a stall tactic that delays the very repetition required for progress. Most learning comes from the imperfect attempt rather than the one time we got it right.

The architecture of the application

If we want our training to stick, we must stop looking for a better model and start looking for a better way to participate in our own growth.

The work is the practice: We do not need to find time for practice because we already have it. Practice is not something separate from the work; the work itself is the practice. Every meeting, every decision, and every conversation is a live situation where we can choose to act differently. We make what we are already doing deliberate.

The power of the small: Change does not come from doing more; it comes from doing something small, often. We must choose one behaviour and stay with it longer than feels necessary. Depth builds capability. A single, clearer statement or a brief pause before responding is what eventually becomes natural.

Rely on triggers, not effort: Change happens because we are prompted rather than because we remember. We must anchor new behaviours to the routines we already have. By linking an action to a reliable cue, such as a specific meeting or a recurring deadline, the work itself becomes the reminder.

The sovereignty of the pause: Most of our responses are automatic. We reply without thinking, which keeps us trapped in the same patterns. Learning shows up in the moment before the reaction. By creating a pause, such as a breath or a second of silence, we give ourselves the space to decide who we want to be in that moment.

Make it public: Change is personal, but it is rarely solitary. To embed learning, we must make our development visible. We state our intention to our peers by naming the specific action we are working on. When others are aware, they notice the shift. They begin to support the change rather than resist it, which turns the environment into a source of reinforcement.

An invitation to act

The question is not what you understood during the course. The question is: what will you do differently in your next real situation?

Do not wait for the perfect moment. Choose one behaviour that feels slightly uncomfortable and apply it within the next 48 hours. Expect it to feel awkward, that is where the learning lives.

What follows is not about learning more. It is about using what you already know. This playbook offers 52 simple invitations to act with greater intention, helping you shape how you show up, one moment at a time.

Click the image below to download:

Make my leadership training stick playbook cover

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  Aristotle (Will Durant)

Explore related leadership resources

To further develop your capability to learn after a training programme, examine how it intersects with these leadership dimensions across the various libraries I have crafted:

Learning Agility: The master competency for leadership in a changing world, developing the ability to learn from experience and apply those lessons to new, first-time conditions.

Ambiguity Tolerance: Strengthen your ability to remain effective and grounded when the path forward is unclear and the “system” is in flux.

Learning Orientation: Move beyond the performance trap by prioritising growth and discovery over the need to always appear “ready” or perfect.

Experimenting: Turn your workplace into a laboratory by taking small, calculated risks to test new behaviours and break old habits.

References:

Baldwin, T.T. and Ford, J.K. (1988) ‘Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research’, Personnel Psychology, 41(1), pp. 63–105.

Burke, L.A. and Hutchins, H.M. (2007) ‘Training transfer: An integrative literature review’, Human Resource Development Review, 6(3), pp. 263–296