Every few months, a specific infographic makes its way across LinkedIn and through internal strategy Slack channels. It depicts two bars: one for ‘Professional Athletes’, dominated by a deep orange representing training, and one for ‘In the Corporate World’, a long blue stretch of ‘performance’ interrupted only by a sliver of training. It is designed to provoke a sense of injustice. It suggests that the corporate world is a meat grinder that demands output without ever sharpening the saw.

The visual feels intuitively correct. It taps into our collective exhaustion and the very real frustration that formal professional development is often the first thing cut from a budget. It is quoted with the same weary confidence given to other ‘hustle culture’ tropes, as if it were an established psychological truth.

Yet, as a premise for how humans actually acquire and maintain high-level cognitive skills, it is fundamentally flawed. Neither serious scholars of human behaviour nor the reality of organisational psychology support such a clean divide between ‘doing’ and ‘learning’. This universal rule of separation does not appear in social identity theory, behavioural science, or motivation research. It seems to have grown not from evidence but from convenience. It offers a simple explanation for why development efforts often stall, and the visual provides a shortcut that saves face for both leaders and teams.

The irony is that if we truly stopped ‘training’ the moment we began ‘performing’, our cognitive abilities would stagnate almost immediately. Human history is a steady flow of adaptation and experimentation. We do not just perform; we change all the time. When we collapse this complexity into a slogan about a lack of training days, we obscure the cognitive and emotional labour people perform daily. We dismiss the very space where we actually grow. To lead well, we must move past the shortcut and explore what is actually happening when we work.

The problem with the visual

The trouble with this comparison is not only that it is inaccurate; it also misdirects our attention. It reduces the complex, messy process of human development into a tidy dichotomy that fits neatly on a slide. It encourages us to treat ‘performance’ as a static drain on our resources rather than the primary engine of our growth.

Research on cognitive endurance and skill acquisition paints a very different picture. Athletes spend 90% of their time training because their bodies literally cannot survive 40 hours of ‘performance’ a week. A sprinter cannot ‘train’ during a gold-medal race because the stakes are too high and the physical toll is too final. In sports, performance is a test of existing skills.

In the corporate world, the field is the classroom. Unlike a physical athlete, a knowledge worker’s performance is often iterative and generative. Every complex problem solved, every difficult conversation navigated, and every failed project analysed is a training rep in logic, empathy, and resilience.

When we compress this reality into a slogan about a lack of training days, we obscure the 70-20-10 model of learning (McCall, Lombardo and Eichinger, 1988). This model shows that 70% of our knowledge comes from job-related experiences, 20% from others, and only 10% from formal classes. By dismissing the ‘blue bar’ as non-developmental, we ignore the very space where the most profound growth occurs.

Furthermore, this visual fails to account for Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988). If a knowledge worker were to ‘train’ for 90% of their time in isolation, they would lack the necessary ‘schema’ built through real-world application. Learning is not a separate bucket to be filled; it is a byproduct of high-quality cognitive performance.

Why the myth endures

If the idea that corporate performance and training are mutually exclusive is so imprecise, it is reasonable to ask why the visual remains so magnetic. Myths do not survive because they are accurate; they survive because they offer emotional and cognitive shortcuts. This one endures in leadership culture for several reasons.

The first is that the phrase offers an externalised explanation for the feeling of burnout. When teams are stretched thin, the infographic provides a convenient culprit: a lack of ‘training time’. It suggests that our stress is a result of an unfair schedule rather than the way we actually manage our work. By framing the ‘blue bar’ as purely extractive performance, we avoid the more uncomfortable reality of Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988). It is easier to blame a lack of seminars than to address the poorly designed systems, fragmented focus, and ‘always-on’ cultures that actually deplete our mental resources.

The second reason is that it mirrors an outdated management philosophy that treats human capital like a mechanical asset. This view separates ‘utilisation’ (performance) from ‘maintenance’ (training) as if they were two different line items in a budget. It reflects a deep-seated frustration with formal HR systems that often fail to provide meaningful, timely development. But as William Bridges (1991) argued, change is situational, whereas transition is psychological. By waiting for a formal ‘training day’ to signal growth, we ignore the internal psychological transition that happens during the performance. The myth endures because it justifies our passivity; it allows us to wait for the organisation to ‘train’ us rather than finding the learning inherent in the task.

There is also a powerful social element to the myth. It serves as a primary tool for Sensemaking (Weick, 1995). In the face of increasing complexity and ambiguity, employees and managers use this graphic to create a shared narrative that explains the fatigue of the modern workplace. It offers a tidy, ‘us-versus-them’ story where the athlete is the ideal and the corporate worker is the victim. This narrative saves face. It spares us from having to ask harder questions about Autonomy and Competence (Deci and Ryan, 2000). If we accepted that performance is training, we would have to take responsibility for how we reflect, how we seek feedback, and how we support one another in the daily flow of work.

Finally, the myth persists because it sounds plausible at a surface level. We see the ‘red sliver’ of a training day and mistake it for the only time growth occurs. We fall victim to what Daniel Kahneman (2011) describes as ‘What You See Is All There Is’. Because a seminar is visible and a peer-review session is invisible, we assume the latter doesn’t count as ‘training’. The graphic resonates not because it depicts the truth of how we learn, but because it captures the truth of how we feel: undervalued and over-utilised.

The endurance of the visual, therefore, is a signal. It tells us less about the lack of training in our companies and more about the lack of Psychological Safety (Edmondson, 1999) and reflection time within our performance. We don’t necessarily need more training days; we need to change the nature of our performance so that it feels like the developmental journey it actually is.

What the evidence actually says

To move beyond the visual’s simplistic framing, we must look at how expertise is actually cultivated. The science of high performance suggests that the blue bar of activity is not a void where learning stops. Rather, it is the primary laboratory for development, provided certain psychological and structural conditions are met.

  • Deliberate practice at the edge: The work of Anders Ericsson (1993) on the acquisition of expert performance indicates that growth occurs when individuals operate at the stretch zone. This is the thin margin between current mastery and overwhelming difficulty. In a corporate context, this edge is found during complex performance tasks. Unlike an athlete’s repetitive drills, a knowledge worker’s practice is deliberate when they solve novel problems that require synthesising new information in real time.
  • The power of reflection-in-action: Donald Schön (1983) distinguished between knowing-in-action and reflection-in-action. The infographic assumes performance is merely a mechanical output, but Schön’s research shows that professionals learn by thinking on their feet while doing the work. This real-time adjustment is a sophisticated form of training that no classroom seminar can replicate. When we label the blue bar as only performing, we dismiss the critical cognitive work of navigating live complexity.
  • Social identity and communities of practice: Etienne Wenger (1998) argued that learning is a social phenomenon deeply embedded in our daily work. Through communities of practice, we learn the nuances of our craft by interacting with peers during performance. This informal apprenticeship, such as the micro-exchanges over a shared document or the debrief after a client call, is where the most relevant professional identity is forged.
  • The cycle of experience: David Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory posits that learning is a four-stage cycle: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation. The visual suggests that training is the only developmental stage, but Kolb proves that without concrete experience (the blue bar), the training has no anchor. Performance provides the raw material that makes theoretical training meaningful.

By ignoring these dynamics, the visual misleads us into seeking more red slivers rather than improving the quality of our blue bars. The evidence suggests that we do not need to step away from our work to grow. We need to ensure our work environment allows us to reflect, experiment, and receive immediate feedback while we are in the flow of performance.

Towards a more useful framing

A more useful stance is to see performance and training as an integrated loop rather than two separate bars. We don’t need additional training days spent in darkened rooms watching slide decks. We need better performance conditions that allow for reflection, peer review, and iterative failure.

The paradox is that by viewing the blue bar as not training, we rob ourselves of the agency to learn from our daily work. We stop seeing a difficult meeting as a training session in conflict resolution and start seeing it only as a drain. When we separate performance from growth, we create what Ralph Stacey (2011) describes as a mechanical view of the organisation. In this view, we treat people like machines that need to be switched off for servicing. In reality, a knowledge-based organisation is a complex adaptive system where learning is a continuous byproduct of interaction.

The myth fades when we replace it with a richer understanding. We are not athletes who perform for seconds and train for years. We are practitioners whose performance is the practice. As Herminia Ibarra (1999) demonstrated in her research on professional adaptation, people develop through the trial-and-error of provisional selves. We test new ways of being while we work. If we wait for a red training sliver to change us, we miss the thousands of micro-opportunities for development that occur in the blue space.

When leaders align the work with the opportunity to reflect on that work, the organisation stops waiting for a training day and starts evolving in real time. This requires shifting from a culture of mere output to one of Double-Loop Learning (Argyris, 1976). This means we do not just ask how we can do the work better. We ask why we are doing the work this way in the first place.

Ultimately, the goal is to bridge the gap between the knowing and the doing. By integrating development into the flow of performance, we move away from the extractive model suggested by the infographic. We move towards a model where work is the primary vehicle for human flourishing. The challenge for modern leadership is to design environments where the blue bar is not just a measure of productivity, but a record of progress.

Four practical questions for leaders

If we move beyond the myth that performance and training are separate bars, leadership practice becomes less about carving out time for seminars and more about auditing the quality of the work environment itself. These questions invite a shift from viewing the team as a mechanical asset to seeing it as a complex adaptive system.

  1. Does our current performance environment allow for deliberate practice? The work of Anders Ericsson (1993) suggests that growth requires operating at the edge of one’s ability with high-quality feedback. If your team’s ‘blue bar’ is filled only with repetitive, low-challenge tasks or high-stakes pressure without room for error, they are not performing; they are merely producing. Are you assigning work that stretches their current schema, or are you just keeping them busy?
  2. Where might we be mistaking ‘doing’ for ‘extracting’? It is easy to view a high-performance phase as a period where development stops. However, as David Kolb (1984) illustrated, the concrete experience of doing the work is the essential fuel for learning. Leaders should ask whether they are providing the ‘reflective observation’ time necessary to turn that experience into insight. Are you rushing from one project to the next, or are you creating space for the double-loop learning that allows the team to question their underlying assumptions?
  3. Is the ‘blue bar’ safe enough to serve as a classroom? Amy Edmondson’s (1999) research on psychological safety proves that learning is a byproduct of being able to fail and speak up without fear. If your team views performance as a high-stakes ‘game day’ where every mistake is penalised, they will stop experimenting. Does your culture treat performance as a series of tests to be passed, or as a series of experiments to be conducted?
  4. Are we relying on formal ‘red slivers’ to fix systemic issues? When burnout or skill gaps appear, the default response is often to schedule a training day. This is often a form of Sensemaking (Weick, 1995) that externalises a deeper problem. Leaders must ask if they are using training as a sticking plaster for poorly designed systems or a lack of clarity. If the underlying performance conditions are exhausting, no amount of formal training will restore the team’s cognitive resources. Is the problem a lack of training, or is it the nature of the work itself?

By asking these questions, leaders stop waiting for the budget to ‘train’ their people and start recognising that the most powerful development tool they have is the work itself. When the conditions are right, the distinction between performing and training disappears. What remains is a team that evolves at the speed of its own experience.

References

Argyris, C. (1976) ‘Single-loop and double-loop models in research on decision making’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(3), pp. 363–375.

Bridges, W. (1991) Managing transitions: making the most of change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (2000) ‘The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: human needs and the self-determination of behaviour’, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), pp. 227–268.

Edmondson, A. (1999) ‘Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), pp. 350–383.

Ericsson, K.A., Krampe, R.T. and Tesch-Römer, C. (1993) ‘The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance’, Psychological Review, 100(3), pp. 363–406.

Ibarra, H. (1999) ‘Provisional selves: experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), pp. 764–791.

Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. London: Penguin.

Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

McCall, M.W., Lombardo, M.M. and Eichinger, R.W. (1988) The lessons of experience: how successful executives develop on the job. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Schön, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.

Stacey, R.D. (2011) Strategic management and organisational dynamics: the challenge of complexity to ways of thinking about organisations. 6th edn. Harlow: Pearson.

Sweller, J. (1988) ‘Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning’, Cognitive Science, 12(2), pp. 257–285.

Weick, K.E. (1995) Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.