Are you developing your people or just training them?

Most organizations are training their people. Very few are actually developing them.

Here's the difference and why it matters more than you may realize.

Training is an event. You get people into a room (or webinar), deliver content, check the box, and move on. It has its place, but it's transactional. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one-off session, part of a program, that you have participants in a cohort, or they are told to go to a class. When done the traditional way, it treats people like they all need the same things, on the same timeline, delivered the same way.

I know from years of experience and research in learning and development that this doesn’t work. What is needed is something else entirely. To truly impact performance, you need to develop people.

Development is purposeful and ongoing. It starts with a question most organizations never ask: What skill does this person specifically need to grow, and what will it take to close that gap or expand that strength?

I've spent over two decades inside organizations, from startup to Global 2000 in dozens of industries. The pattern is very consistent. The companies that struggle to retain top talent, build strong pipelines, and create real performance cultures are almost always the ones that mistake training programs for development strategies.

Here's what development actually looks like in practice:

·      It's built around the individual, not the curriculum. People need to be intrinsically motivated to change their behavior. Development creates a win-win by focusing on skills the organization needs and those the individual wants to grow.

·      It connects to a goal. People grow faster when they know why something matters to their future. Development tied to an aspirational goal outperforms training every time.

·      It involves the leader as much as the individual. Development happens in the daily work, not just in formal programs. Leaders need to be the role model reinforcing what was learned and supporting their people.

·      It has continuity. A great development plan doesn't end at the end of Q2. It is ongoing and continually evolves as the person grows and progresses.

The ROI difference is staggering. At one organization I worked with, shifting from event-based training to a sustained development model resulted in 874% ROI. This wasn’t because we spent more, but because we got more intentional.

Training can teach someone what to do. Development builds the kind of person who figures out what to do next.

If you’re a senior leader, ask your team today if you are training people or are you actually developing them.

I'm Michael Sabbag and I help leaders build high-performance organizations. Follow or DM me for more on talent development, organizational performance, and what actually moves the needle.